Wellness with Vanda
A Deep Dive into my Most Recent HTMA Test
Ever wondered how a lock of hair can unlock the secrets of your body's mineral balance? Prepare to be intrigued as we explore the nuanced world of Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (HTMA) and its profound implications for health, especially during life phases like pregnancy. My recent HTMA results have set the stage for a candid discussion on the delicate dance of mineral management, revealing insights that blood tests can't touch. Sit back as we unravel why minerals are the unsung heroes of our wellbeing and how a simple hair test can inform tailored health strategies that resonate with the unique rhythms of our bodies.
As I navigate the intricate journey of pregnancy, this episode brings to light the personal adjustments I've made to maintain a symphony of essential minerals. From the soothing hum of magnesium lotion to the strategic intake of sea salt and potassium-packed Pickleball drinks, I leave no stone unturned in my quest for optimal health. We'll also ponder the riddle of unexpected nutrient levels and the dietary tweaks that keep the scale of wellness evenly balanced. Hear firsthand how realigning mineral ratios can harmonize our metabolism and set the tempo for a healthier pregnancy and beyond.
Rounding out our discussion, we contemplate the broader implications of mineral imbalances on thyroid and adrenal health. This isn't just theory; it's the reality of my own experiences and those of countless clients grappling with fatigue and frustration, despite 'normal' lab results. We'll dissect the significance of HTMA in creating customized health plans that cut through the noise of generic advice. So, tune in and discover how a few strands of hair might just be the conductor's baton for orchestrating your body's health symphony.
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Ever wondered how a lock of hair can unlock the secrets of your body's mineral balance? Prepare to be intrigued as we explore the nuanced world of Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (HTMA) and its profound implications for health, especially during life phases like pregnancy. My recent HTMA results have set the stage for a candid discussion on the delicate dance of mineral management, revealing insights that blood tests can't touch. Sit back as we unravel why minerals are the unsung heroes of our wellbeing and how a simple hair test can inform tailored health strategies that resonate with the unique rhythms of our bodies.
As I navigate the intricate journey of pregnancy, this episode brings to light the personal adjustments I've made to maintain a symphony of essential minerals. From the soothing hum of magnesium lotion to the strategic intake of sea salt and potassium-packed Pickleball drinks, I leave no stone unturned in my quest for optimal health. We'll also ponder the riddle of unexpected nutrient levels and the dietary tweaks that keep the scale of wellness evenly balanced. Hear firsthand how realigning mineral ratios can harmonize our metabolism and set the tempo for a healthier pregnancy and beyond.
Rounding out our discussion, we contemplate the broader implications of mineral imbalances on thyroid and adrenal health. This isn't just theory; it's the reality of my own experiences and those of countless clients grappling with fatigue and frustration, despite 'normal' lab results. We'll dissect the significance of HTMA in creating customized health plans that cut through the noise of generic advice. So, tune in and discover how a few strands of hair might just be the conductor's baton for orchestrating your body's health symphony.
Join the Wellness with Vanda Club!
Follow me on IG @wellness.with.vanda
Join my Email Community
Apply to Work with Me
Hey guys, welcome to this special episode of the podcast. Today I am doing something that is a little non-traditional to these podcast episodes. I am actually doing a walkthrough of my most recent HTML test. So this might be a little bit lengthier than the episodes normally are, because sometimes it can take, you know, 20 to 40 minutes to get through a test. Now I don't really think that it will take me that long to go through this, but there are several things that, like, I kind of want to talk about as I get to them and point out about them. So I want to start off by talking just briefly about what HTML testing is, how it's done, what we're really looking at here.
Speaker 1:So, if you don't already know, html stands for Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis. So this is done by taking a very small sample of your hair from close to your scalp. So, like I take mine from the back of my head so that it's easily covered. Nobody ever knows that I've, like, clipped my hair and done this test because it's a super small amount of hair that you have to send off. You clip this yourself at home, you pop it in your regular mailbox, it goes out to the lab. It takes them two to three, sometimes four weeks, if they're backed up, to get you the results. And then, of course, since I've been trained on how to read and interpret these tests, I get the results and I do the interpretation.
