324: Alkalinity and Hormone Optimization with The Keto Green Way

I'm excited to welcome back the “girlfriend doctor” herself, Dr. Anna Cabeca. You may remember her from her popular episode #262 last year. Dr. Anna is here today to discuss her “Keto Green” way, which focuses on ketogenic eating paired with an alkaline diet and intermittent fasting. Her Keto-Green method naturally manages your body’s most important hormones, and if followed properly, will help address and correct the symptoms and side effects that come along with imbalanced hormones.

More about Dr. Anna Cabeca:

Dr. Anna Cabeca is an internationally-acclaimed menopause and sexual health expert, global speaker and pioneering promoter of women’s health. She is Emory University-trained and triple board-certified in gynecology and obstetrics, integrative medicine and anti-aging and regenerative medicine, and an USA Today and Amazon #1 Best Selling Author of “The Hormone Fix,” a diet and holistic lifestyle program for menopausal women.

Also noteworthy, is her Keto-Green diet and lifestyle that focuses on ketogenic eating paired with an alkaline diet and intermittent fasting. Her Keto-Green way naturally manages your body’s most important hormones, and if followed properly, will help address and correct the symptoms and side effects that come along with imbalanced hormones. Her new book Keto-Green 16 releases May 5th.

Dr. Anna is known as The Girlfriend Doctor helping women combat negative hormone-related symptoms and implement natural and easy-to-follow solutions that will have them feeling happier, healthier and confident. In her spare time, Dr. Cabeca hosts the highly-regarded series “The Girlfriend Doctor Podcast” featuring compelling podcasts focused on a wide variety of important health and wellness topics.

Dr. Anna’s compelling story is inspired by her own life experiences; she went through menopause twice – the first time at 39 after suffering a tragedy of losing a toddler, and then again at 50 years old. She was actually able to reverse her own early menopause at 39 (and the probability of doing this is about 1%!), and went on to conceive a beautiful daughter.

Dr. Cabeca has reached hundreds of thousands of women around the globe, inspiring them to reclaim their optimal health and realize they can journey through menopause and find more purpose and pleasure than they ever dreamed possible. She balances her passion for women’s health with faith, grace and skill, while raising her four daughters, and leading the non-profit foundation she created in honor of her son, Garrett V. Bivens, who tragically died as a toddler.

Dr. Cabeca infuses her presentations with humor, raw connection and passion, and she impacts lives each and every day. Follow her journey on her blog at DrAnnaCabeca.com and connect with her on Facebook and Instagram.

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Transcript:

Dr. Pompa:
Green keto, have you ever heard of it? It’s not vegan, vegetarian keto, although she talks about how to do that, so check it out. What about alkalinity. When should you be alkaline? When should you be acid, how to achieve it? This is a great interview because we talk about the aspect of alkalinity on how that affects your hormones inability to perhaps get into ketosis, burn fat, and how she transformed her life as a general surgeon with green keto. This is a great interview. Check it out.

Ashley:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to Cellular Healing TV. I’m Ashley Smith, and today we welcome back the Girlfriend Doctor, Dr. Anna Cabeca. You may remember her from Episode 262. Dr. Anna is here to discuss here Keto-Green Way, which focuses on ketogenic eating paired with an alkaline diet and intermittent fasting. Her Keto-Green method naturally manages your body’s most important hormones and if followed properly will help address and correct the symptoms and side-effects that come along with imbalanced hormones. I can’t wait to get started, so let’s welcome Dr. Anna Cabeca and Dr. Pompa to the show. Welcome, both of you.

Dr. Cabeca:
Thanks for having me.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, you’re back. You do something right when you get back on CellTV. No, this is a big topic. I mean, that’s why, right? I mean, one of the big myths is women struggle in keto. I’ve even heard women shouldn’t do keto. I’ve heard women shouldn’t fast, and yet, you’re saying it’s part of the answer for the hormone problem.

Dr. Cabeca:
Exactly, it’s essential.

Dr. Pompa:
We have to bring some more things. One of the things you do so well too is you really make things very simple. That’s what you’ve done, and your new book coming out does the same thing, so thank you for that. You and I talk about a lot of the same strategies for women, and we both say the same thing. These strategies are more important even for women than men. However, they work for men too to take it to a whole other level of effectiveness.

Anyways, let’s dig right in, right? Give us your story first in case people hadn’t watched the first one. How did you get into this?

Dr. Cabeca:
Yeah, the trials and tribulations, for sure, right? I think just definitely a long road. I was 39 years old. Here I was trained, I would say, at one of the best institutions in the nation at Emory University in gynecology and obstetrics, a hormone expert, and yet, at 39, I was struggling with early menopause and infertility. I had failed the highest doses of infertility meds, and I was told the only way that I’d ever be able to have another child was a donation, which wasn’t an option for us at the time. Here I was helping so many others get pregnant, work on hormones, dialing it in, and my doctor’s bag was empty.