Speaker 1:And what we're really looking at here is mineral status, and mineral status is important because we have to have minerals for hundreds and thousands of processes in our body to like, do things, like make energy, make hormones, just things just to run smoothly in our body. But the thing is that we can't make minerals ourselves inside our body. We have to consume minerals in our diet and environment and sometimes through supplementation to meet the needs that our body has Now. For women, this is particularly important because our mineral status is kind of under attack at certain points in our life. Something that I think is becoming more widespread known is that birth control is a big depleter of nutrients, meaning vitamins and minerals for our body, and I think for a lot of years either that wasn't known or people weren't talking about it, and that has led to a whole generation of women that have been on birth control for many, many years and then maybe they went off and they had some kids and babies, which is also a depleter, which we're going to talk about in a second and they're in these really depleted mineral states, their nutrients have been depleted, and so they have this laundry list of symptoms and in general, they just do not feel well and they can't really pinpoint why.
Speaker 1:And they're going to their doctor and they're presenting these symptoms and they're saying you know, I'm tired all the time, I have like this brain fog, I can't remember things, I can't think straight, I can't lose any weight, I just sluggish, I don't have much motivation, and they're basically being brushed off. And then like, either it's well, you're a mom now and you know kids are tiring and you're really busy and it's normal to feel like you're tired all the time, or, if they are in the category that they're getting older and they don't have, maybe, small children anymore, they're like, well, you know you're getting older and your metabolism's slowing down, and it's basically like all of these concerns, these valid concerns that women are presenting, are brushed under the rug. And I'm not trying to say that like this doesn't happen to men, because I believe it probably happens to men as well, but I work with women in my private practice and I feel like this is a little more of a woman dominant problem and, as I mentioned earlier, another thing that really sets women up for this nutrient mineral depletion is that being pregnant and then, if you choose, to breastfeed, is also extremely depleting to our minerals and our nutrients and our vitamins, because we are not only at during that time sustaining our own body's needs, but we're literally creating life and we're passing these nutrients and these minerals and these vitamins on to a growing baby and then, when you're breastfeeding, you're passing those things along to baby as well. Plus, you're in a time of life that other mineral depletors, such as high stress, disrupted sleep, are at an all time high. So it's like we have this perfect storm for women ages like you know, 20 ish to 35, 45 ish, you know, in that age range. Right there you're in this perfect storm of having their mineral status being wiped out, and this is not something that is really tested in traditional Western medicine and it doesn't even the things that are tested like. Okay, you say we check a potassium level on an HTA test. Well, you can check a potassium level in blood. Okay, the important thing about that to understand is that we're not looking at the same thing in blood work versus a hair test. A lot of our minerals are primarily meant to be in our tissues, not in our blood, and we are getting a tissue test with a hair sample, whereas blood we're only, you know, looking at what is currently in the blood. And another difference is that with a hair test we're able to get an average over about three to four months, depending on how fast your hair grows. With blood work, you're only able to see that one specific point in time, what the level was when the blood work was drawn. So there's just a lot of differences there and a lot of advantages to using hair testing, and unfortunately it's just not used a lot in traditional medicine because it's not something that doctors have been trained on. It is a very well-known testing method and practice in functional medicine and hopefully at some point they will begin to use this more in traditional medicine as well.
Speaker 1:I get a lot of questions sometimes about like how long has H2M-A testing been around? Is it well studied? Is it accurate? And it's been around for years and years and years and years and years and years, and they have done lots of studies on it. So if that's something that you're curious about, let me know. I can send you some research articles and things that I have read. Some of them I've read. Some of them I've just had shared with me from my mentors in H2M-A testing that have helped teach me this practice. But I'm not going to bore you guys with all of that on this podcast episode, because that's not really what we're here to talk about.
Speaker 1:Today. We are looking at my most current H2M-A test. So we are I'm recording this. It's January 26th. I just clicked the sample at the very beginning of January. I got my results back around the 11th of January and I haven't really done a whole lot with them yet.
Speaker 1:Because if you guys have been listening to the podcast, you know that I'm pregnant and I'm very early on in pregnancy and I pretty much clicked this sample and sent it off to the lab as soon as I found out I was pregnant because I wanted to know where I was at. Because, again, pregnancy is a big depleter to minerals and I knew that from my past tests. I was already in a depleted state from. I have had two back-to-back pregnancies, breastfed both babies and now I have had a solid year between when I stopped breastfeeding Hollis, which is my youngest son, and when we got pregnant and this year in particular, since the summer I had done a lot of work on my gut.