That was devastation amidst devastation for me, and it took me on a journey around the world learning from indigenous healers, from Native-American shaman, to Indian philosophers, to a Brazilian medicine man and an Indonesian healer, as well as some of the world’s most leading scientists and physicians. As a result, I reversed the diagnosis of early menopause and infertility. I conceived naturally a beautiful, healthy girl at age 41, and so now I’m 52 with a 12-year-old. It’s been a journey.

Dr. Pompa:
What about the keto? I mean, how is that part of that journey?

Dr. Cabeca:
That’s when definitely worked on the first part, the first leg, and certainly carb restriction, that component. That worked really well, especially, again, alkalinizing, focusing on alkalinizing, detoxifying, hormone balancing food. When I hit 48, I cycled—I was starting to cycle back down. Here I was at that point a single mom struggling, one daughter in the wee early years of elementary school, one in middle school, and another daughter in high school. Let me tell you, at 48, the brain fog was hitting, the memory loss. I was really stressed and a sole provider for my family and struggling with burnout from work, from my practice.

I experienced what so many of our patients come in and complain about. They come in and say, Dr. Anna, I’m gaining 5, 10, 20 pounds, and I’m not doing anything different. Dan, I know you’re more sympathetic than me. I was like, really, you’re not. Thinking in my head, really, how is that possible?

Dr. Pompa:
Just lazy, they’re not exercising enough, and they’re gluttons, right?

Dr. Cabeca:
Oh, I bet if I look in her purse there’s a Snickers bar, and I’m going to share it with her. No, it was like what’s the situation? Then it happened to me, 20 pounds overnight without doing anything different. At one point, I’d been well over 240 pounds, always had struggled with my weight and kept it off for nearly a decade, so without doing anything different gained that 20 pounds overnight. That’s where keto came in. I totally restricted carbs.

For anyone listening that lost a significant amount of weight and the scale starts creeping up and you’re like, oh, my God—for me, I was it won’t stop ‘til I’m 300 pounds because it doesn’t make sense. I’ve really restricted carbs, but I experienced what I call keto crazy. Not keto flu. That wasn’t part of it. It was keto crazy. I was more irritable, more on edge. I was reactive, so I reacted instead of responded.

I needed to understand what’s happening to my neurotransmitters this way? With my first book, The Hormone Fix, this is where I really say it takes more than hormones to fix our hormones. My reproductive hormones were dialed in, but there’s more to it. As I looked into what was happening to my body and with this keto approach, I recognized I was really acidic. Checking urine pH was an aha moment for me as I saw—we’re homeschooling. As I saw, I was so acidic on urine pH testing, and that was an aha moment. I recognized no wonder I feel out of sorts. No wonder I feel more irritated. No wonder, right?

Then I just started the low-carbohydrate alkalinizers, the cruciferous vegetables for hormone balance and detoxification, and with that, checking my urine pH every time I went to the bathroom. I recognized that the mornings I walked on the beach or I did my gratitude journaling, I was more alkaline all day. Hence, it’s not just about what we eat. It’s about maybe who we’re eating with, or when we’re eating and also what we ate. All those things go together.

Dr. Pompa:
I know you discuss this in your book. Tell us a little bit more about when does someone measure their pH? Look, I work with very toxic people. I could have them eat just veggies all day long, and they’re still acid because of toxins. How does that play in as well because diet and toxins play a role? First start with how you measure it. What do you look for?

Dr. Cabeca:
Yeah, so very simple measuring urine pH. I always tell clients it’s not about blood pH. When we’re talking blood pH, we’re actually talking arterial blood gas pH, arterial blood pH. When we are measuring that, it is so finely controlled. Our body keeps it so finely controlled, but our urine pH will adjust. It’s like a thermometer for us, a good indicator, a biomarker to let us know how we’re interacting with our mind, our nutrition, our environment.

This is where I tell clients you do your Nancy Drew detective work, maybe a Hardy boy detective work. I don’t know. Nancy Drew detective work in that you really have to look at these clues. What is your body telling you? I say initially starting, especially if you’re acidic, check every time you use the bathroom. I mean urine pH paper or strips costs pennies, and so check each time you use the bathroom and identify. Certain times we want to be acidic, after a strong workout.

Dr. Pompa:
No, absolutely. I want to point that out to people. Typically, first thing in the morning you’re acidic because you dumped a lot of waste at night, right? Take people through that.

Dr. Cabeca:
Too, then when we can wake up alkaline because maybe we had restorative sleep overnight and then maybe we need additional minerals overnight if we continue to wake up acidic. Again, dehydration can be a reason too that our urine pH is low. That’s where I really have clients—I want them to wake up at least with a urine pH of 7. It’s totally possible. Go to sleep in that alkaline range, and let our body do the work. Things like eating enough nutrients, micronutrients, macronutrients, certainly, but especially micronutrients, methylators, the dark green leafies, the cruciferous vegetables, and fermented foods, digestive foods. All of that helps us absorb our nutrients better, and that helps with alkalinity.

The other things, toxins, hormone disrupters, if we’re not getting alkaline and we’re eating this perfect diet—I have so many vegans and vegetarians. Like you said, they sometimes have a really hard time getting alkaline often too because they’re high glycemic foods, high amount of carbs, and sugar will increase acidity, even if they’re amazing healthy foods. That’s where fasting really comes in. Being aware of that makes a difference, mold toxicity, food sensitivities. I can be alkaline, alkaline, alkaline and some dairy get into a piece of cheese or dairy get into my food, and lo and behold, I’m acidic right away.

Dr. Pompa:
What are some of the times of day that you want people to measure and what’s the—you mentioned 7. Is that your number? Give some of that instruction.

Dr. Cabeca:
Yeah, so looking at 7 as neutral but that’s—anything 7 and above, I really like to see that, to focus on that, to wake up that way, go to sleep that way. Also recognizing that first thing when we wake up in the morning, if we’re stressed, dehydrated, cortisol spike, we didn’t get a good night sleep, we may be acidic, and that’s where we can figure it out. Then check midday to see how your—after you break fast, how does that affect you and later on in the day, in the evening, and to check before bed? Three to four times a day at least because you’re just trying to figure it out.

Dr. Pompa:
Typically, if you’re fasting—a lot of viewers intermittent fast. Are you going to typically be more acid or alkaline in the fast, and what happens after you start eating?

Dr. Cabeca:
Yeah, typically, when we’re fasting, we turn to acidic. When we push our bodies into ketosis, we really have to fight to stay alkaline and in ketosis at the same time when we’re eating. When we’re fasting, we’re naturally going to be more acidic, so don’t worry about it. Stay hydrated. We’ve talked about dry fasting before, you and I a little bit together, and definitely are going to get acidic even with short dry fast.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly. That’s what I wanted people to hear. All right, so then you start eating in your window. Then what can you expect later?

Dr. Cabeca:
Yeah, I do want to say this with fasting too because I’ve been playing with this a long time. There’s the tendency to get acidic, but when you do the oxytocin increasing activities—again, oxytocin is the most alkalinizing hormone in our body.

Dr. Pompa:
Oh, wow! That’s cool. I didn’t know that. I love the oxytocin increasing activities. Every time my puppy comes up to me I get an oxytocin boost.

Dr. Cabeca:
Exactly, so test during your next fast and waking up acidic and then just playing, and see what happens. See what happens, laughter, watching a good movie. I can list 100 to suggest, good funny movies, having great conversation, laughter, relaxation, and watch that shift in your urine pH too. I think that’s where also these meditative practices, these alkalinizing practices—I call them alkalinizing practices like meditation, a HeartMath, heart rate variability, increasing your heart rate variability, how these activities help increase your alkalinity. How cool is that, right?

Dr. Pompa:
Mm-hmm. I mean, I’ve had many doctors say, hey, being alkaline, stuck in alkalinities all the time and I know [Dr. Savory] talks about that as one of the signs of certain cancers too. How do we find this balance?

Dr. Cabeca:
I think it really comes with knowing—really knowing yourself, knowing what you’re doing and how you feel, and this is where discernment comes in. Just like anything, there’s the what gets measured gets managed. Mostly, it’s the opposite. If we have for whatever reason some physiologic defect that we are super alkalinized, which I’ve—that’s a rarity, right? That is the exception.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s like this weird end stage thing that can happen. It’s a very odd thing, I mean, so you see these oddities on either end.

Dr. Cabeca:
Yeah, but mostly what we see and what we know from the research with more of an alkaline urine pH, urine pH of 7 or better, the higher the urine pH the decreased risk of diabetes, hypertension, cancer, osteoporosis, and any of the inflammatory symptoms. It’s a nice detective marker to figure—to help us figure out, okay, what am I doing right? What am I doing wrong?

I had a patient recently, 67-year-old woman, and she’s been working with me in my online programs, Magic Menopause, for a couple years now. At the onset of quarantine, she had an appointment with me. She goes, “Dr. Anna, I’ve been so stressed.” She goes, “I’ve been doing everything right. I’ve been alkaline for a year now and really monitoring that. Everything I’ve eaten, etc., it just hasn’t shift my urine pH. I’m still acidic,” she goes, “but I had—I’ve been isolated with my husband of 40 years. We don’t know who’s going to—what’s going to kill us, coronavirus or each other.”

Dr. Pompa:
Probably each other.