Speaker 1:I went through a three-month gut protocol because I felt like I wasn't seeing some of the changes and the I can't think of the word I want to say like advancements. That's not the right word, but anyway, you guys know what I mean. It's in my individual levels as I wanted to see, and then I felt like we're reflective of, like the work that I was doing and the supplements that I was taking. So sometimes when that happens, that indicates that there's like some gut lining work and maybe like parasite stuff, just gut microbiome repair, things that need to be done before you can really your body can really replenish its minerals. So that's why I had chose to do that and I was really curious and really excited to see the results from my last test, which was in, I think, august. But I actually had clipped the sample in July and I had either just started or started that gut protocol right after. I honestly can't remember the specifics and I didn't look it up, but I knew that you know, like I had worked my way through the gut protocol and wasn't going to be doing that anymore because I was pregnant. You can't take those supplements while you're pregnant and I wanted to know where I was at. I had to say that things were pretty imposible because I didn't have anything in particular.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna start off by going through the macro minerals first. So we have four macro minerals calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium. These are the most important minerals because they're the most abundant in the body and they're involved in the most processes. So first up, we've got my calcium level. I was super excited to see my calcium level this time. I'm at 61 and optimal is 63. So this is the closest I have been to optimal with my calcium level since I started doing HTMA testing on myself and I was super glad to see that. Moving on over, we get to magnesium level next. Now my magnesium level optimal range optimal number is six. Mine has been three something Every time I have done my HTMA test and what that tells us is that my body has been under stress for a long period of time and it has used up my magnesium stores and I am fighting like trying to replenish what was depleted.
Speaker 1:Plus we use magnesium every day for over like 300 or 600 processes in our body. Plus it's used up even more when we're under stress and you know it's American 2024, like we're all stressed, so it's a battle sometimes to try to get a sufficient amount of what you need. So I was glad to see this time that my magnesium level was at 3.5, which was the highest it's been since early 2022. And I had changed up some things I was doing with my magnesium supplementation since my last test, because I was frustrated that I wasn't seeing my levels go up. They were like basically staying the same.
Speaker 1:So something that I started doing since my last test that I think has been really effective is that I'm using a magnesium lotion on my feet each night when I go to bed, and the reason that this is effective is because we can absorb minerals through our skin, and when you absorb them through the skin, you can bypass the gut. So, like when you're taking a supplement or you're eating a food that contains magnesium, it's gotta be digested in your stomach and then in your intestine, you know, and absorbed in your intestines. And if you're someone that has gut problems whether that be gut inflammation or parasites or something going on that absorption is inhibited and I you know, like I said, I suspected there were some gut things going on for a multitude of reasons, and I knew that I needed another avenue to get some magnesium absorbed by my body. So I think that that has been effective. That is something that is safe for me to continue to do while I'm pregnant, so I will continue to do that and, you know, hopefully what I will see when I retest again is that that magnesium level has stayed the same or increased.
Speaker 1:Okay, scooting on over to my sodium and my potassium levels, these levels also have been very depleted, because very depleted since I started testing. And again this tells us that my body was under stress for a long period of time and that I just depleted those stores. So I kind of wanna I wanna back up here for a second and kind of like tell you some of the things in my history that have probably impacted these two levels in particular being so depleted, because literally like okay, for sodium the ideal level is 19 and for potassium the ideal level is 13. My levels were like one, two, three. They're both now three on this test and that feels like a win and obviously nowhere near the optimal levels.
Speaker 1:But the things that I think contributed to that were I was on birth control for almost 10 years, from the time I was a teenager until I was like 24, 25, something like that. I was on birth control and had no idea during that time that the birth control I was on was depleting my nutrients and my minerals and my vitamins. And I was also young and not I don't wanna say irresponsible, but it like wasn't my top priority to be like taking a really high quality vitamin all the time, and I don't feel like I've ever eaten a super crappy diet, but also I probably eat better now than I did then, a more nutritious diet now than I did then. So between that, I also had my gallbladder removed at age 19, which, now that I know more about that, really impacts your digestion and your body's ability to absorb nutrients from food because it messes with your bile production and I think that has also played a big role in my depletion overall. And then, of course, on top of that then I had the two back to back pregnancies and breastfeeding so diligently been working to get more sodium and potassium into my diet.