Dr. Cabeca:
Exactly, so she said, “I’m missing my daughter and my grandson. I haven’t been able to see them.” That was an added stress. She said, “Well, he turned 2 the other day, and my daughter set up a Skype call with my grandson to celebrate his birthday, and I could see him eat his cake and open the present I sent him. I just laughed for an hour,” she said. She goes, “Dr. Anna, I couldn’t wait. The next time I used the bathroom I had to check my urine pH, and I was a beautiful alkaline at that point,” power of oxytocin.

Dr. Pompa:
Oxytocin, yeah, that’s cool. Really, I don’t think I’ve heard that before. It makes total sense. All right, in our book, you talk about the critical window of opportunity theory. What is it, and what does it mean?

Dr. Cabeca:
I definitely believe in this time—and this is why getting keto fasting, getting Keto-Green, keto alkaline is critical for women in this perimenopause and beyond stage. We enter this period of neuroendocrine vulnerability. This is, again, through my experience where I learned in how to find the research, and there is. Looking at why was I experiencing the brain fog? I talk about the 13 hormones of weight gain, certainly, but the brain fog, the memory loss. That’s pretty scary when you rely on your memory for everything, right? I was certainly troubled by that.

What happens is, during this period of neuroendocrine vulnerability and it looks like between the ages of 35 to 55, it’s this perimenopausal window that there is a steep decline in the brain’s ability to use glucose for fuel. This was such an aha moment for me. Why when I went Keto-Green, keto alkaline I had this clarity? The brain fog lifted. My memory improved dramatically, and I just felt this—I call it energized enlightenment. Getting into ketosis and getting alkaline at the same time, that’s my energized enlightenment formula.

Here, in that window, our brain’s actually starving for fuel because gluconeogenesis in the brain is an estrogen dependent phenomenon. Now, what happens? My patients come into the gynecologist, come in to see me because of anxiety, PMS, irritability, difficulty sleeping, irregular menstrual cycles, breakthrough bleeding, heavier than normal period. The standard medical approach is here is the birth control pill. Here is the SSRI, Prozac, Celexa, Zoloft, and if that’s not working, here’s the hysterectomy. The patient comes back and says I’m still having issues. Here’s the referral to the psychiatrist and divorce attorney.

It’s sad, but when we can shift—and this is what I recognized in my practice. I mean, I’m a surgeon by training. When I understood what happened to me and healing these physiologic changes, I went from doing two to three—empowering, my mistake. Not me healing. Empowering my patient to heal her physiology, I went from doing—needing to do two to three surgeries per week to two to three major surgeries per year. That’s how powerful our body can regenerate. The uterus is a victim of hormonal imbalance and inflammation.

This neuroendocrine time, they’re talking about also estrogen, estrogen dependent. The decline, when we look at the graph of glucose utilization in the brain, it really follows the progesterone decline. Of course, progesterone is the precursor to cortisol, to our sex steroids, and progesterone is neuroprotective. We know it is, so this is why it adds this vulnerable time period. We lose this protective layer of progesterone, and we can have emotional swings. Not everyone but it is significant. These neuroendocrine symptoms are significant, especially for those of us who have had PTSD and/or adverse childhood experiences.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, well said. All right, let’s back up a second. Keto-Green, it’s back there. There’s the book. We’ll put the link, of course. What does it actually mean? You and I both used it now, and we wrote it. What does it actually mean, and what are then tenets of Keto-Green? Obviously, you give those in the book.

Dr. Cabeca:
Yes, definitely. The concept for me of keto is getting into ketosis so that we’re using fat for fuel and, ideally, our fat and certainly healthy fats from our diet. Through intermittent fasting, really, that’s where we really shine in this area to enable—for women, that’s essential to really optimize getting into ketosis. The green part really was Keto-Alkaline, now termed Keto-Green. That alkalinity component, that green component is certainly the dark green leafies, the alkalinizing vegetables, detoxifiers for our hormones, and that support for our gut microbiome. Everything is significantly formulated for a reason, combined for a reason, but also to check not just what we eat.

Dan, you know this. The scientific studies show that 93% of diets fail, and we know they fail because it’s not just about what we eat. More of the green, the Keto-Green aspects are those lifestyle things. It’s the lifestyle things so the intermittent fasting, no more snacking, exercising that insulin sensitivity.

Dr. Pompa:
All of that, to your point now, we’re bringing it full circle, helps the alkalinity naturally, helps your body find the balance naturally, the oxytocin, I mean, all those things. The green part is, hey, it’s not just high fat. It’s not just low carb. Here’s the specific greens to focus on, and it helps you more of what that alkalinity balance, which helps the hormones, that in general. Some people may read it and think, oh, it’s just—it is a vegetarian keto or a vegan keto, but not necessarily.

Dr. Cabeca:
Exactly, it’s an omnivore—a 16-day omnivore keto plan. There’s also a 16-day Keto-Green vegan, vegetarian plan that’s…

Dr. Pompa:
I always have to explain that to people. It’s like keto can be vegetarian. It can be vegan, if you wanted it to be. People think it’s a high protein meat thing. It’s not Paleo. It’s not Atkins. There’s a little bit of difference here.

Dr. Cabeca:
Yes, yeah, and again, there’s the green component. Not just about what we eat, but it’s also those lifestyle factors.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, I think it’s huge, yeah. Your book differentiates from other keto books in that you’re talking about these other lifestyle factors that are really transforming. All right, so you mentioned intermittent fasting. That’s a lifestyle thing. You and I, we all do this. I’ve have done it for years. What is your eating window that you like? Do you like to change it per person with some of your theory here and suggestions?

Dr. Cabeca:
Yeah, so it is I think that whole concept of metabolic flexibility. Play with what works best for you. It may work best right now but may not—we have to change things up.

Dr. Pompa:
I love it. Yeah, you and I are on the same page with that, yeah.

Dr. Cabeca:
Yeah, we have to have that flexibility. For Keto-Green 16, it’s a 16-hour fasting, hence16, 16 days, 16-hour fasting, 16 key food types. We really play on that great number 16, sweet 16, and so 16 hour. The eating window, I never liked the term eating window. We don’t want to eat all during that window. We want to break fast. We want to take at least three to four to five hours in between and then eat again, especially for women. We want to continue to increase that insulin sensitivity. Women have been told for so long, especially, three meals, three snacks. While that might be great for an Olympic athlete, especially a male Olympic athlete, it is not good for the menopausal female. We get more insulin resistant as a result, so breaking that habit of needing snacking and needing to snack is, honestly, liberating.

Dr. Pompa:
People don’t realize. You ask them how many times they eat a day, and it’s, oh, three, two. They’re just constantly eating, feeding the beast, so to speak. They don’t have the ability to burn their own fat as energy.

Dr. Cabeca:
It takes us out of willpower. It takes away willpower. Willpower is physiologic. One thing I did and you’ll love this—I don’t know if my—I’ve been wearing the 24-hour—can’t see it here but the 24-hour continuous glucose monitor.

Dr. Pompa:
Oh, yeah, I’ve done some of that myself, yeah.

Dr. Cabeca:
I love that. It just helped me. I did it for all the recipes in the book and helped me so much in calculating what’s happening with blood sugar over time and looking for that flexibility and…

Dr. Pompa:
By the way, you can see how stress affects cortisol and adrenaline up, glucose up. You can see that it’s not just food that moves that number, right? Then that affects everything.

Dr. Cabeca:
It’s so true, public speaking, blood sugar goes sky high. You know what? One of the things I was interested in—I want to get your feedback on this too. When I started wearing the continuous glucose monitor, one thing I found was that when I would drink coffee in the morning my blood sugar would go up 20, 30 points. I could understand then why I could be fasting all night, 16, whatever, however many hours been in ketosis, and then bumped out of ketosis just by black coffee. It’s a big caution for women or those that are—that have this reaction. Coffee could be a culprit in keeping us…

Dr. Pompa:
In my book, I talk about how to test for that. The question I got most often is does my coffee work in my fasting window? My answer was I don’t know. Test it. It is different for everybody. If you test your glucose right before your coffee and 30 minutes after and rises more than 5 on average, you’ve got to change something. Nix the coffee. Go to tea. Trade something, or get rid of the fat in your coffee. Go black. If your black and it rises, go fat.

The point is is it’s not working. When glucose rises, you’re not getting that—you’re getting knocked out of autophagy. You’re losing that benefit, right? To your point, it may not be good. For you, you either needed to change something, or coffee’s not good at all. Maybe it was the caffeine. Maybe it was something else.

Dr. Cabeca:
Hence, the little cup of espresso at the end of a meal.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Cabeca:
A little tweaking can make a huge difference.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s right.

Dr. Cabeca:
Again, is it a food sensitivity? Is it something that could be causing your body—kicking you out of autophagy and how that can make a difference? It’s also fun to experiment getting up, doing a meditative practice, and then having coffee. Still have a spike, but not as high of a spike.

Dr. Pompa:
Oh, interesting.

Dr. Cabeca:
Very interesting.

Dr. Pompa:
I know in your book you talk about prayer, which I’m a big fan. What have you found? Okay, you pray before a meal. Does it really make a difference?

Dr. Cabeca:
Absolutely, science has shown that saying grace before a meal increases your absorption of nutrients, increases your digestive ability. Your digestive enzymes are healthier. First is when we’re stressed—that’s why I say it’s not often just about what we eat, but maybe who you’re eating with could be stressing you out.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, okay. You know what? I can see two of my kids right now that I’m not going to eat with. They’re going to have to eat downstairs now.

Dr. Cabeca:
You just say an extra grace.

Dr. Pompa:
They’re the bickerers, right? They just er-er-er. I think they just like to bicker because it feeds their brain, and it does the opposite for me. Stop the bickering, anyways, yeah. All right, what about hair loss? One of the big questions I get is I got into keto. I started getting hair loss. I started intermittent fasting. I started getting hair loss, talk about that.