Speaker 1:One of the things that I really focused on since the summer was increasing my potassium rich foods, because I found some foods that, like I really enjoy, that are high in potassium, that I was just kind of like not indulging in consciously or I like wasn't trying to incorporate them more into my diet because I just I don't know, it's just something I didn't have like intention about. So like, one of those things were kiwis. Kiwis are a pretty decent source of potassium, so like I have started keeping kiwis on hand pretty much all the time and I'll have you know, like I'm not saying I have them every day, but every few days I cut up to them with my breakfast or my lunch or whatever. I also started or continued. I've kind of been doing this already but, like in the summer, I drink smoothies for breakfast a lot. So I discovered that cream of tartar is a really great potassium source and you can't taste it when you put it in a smoothie. So I will dump some of that cream of tartar into a smoothie and that gets me a good dose of potassium. The other thing that I started this summer was jigsaw.
Speaker 1:Health has a product called pickleball. It's a drink, not the game. It's a drink. Blue raspberry flavor is my favorite and it's a really great potassium source. So I drink that once a day, almost every single day and I think that has helped me to see a boost in my potassium levels, sodium levels.
Speaker 1:I have switched out the salt that I use I don't, or I try to, only I'm not gonna say that I don't use it anymore the traditional, like Morton's table salt, because we still do use it some, like we cook with it some. But I have switched primarily to Redmond sea salt and also so like I use that on my food pretty heavily. I guess I'm not scared to salt my food and I've always really liked salt anyway, so like that wasn't a big deal for me. And then I have some of the limit LMNT packets. They are very high in sodium. They have a thousand milligrams of sodium in each one and I do not do them every day, although that is something that I'm considering.
Speaker 1:Moving forward, seeing these results is trying to incorporate one of those a day. I just have to be mindful, since I am pregnant, to watch other things like my blood pressure that might be affected by sodium. But there's there's other things to consider there as well, because you know there's some evidence that you know depleted states like this could lead to complications with my pregnancy. So it's like I don't want to, and I know that pregnancy is going to demand a lot on my body. Stress depletes sodium. We use sodium as a response in when we're stressed, and so it's like there's a delicate balance there, I guess is what I'm trying to say of like I want to take in enough sodium to support my body and hopefully replenish this level a little bit throughout pregnancy, but I also don't want to be getting too much sodium to where I'm doing things like retaining water and swelling something that you already do, you know, when you're pregnant. And then I have to keep keep a mindful watch on my blood pressure. I am blessed with low blood pressure anyway, or just like normal blood pressure, and I hardly ever hardly ever has had a high blood pressure reading in my life, but it is something that I need to be cognizant of.
Speaker 1:Okay, the next thing. So those are our four macro minerals. Now, on this test, you get probably like 10 to probably 10. 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10, 10 more individual mineral levels. These are considered the second level minerals, and it's not that they're not important they are super important. It's just that they are a little bit less abundant in the body, involved in a few less processes than those macro minerals. And it's kind of nice because when you are working towards mineral balance and optimizing your minerals, if you can get your macro minerals in order and in optimal range, your second level minerals kind of also fall in line, because the things that support the macro minerals are also supportive to the second level minerals. So you can kind of like indirectly address those while really heavily focusing on those first four minerals, which are the most important to get them in the optimal ranges.
Speaker 1:But I like to look at the second level minerals. We have the data there and it does inform some in some particular like steps that that I like to take in my normal day today. So the first one that we've got here is copper. Now my copper level was 1.2, which is low. I do need some more copper and I plan to up my beef liver supplementation. That I do because I was currently taking about a half dose and I'll probably bump that up and take the full dose for a little while. Copper is delicate. You don't want to get too much of it and it's definitely not something that I want to get too much of and then past my baby. So you know that's definitely something that I would consider. I would encourage, rather, you to do your own research on taking beef liver supplementation while pregnant, because it is a little controversial. But I have done my research and I feel comfortable taking that while I'm pregnant, so that's what I'm gonna do there.
Speaker 1:To support copper, my zinc level is 19, which is high. It's supposed to be 16 and this is something that I'm trying to like read a little more about and learn more about, because actually my zinc level has been high since I started testing and I need to. I need to like verify that. I've looked at it before, but I need to look again. Like are any of my hair products containing zinc? Like where is all this zinc coming from? Because I don't take any multi vitamins, I don't take a zinc supplement. That's definitely something. I've got to dig into that a little bit further to figure out why this excess is here.
Speaker 1:Then we've got phosphorus. Phosphorus is really important for your metabolism and your your overall metabolic health. Mine this time is at a level 14. Optimal is 16, so I'm close there. But it probably means that I need to increase my protein intake a little bit, and that's something that I already knew was probably lacking in my diet, and one way that's easy to like support this and increase my protein is if I would incorporate a smoothie in my day. So something that I've been playing around with thinking about is doing a smoothie for as an afternoon snack, because it's not what I want for breakfast when I wake up in these winter months. In the summer it usually is, but in the winter months I don't want it. In the morning, when I wake up, and right now, with being nauseous and stuff, I'm eating breakfast, I'm eating lunch earlier than usual, so then I'm hungry between lunch and my dinner time, and so that would be a good snack and a good way for me to get in some extra protein to support that phosphorus level.
Speaker 1:Now, next up, we have an iron level, and it was is high this time at 2.1, ideal levels 1.3. My iron level had been low the entire time that I had been doing htma testing and it had been stuck at 0.9 and I had. So one important thing to understand is that iron is also best assessed through blood work, not an htma test. So you never like want to make a decision about iron supplementation based only on the htma test, but I had some blood work done in this summer I think it was summer and it showed that I was a little bit anemic, you know, and I knew that we would be like coming up on trying to get pregnant and I didn't want to go into pregnancy being anemic. So I decided to supplement my iron for a couple of months and my my level has been replenished. I will be getting some blood work done when I go for my first OB appointment just to kind of see, like, where my iron levels are, because, again, it's best assessed through blood work. But that was the supplement that I stopped taking and don't feel that I I need any longer. I can support my iron through food, which is more ideal anyway.
Speaker 1:Okay, we're not going to go through every single one of these other minerals. Those were the main ones that I wanted to talk about. The only other one that is like super important for me to consider right now is selenium, because selenium demands go up during pregnancy and breastfeeding and my level of selenium has been stuck. It's been 0.7. 0.07. I think every time I've taken my test. So I need to get myself some like Brazil nuts and eat them every day and see if that, like food form of selenium, will help raise those levels up, all right.
Speaker 1:So then you get a. There's a box on this test. It's so hard because you guys can't see this, but like, then there's this pink box next to it and this is where we see toxic heavy metals. I don't really have a whole lot that I'm excreting right now, which is great. There's nothing jumping out at me that, like, I really need to like, look at or consider. There are almost always going to be.
Speaker 1:Some heavy metals show up on an htma test because we get exposed to things everywhere we go. They're just in our environment and I always encourage my clients to not like super duper stress out about them unless they have a level that is high that we can say like, oh yeah, you're definitely getting exposed to something here and we need to figure out what it is, because there's just only so many things in our own environment that we can control and sometimes my theory is that you know the stress on your body causing you know, when you're stressed out about these heavy metals is maybe not worse, but is just as bad for you as the heavy metals are. So that's my my taking my tangent on that, all right. Last thing that we're going to go through. Here are my ratios.
Speaker 1:So this is sometimes looked at as the most important part of an htma test, because this is really where we get insight into metabolism. Thyroid function, blood sugar balance get a lot of information from these ratios. But you can't only look at the ratios like. You've got to look at the test as a whole and look at the history of the person and the symptoms the person's having and take it all into context with one another, because sometimes if you only looked at the ratios, you just wouldn't get as much out of the test as you could, and sometimes you would look at just the ratios and think that it was like really a negative test or like a, especially when you're looking at progress from one test to the other. You would think like gosh, we're going backwards here, and that's typically if you take a look at it as a whole. It's typically not the case.