Dr. Cabeca:
Yeah, this is something that I had dealt with personally early on post-traumatically, significant amount of hair loss. I had hair loss all the way to here and always had long hair. Then it was just like, oh, tremendous hair loss. Sometimes when I lecture I share those pictures very humbly. Recognizing that often clients would come in fearful. Here’s the hair that was in the drain. Bring it in to me. Look at all this hair loss. I know this is an issue. It’s devastating for many of us when we start to experience this, and it doesn’t have to be this way.

Often, we do the thyroid workup. We’re like, okay, well, your thyroid, not just normal, it’s optimal. That’s how it was for me too. Stress-induced hair loss is a really biggie, and I think that’s one of the components with getting into ketosis. If we’re not doing it right, if we’re not balancing cortisol, we can increase cortisol. Cortisol increases testosterone to dihydrotestosterone conversion via 5 alpha-reductase enzyme, and so we can block that conversion.

First, let’s manage cortisol. Let’s get that oxytocin up and going, but we can also block that enzyme conversion by zinc, for instance. Fifty, 60 mgs of zinc a day can be that thyroid dialed in, but again, cortisol too long is going to affect your thyroid too. Just to understand what’s causing that hair loss. The other thing is, again, not having enough micronutrients onboard. My clients who are checking their alkaline urine pH and they are getting alkaline will have an improvement not just in a decrease in the hair loss but improvement in hair quality and luster and volume.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, great, that’s awesome, well said. Yeah, so obviously, stress in general plays a role. It’s like oxytocin, stress, complete opposites. You’re right. As you do your little—the oxytocin things that you’re recommending, obviously, you help reduce stress. Give us some other clues you talk about how to reduce stress.

My fear is always that people are watching this going, yeah, my stress. You know what I mean? I mean, it’s like what can I do about it, my husband, my wife, my job? What are some of the tips for that? I mean, how do we reduce stress? Obviously, it’s a big, huge player here.

Dr. Cabeca:
The best advice I ever received—best piece of advice I’ve ever received was that you are the only that can upset yourself. You’re the only one who can upset yourself. You choose how to react. As a discipline and a practice, it’s choosing how to react and, actually, even better, how to respond instead of react. With that, I learned many skills. I had PTSD, significant PTSD after the loss of my son in a tragic accident. There was those flashbacks, the trauma, and the grieving and that, so learning to manage the thoughts because it’s thoughts at this time is compartmentalization. That was a really big thing for me.

Remembering the advice that I’m the only one who can upset myself, that was good. Then how do I gain that physiology of that peace and calm? Compartmentalization was a skill that I learned. By that I mean when these thoughts would come up and want to suck me in all throughout the day, I started to recognize and say, okay, from 8 to 8:15, that’s my time to deal with this, to get a journal, to write, to just think, to whatever, take a bath, do whatever I need to and address these thoughts. As they would come up all throughout the day, I compartmentalized them. I said I’ll get to you at 8 o’clock. That was liberating in so many ways, so compartmentalization, honoring those thoughts is very beneficial.

The second part is a practice of appreciation. It’s more than gratitude. It’s appreciation and getting into a place of just being able to appreciate what we know to be true for us right now. There’s always something, someone we can appreciate, a kindness, especially a kindness that’s been shown to us. That affects our physiology, and that appreciation, yeah, it decreases cortisol, increases oxytocin. We start to shift our physiology little by little. On a spiritual level, for me, the small little—[St. Ignation], the philosophical teachings about the discernment, are these thoughts based on fear or based on love? It’s, again, starting to be an observer and in control of my thoughts versus passively victimized by my thoughts. This was a shift. Is this a fear-based thought or a love-based thought?

I dealt with it again, Dan, when the quarantine came or the coronavirus crisis. One of my daughters, Amira, she was studying in Holland, in the Netherlands, for her third year of college. I was thinking, oh, my gosh, how am I going to get her? They’re closing the airports. What’s happening? I’ve lost a child. Am I going to lose another one? All of a sudden, it was like I’m spiraling.

Dr. Pompa:
In the moment.

Dr. Cabeca:
Yeah, and that was, okay, what do I know to be true right now? Are these fear-based thoughts or love-based thoughts? That shifted everything.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah. Wow! That’s great and, again, an authority on the subject. Like you said, it’s like you’ve been there. That’s a great strategy. You know what I love about that strategy is it’s so absolutely real and usable. People answer the question often times, and it’s like, yeah, great. Then no one can actually do that.

That’s so easy to implement, and it’s so effective, right? We can only upset ourselves. Categorizing that and asking that simple question where’s it coming from, it’s like, man, I mean, if we just made that a habit every time. I mean, how much better would be? We’d take years off our life.

Dr. Cabeca:
Yes, absolutely. For me, it absolutely has.