Speaker 1:Okay, all of that being said, so the first ratio that we have is calcium and phosphorus ratio. This is where we get insight into metabolism, and my ratio this time was in that slow metabolism range. I was a little bit disappointed to see that because on my last two tests I had been in the healthy metabolism range and I was hoping to stay there. But and this is why I say it's important to look at the overall progress. The reason that I shifted into that slow metabolism category is because my calcium level went up, but if you remember me saying it's almost at the optimal range. The way that I need to help I'm doing air quotes here six this ratio is by optimizing my phosphorus level, because my calcium level is really where it needs to be, or at least almost where it needs to be. It's my phosphorus level that's throwing this ratio off. So sometimes I think, when we look at the ratios, that's really what's important to consider too is like, if we're looking at a ratio and it's not in the range that we want it to be, then which mineral is it that's throwing it off and what can we do to optimize that individual mineral, because then the overall ratio will be improved.
Speaker 1:Okay, next up, we have the sodium and potassium ratio. This is referred to as the most important ratio sometimes it's what it's called, or kind of it's tagline and that's because we have a sodium and potassium pump on every single one of our cells and that dictates what goes in and comes out of a cell and we want that little pump to be working sufficiently because we want nutrients, hormones, vitamins, minerals to be able to get inside where they need to be to do their job and nourish our body, and we want things like toxins and heavy metals that aren't supposed to be inside a cell to be able to easily be pushed out and taken where they need to go. So my level this time was in the very low category and there are some signs and symptoms that are often associated with someone that has a low or very low sodium and potassium ratio, and I want to read them to you. So it says person often feels exhausted, run down, frustrated, fatigue, chronically stressed, have decreased immunity, poor digestion, allergies are common, they have carbohydrate intolerance um, meaning like blood sugar issues, um, sometimes they feel resentful, they might be hostile or like on edge, and then they may experience liver and kidney stress. So I'm not saying that I check every one of those boxes, but there are a lot of clients that I work with again, myself included. Then, as moms, we do feel exhausted, run down, frustrated, fatigued, chronically stressed, like, and and this is probably why, and it's that, it's that depletion, that like leads to these feelings and it's like here is a reason this is why you feel the way you do, because this process in your body is not functioning optimally. So, again, I've already talked about my sodium and potassium levels, but they're both super depleted and I've got to continue to work on getting them boosted up. That's how I'm going to fix this ratio. That's how I'm going to going to get to the point that I am feeling better in that sense.
Speaker 1:Okay, next up, we've got sodium and uh, I'm sorry, we have calcium and potassium ratio. This is where we get insight to the thyroid and I always, always, always point out this is not a look at how your thyroid gland that produces your thyroid hormone in your body is working. You test that through blood work. What we're looking at here is how well, how easy is it for your thyroid hormone to make its way inside your cell, where it has to be, to do your job? This ratio right here is why we have so many women that are going.
Speaker 1:You know they're having all these symptoms and they google them and it's like you go down this rabbit hole of like, oh, I might have hypothyroidism, and they go to their doctor and they're like hey, I think that there might be something off with my thyroid. I would like to get it checked. And they order some thyroid blood work which, side note, it really needs to be a full thyroid panel to fully assess that. But that's a different tangent for a different day. Um, but they'll get this, these thyroid labs done, and their doctor will call and they'll be like, hey, good news, your lab work came back and it's all normal. And you're like, oh great, well, I just feel like crap, but everything's normal. So like why? Well, this is why that those thyroid blood labs that you get done only really can tell you if your body is producing enough thyroid hormone, not really how you're using the thyroid hormone, which is what's important, because if you can't use it adequately, then you're not going to feel the positive effects of having a well-functioning thyroid. I hope I didn't lose anybody there. I hope that that makes sense.
Speaker 1:So my level this time was in the sluggish thyroid ratio, which is an improvement from the very beginning. When I very first started H2M-A testing, I was in the extreme hypothyroid range and my level was like through the roof. I don't know how I had any thyroid hormone that was getting inside of cell to do anything and I'll throw out there that I had had thyroid blood work done and they were like oh, you're fine, everything looks great. He's like well, it doesn't feel great, but thanks. So I was a little disappointed to see this result because on my most recent previous test, I was in the moderate category, which is like better than this sluggish category. However, again, this is why it's important to either understand the importance of looking at the test as a whole or working with a practitioner that gets it and knows to look at it as a whole, because what changed this time that impacted this ratio was that calcium level, and again, that calcium level is so close to being at optimal range, and that's what we want. We want it to be near optimal range. So my intervention to help address this ratio is to continue to work to optimize my potassium, because that's what's really going to impact this ratio in a positive way and help me to feel better.
Speaker 1:Okay, we've got one more ratio to talk about. Oh, no, two more, sorry. So next up, we've got sodium and magnesium ratio. This is the adrenal ratio. This bless this ratio. I need to do the math again. I did the math about this time last year and over 90 something percent of the clients that I had worked with eight plus myself all had adrenal fatigue on their HTMA test.
Speaker 1:And again, I think that this comes back to just the this generation, this age gap that we're in as women, of being on birth control, being moms, being stressed, being breastfeeding. It's like all the things it just sets us up for just the perfect storm for adrenal fatigue and mineral depletion and such and such. So this is extremely common. Almost all of my clients start out in this extreme adrenal fatigue category and it's honestly, it's discouraging and it's kind of like a slap in the face when you see that on your results because it's like whoa, extreme adrenal fatigue sounds pretty extreme, like I didn't realize that I was in such bad shape, but neither here nor there. Like I said, it's very common and it's because we're looking with this ratio, we're looking at sodium and magnesium, the two minerals that we use up the quickest for our stress response.
Speaker 1:And if you just think about how stressed you are on a normal day to day basis plus you, on top of that you put in physical stressors, like if you're working out, then you put, or you work like a strenuous job, then on top of that you put in disrupted sleep, which is stressor, and on top of that you add in environmental stressors, which we've already kind of talked about, that like, yes, some things we can control and we should, but other things we can't control and we shouldn't stress about it, and then you have your emotional stressors and it's just a lot. It's a lot. So we burn through that sodium and magnesium and if you're not really intentional and honestly, sometimes even when you are intentional, it's still not enough and your body is burning through it. So I have been in this extreme adrenal fatigue category every single time I've tested, which has been, to be honest with you, super frustrating because I'm like, I feel like I'm doing all the right things. Why is this not working? Why is this not getting better? But then I have to stop myself and I have to look at the individual results and with every test I've done I've made improvements and I am so close this time, so close to busting out of this extreme adrenal fatigue category and moving up into the moderate at least like a adrenal category, and super looking forward to that. Honestly, I don't think that it will happen for my next test, because now I'm pregnant again and that's going to be stressful on my body, so I don't think that it'll happen super soon. But I know that to support this ratio and to try to fix it air quotes again I need to be really, really supporting my sodium and magnesium. All right, excuse me, last ratio we're going to talk about and then I'm going to wrap this episode up because it's getting long. I know this is a lot of information Is the calcium and magnesium ratio, which is our blood sugar ratio.
Speaker 1:Now, this gives us insight into, like, how steady your blood sugar is overall and like, do you have a tendency for high blood sugar? So you have a tendency for low blood sugars. Do you have a tendency for either one? Like, it could just be that we can see that your blood sugar needs TLC. It needs some attention because it's either high or low or a combination of the two. Like, maybe it's spiking up really high with your meals and then it's crashing down. So this time blood sugar has been an issue for me. I've shared about that like a podcast or two podcast episodes ago about my experience wearing a CGM and why I did that. So that's something you're super interested in.
Speaker 1:Go back an episode or two, but it was in the high category this time, meaning that I'd need to be more cognizant of probably like consuming my meals in a way that's supportive to blood sugar balance, because I'm already pretty conscious about looking at my meal and making sure that I have protein, I have fat and I have carbs on my plate. One thing that I do need to be more mindful of that, but just hasn't been super appealing to me lately, has been the fiber, and that's huge for blood sugar balance. So my biggest takeaways from seeing this ratio this time was that I need to be getting in more fiber and I need to be really diligent about it, and when I sit down to eat a meal, I need to try to eat my fiber, my protein, first and save, like my fats and my carbs for last, because that does. I've experimented with this for myself when I wore my CGM and then I was like glucose goddess. She has a whole account on Instagram that talks about this particular theory and how it impacts your glucose levels. So I'm like that's something easy that I can do. And again, I need to take this ratio into context with everything else that I know and with the fact that that calcium level is so dang near optimal. So it's like you don't want to be disappointed by one level being near optimal and the others just aren't there yet. I hope that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I kind of tried to talk like as I went through how this was going to inform my supplement choices and decisions moving forward. So there were some specific things that I called out, like I need to support my copper, so I'm going to continue taking a full dose and I'm switching to a full dose of beef liver. I'm going to continue those pickleball drinks with the potassium. I'm going to start incorporating more of the limit packets to help with my sodium. Aside from that, I'm also I'm gonna continue doing my magnesium, my MagSoup at night and doing the magnesium lotion on my feet at night.