Dr. Pompa:
Put years back on our life. I’m dyslexic, by the way. I flip everything. My brain just automatically flips it. It’s my odd view of the world.

Dr. Cabeca:
I’m agreeing.

Dr. Pompa:
No, your brain probably heard it correctly.

Dr. Cabeca:
Exactly, I flipped it right back.

Dr. Pompa:
Exactly true. One of the things that people struggle with is getting the grains in, right? Admittedly, I prefer fats, I do, than vegetables, so smoothies are a way for me. My wife on the other hand, exact opposite. You can watch what we eat on the plate, right? I’ll go right for the fatty meat. She goes right for the green vegetable. My green vegetables, last thing off my plate, I just eat it so absolute opposites.

She cracks up at me because I love to put my greens in a blender. This is what I do. I just prefer it. You have the Keto-Green smoothie. If you started this being your first meal—I won’t want to say start your day with it necessarily but your first meal.

Dr. Cabeca:
Break fast.

Dr. Pompa:
Talk about it, I know the whole ingredients are in your book.

Dr. Cabeca:
Oh, yeah, and I love that concept of the sneaky chef. You’re having to sneak greens into you some way or another, and I think about that for kids. I was interviewed on a TV show earlier today for the news station locally. They said, “Well, how do you get your kids to greens and stuff? What if they don’t?” You blend them into the spaghetti sauce. You make awesome smoothies. My daughter didn’t know that she was—she thought she was getting strawberry smoothies. A thin slice of beet into her green smoothies made it look like a strawberry smoothie for the longest time. Actually, I was making a smoothie for the show that I was on to just even—just sharing what greens you have, just like a…

Dr. Pompa:
What’s in the bowl?

Dr. Cabeca:
Yeah, so I’ve got good stuff. I’ve got some spinach and arugula but whatever greens you have in the fridge.

Dr. Pompa:
That amount is something you’d add to the smoothie?

Dr. Cabeca:
Yeah, that’s perfect. That’s perfect. It was ice, and there’s a slice of ginger in here. Ginger is such a good digestive food in that it’s important for digestion. We just flip those in there. Do this with getting it all over the place so amazing ginger. You use half an avocado or a quarter to a half avocado, healthy fats, or MCT oil, or full fat coconut.

Dr. Pompa:
You’re getting some good quality fats.

Dr. Cabeca:
Fat, fiber.

Dr. Pompa:
That amount of ginger.

Dr. Cabeca:
Then good quality protein so you could use nuts, or seeds, or Keto-Green protein powder. Add extra greens if you want. That’s just an easy—that’s perfect. You want fat, fiber, and protein. Fat, fiber, and protein, it’s so important, especially for women, that fiber with the fat so that we—our blood sugar stays stable, so they’re not getting that peak and valley that’s going to create cravings and hunger and a decrease in willpower.

Dr. Pompa:
I love that for my first meal. It’s quick. I’m busy in the day. That’s why it’s easy. It’s easier for me not to eat all day than to eat. Often times, when I’m purposely eating, boom, I’m in and out with it, so I love that. It makes it so much easier. Then dinnertime I can sit down with the family and have a little bit larger, slower meal.

Dr. Cabeca:
How often are you fasting now? What have you eased into?

Dr. Pompa:
I mean, it depends on what kind of fasting, right? I do four longer fasts, five-day fasts a year, but I would say two are partial fast, two are pure water. That’s an average. Probably, a week, I probably get two or three days where I just eat one meal. It’s never planned. I have busy days, and it’s just easier for me, honestly, just not to eat. It just happens. I also pick at least one, maybe two days where I feast. I purposely eat more.

Honestly, the feast days for me are more important, obviously keeping it healthy. I mix it up like that, and it’s magic for me. Again, Saturday is typically that day. I’ll get up. I’ll eat earlier, and then I’ll have another meal, or I’ll just do two meals of more carbohydrates, maybe even—I even do high-protein days. I mix it up a lot like that.

Dr. Cabeca:
I think that’s exactly—I mean, it’s so necessary. That metabolic flexibility, it’s absolutely so necessary.

Dr. Pompa:
You have to keep the body guessing. I mean, the big mistake, I know you see it to is people, oh, low carb works, and then they get low carb, low carb. Then the body thinks it’s starving, wants to hold on to fat. You can really screw the metabolic flexibility up. You have to fool the body, and you talk about that.

Dr. Cabeca:
Yeah, and that’s where I think too, for clients, it’s so important to—we say what gets measured gets managed so looking at markers of health. That goes beyond your waist size, dress size. It really is looking at your hemoglobin A1c, your inflammatory markers, and other key markers that when we’re able to just see improvements in that really helps us long-term stay the course too.

Dr. Pompa:
What are your favorite blood markers being a physician. You mentioned the A1c, which is looking at glucose over a few months as opposed to the spot shot. By the way, that’s a big predictor of inflammation. What are some of your other ones?