Speaker 1:Something that I didn't mention, that I do, that I've recommend to everybody I have a reel about this if you wanted to check it out is a mineral bath and it's. I love to take baths anyway, so it just like works out for me, but you can do them as a foot bath if you don't like to sit in a whole bath. But it's Epsom salt, borax, which is a boron and sodium source, and then potassium bicarbonate. That is like food grade and, like I said when I was talking about the magnesium lotion, you absorb those nutrients, those minerals, through your skin and you know it's just like an extra way to help boost your levels up. So I'm gonna continue with those and try to incorporate them more because, honestly, that has kind of fallen. I just haven't been doing them. I was gonna say it's fallen by the wayside, but I just haven't been doing them as frequently as I was.
Speaker 1:And then the other thing is that I'm really focused on food, because I'm funny about taking much of anything while I'm pregnant. I have to really feel like I need something or feel really confident in the supplement and the supplement company that I'm using in order to take something while I'm pregnant. That's just like personal choice, personal preference. So I'm really focused on a food first approach to replenish these things and I know that you know I need to be getting solid sources of protein which is pretty well unlocked for me already. Maybe just I wasn't getting enough of it and then incorporating more fruits and vegetables in my day to day and making sure that it's a good variety of them. Sometimes I get stuck in like eating the same types of vegetables over and over again and I need to branch out and get a little variety because that's gonna help. And then kind of, lastly, the thing that I wanna focus on and do is to continue to support my digestion because I don't want to lose the progress that I made doing that gut protocol while I'm pregnant and stuff. So I'm looking at like different fiber sources and trying out new things to serve as my fiber and again that comes back to like the variety in vegetables also. So, yeah, I mean that's my main focus right now and that's just kind of how I'm gonna move forward. So I am gonna wrap this episode up in end because it's getting long and I try to keep these episodes short.
Speaker 1:But these reviews are a lot of information and kind of what I did and like how I talked through. That is exactly what I do for my clients when they do HTMA testing. I record myself going through their results, just like I did today. I screen share so they can see like exactly what I'm pointing out and what I'm talking about and that gets sent to them so that they have it to listen to and can like pause and write down questions or they can listen to all of it and then they can go back and watch it again or whatever they choose to do, and my clients love that. That's how that I do that.
Speaker 1:I think some people don't really know what to expect in the beginning if it's their first test, but they get it and they're like, oh gosh, this was great. I'm super glad you did it as a recording, because it is so much information and I wanna listen to it again. So, yeah, if HTMA testing is something that you are interested in for yourself, you can visit. I'm trying to think of the best way to do this. You can visit my Instagram and get on the HTMA wait list, because I will soon be opening up some spots for HTMA testing.
Speaker 1:I only take like a limited number of people out of time to do those, but it's something that I would definitely recommend.
Speaker 1:There's really not a person that I've come across yet that I wouldn't recommend HTMA testing for, because the availability of the testing, like the affordability of it, combined with how easy it is to do the test, combined with how much you learn about your body and what your body needs from one simple test, is just invaluable, and it makes it possible to take a really customized approach in what your plan is gonna be or what your next steps are gonna be.
Speaker 1:And there's just I love Dutch testing too, but there's just nothing that compares to the HTMA testing and the value that it has, and I just think it's incredible. I just think that there's literally not a person that wouldn't benefit from getting an HTMA test and learning this information about their own body because it is so informative and it's so validating to see that, like, okay, this is the reason that I am having these symptoms and now I know what to do about it. I know where to focus my attention instead of like running around like a squirrel hoping that what I'm gonna do is gonna help. Now we know, we just know what you need to do. So hope that's helpful. Hope you guys have a great week. I will see you back next week for another episode and I hope you have a great day.