Dr. Cabeca:
Definitely hemoglobin A1c and we see that huge shift really quickly with this approach. The second is hsCRP, highly-sensitive or cardio C-reactive protein so that too. We can see those shifts early on and monitor. We can monitor pretty quickly an improvement, and so that’s another one as a more sensitive marker of inflammation and then DHEA-S so a marker of our adrenal, DHEA-sulfate in the blood. Why I like to look at that, because it also lets me know adrenal reserve and resilience. The higher, healthier DHEA we have that we are naturally producing the more resilient we are. I find that to be true. I’d really like to see some more adrenal studies.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s great advice, yeah.

Dr. Cabeca:
Then the fourth one that I love is Vitamin D, 25-hydroxy. It has broken my heart so many times to treat a cancer patient who’s been through chemo, radiation. I look at these markers, and their Vitamin D level’s 8, 9, 10. It makes me want to cry.

Dr. Pompa:
It’s so unnecessary. That’s why it makes you want to cry, right? It’s such a big deal. It’s a prohormone. It’s immune system. It’s everything.

Dr. Cabeca:
Even just those four markers, I think that we can just follow those four markers and watch those improvements, and we can see it quickly. In hemoglobin A1c, it’s a myth that we have to wait two months. I mean, we’ve seen improvements in one month with a hemoglobin A1c, like from 6 to 5.4. I mean, just tremendous improvements when we make these shifts. That for so many, especially for me—I mean, my hemoglobin A1c at one time over a decade ago was 5.7. It’s 4.8 now. I’m 53 with a 12—actually, we have 7 females in this house right now, and that’s pretty good.

Dr. Pompa:
That’s pretty good, yeah. That’s pretty good. By the way, everyone listening, ask your doctor for those. Those are very typical tests. I mean, sometimes they just run the regular CRP, but the highly sensitive one you’d have to ask them for. DHEA wouldn’t typically be run. It’s not hard to run. Insurance typically would pay for that. The HbA1c, that’s easy. Good doctors run that.

Wait, which one did I miss? Oh, Vitamin D, that’s easy.

Dr. Cabeca:
Vitamin D, 25-hydroxy.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, Vitamin D. There’s the four. Ask your doctor to run them. I love that. I love those too, by the way. A lot of blood markers, they’re too transient, up and down, but those ones, those are—that’s great, great advice, just general looking at health.

It’s a funny thing. When I’m into ketosis, my particle numbers of cholesterol actually rise, which particle numbers—I don’t care about total cholesterol. My father always had very high total cholesterols, and he didn’t die of a heart attack. My particle numbers will rise, which do matter, but all of those numbers that you mentioned get better. It’s this odd thing. Evidently, I’m 20% of the population that the particle numbers rise in ketosis. Here’s the point, though, all my inflammatory markers drop, all my glucose numbers drop.

Dr. Cabeca:
Are you Type A as far as the particle size?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, I look at size too, and ironically enough, my small can rise too. It’s like I spent hours because I’m an anomaly. What normally happens in ketosis is those go down, the size get better, all that. I’m the opposite. I found out that there is this group of people who that happens to, but again, my A1c drops. All my inflammatories, my CRP drops. Even my triglycerides drop, ironically. There’s this anomaly with cholesterol. Go figure. My father had the anomaly of having very—I mean, he ran 360, 400 cholesterol levels, and the doctors wanted to—he never did anything about it. Yeah, his heart was never an issue.

Dr. Cabeca:
Again, that’s where inflammation—if you don’t have inflammation, that’s the big—that’s the sticky factor, those calcifications and why it’s so—why it is so important to look at these markers and just see how our lifestyle and nutritional choices really are affecting us. Beyond any prescription plan, what affect is it having on me?

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, that’s awesome. Dr. Anna, I thank you so much for being on the show again. I love it. I love your approach. Obviously, our approach is…

Dr. Cabeca:
Likewise.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, we reflect one another. I think, hey, I’m going to be on your show evidently coming up. Yeah, appreciate that.

Dr. Cabeca:
Yes, thank you. You get to be on The Girlfriend Doctor podcast.

Dr. Pompa:
Yeah, I love it. I love the topics. Hey, get her book, folks, just an incredible resource of knowledge, especially around this approach. Not just another keto book. I will say that. Thank you again for being on Cellular Healing TV.

Dr. Cabeca:
Thank you.

Ashley:
That’s it for this week. I hope you enjoyed today’s episode, which was brought to you by Fastonic Molecular Hydrogen. Please check it out at getfastonic.com. We’ll be back next week and every Friday at 10 a.m. Eastern. We truly appreciate your support. You can always find us at cellularhealing.tv, and please remember to spread the love by liking, subscribing, giving an iTunes review, or sharing the show with anyone who may benefit from the information heard here. As always, thanks for listening.