Women and Hormone Therapy Episode two with Sam Ridgeway and Kristen Rossi. Sam and Kristen continue the discussion about the many benefits of Hormone Therapy for women inclluding reducing and/or eliminating menopause symptoms, help with sleep patterns, weight, muscle tone, and general well being. Kristen is also a Certified Personal Trainer and is available to assist with designing an exercise plan that is simple, logical, and able to be done at home. She is also available to do nutritional counseling to make sure you are giving your body the foods it requires to be a Viking.
For the ABSOLUTE BEST Hormone Replacement Therapy Clinic in the ENTIRE Universe… visit Viking Alternative Medicine. Phone: 210-826-8900 Web: www.VikingAlternative.com Email: info@VikingAlternative.com Visit Us on Social Media www.FaceBook.com/VikingLivesMatter www.Instagram.com/VikingLivesMatter Websites: www.LiveLikeAViking.com, www.VikingAlternative.com Email: Sam@LiveLikeAViking.com
[00:00:00.060] – Sam Ridgeway
Hormone’s, why it’s so important, how does nutrition factor into the equation? What exercises get the best results, medications to heal and even optimize the body and more? Now, this is going to be an interactive live stream, which means you can ask questions real time. And because we’re going to multiple social channels, Facebook and YouTube, we need to consolidate those questions into one place. So to ask questions in this live stream, simply go to LiveLikeaViking.com
[00:00:37.020] – Sam Ridgeway
And we actually have another one of our PA’s from Viking, Miklos, who’s on standby waiting to help out with answers. But first, I’d like to introduce Kristen and welcome her to the second live stream that we’ve done together. So without further ado, Kristen, why don’t you tell everyone a little about yourself, including maybe your credentials?
[00:01:01.680] – Kristen Rossi
My name is Kristen, I’m a physician assistant. Like I said in the last livestream, I did a surgical residency and then I went into internal medicine.
[00:01:11.910] – Kristen Rossi
And for the last few years, I’ve been doing hormone replacement therapy. I’m also a personal trainer. So health and fitness are big passions of mine.
[00:01:23.430] – Sam Ridgeway
OK, so to start this live stream, we don’t want to make this too long, but we want to cover everything. So let’s start this off with how women can create that solid foundation, which involves hormones. And maybe you can explain the role hormones play in giving women that that necessary base on which they can build upon.
[00:01:44.810] – Kristen Rossi
Sure, well, we always say at Viking, you have to stabilize your house and that house has many different levels. So one of them most important is the hormones, because that’s the base. And then everything else kind of falls into place. So hormones can help you with your body composition, with your sex drive and with your mood. Body composition wise, it helps improve your metabolism. Your muscle strength, helps relieve joint pains, mood. It helps with sleep, depression, anxiety, irritability, and obviously your sex drive, your libido increases, your orgasms improve.
[00:02:29.570] – Kristen Rossi
So all around it helps in all those different ways. It helps women with vaginal dryness if they’re getting older and their estrogen is out of whack. So that’s the basis to make the house stable and then. It’s like a like a pebble in a pond, so you put the pedal in the pond and then you get this ripple effect. I don’t know if I could see that, but he put a pebble in it, Skip, then you get all these different circles.
[00:02:59.940] – Kristen Rossi
That’s what happens when you balance your hormones so that the hormone balance is the first part.
[00:03:07.380] – Sam Ridgeway
OK, good. So that starts off. So now let’s talk about another part. Let’s talk about nutrition at first. Why is that so important? And second, with so many diets out there, how do you know which one to follow or which ones to follow?
[00:03:23.060] – Kristen Rossi
Well, again, it’s very individualized, again, like we refer to as Viking. Everyone has their own Rubik’s Cube to solve. There is no one direct hormone protocol for everyone. There is no one diet fits all. There is no exercise program that fits all. Everyone is individualized. My old doctor that I used to work with in medicine, he always was very blunt with not the best bedside manner, but a great physician. And he always used to tell the patients what happens if you take the letter T off of the word diet.
[00:03:58.220] – Kristen Rossi
And he said you die. And he didn’t mean that you had to be on a diet 24/7. But your diet has to be healthy and beneficial for you. A big thing to look at with patients is your blood type. Believe it or not, there is something called the blood type diet. Again, I don’t believe in anything, you know, regimented to a T. But there is something to it. Your blood type is a big key to your body’s immune system.
[00:04:28.220] – Kristen Rossi
Foods that are harmful to one blood type might not be harmful to another blood type. There are lectins which are proteins found in food and they can affect your blood, cause inflammation, and then also affect your immune system. So it’s a big deal. There are also lectins found in viruses and bacteria that may respond differently to blood types. That’s why some patients might get the flu and have severe symptoms. Some patients might not. The same thing with Corona, possibly.
[00:04:58.160] – Kristen Rossi
So it plays a role to a certain degree. Even patients, moms can relate to this. If you have some women, some mothers need the RhoGam injection when they’re pregnant. Because if the mom is RH negative and the father is RH positive, you might have incompatibility with the baby and it can cause a bad reaction. So your blood is just one of the components that you need to look at when you’re trying to balance your body. What happens is.
[00:05:30.480] – Kristen Rossi
If you have this bad reaction, depending on the food and your blood type, it agglutinates, it clumps together, and it causes inflammation and it can affect your liver or your brain, your joints. So you can get joint pains, you can get brain fog fatigue. All of these things might be simply happening because the food doesn’t agree with you. So that’s just an overview of it. Certain supplements depend on your blood. Type too, just to give you a basic type, A blood, which they call the farmers, they tend to be more on the type.
[00:06:03.930] – Kristen Rossi
And my daughter is a type A more vegans, more plant based type B or Nomad’s. They kind of have a balanced diet. Type O are the carnivores, the meat eaters and type AB is a hybrid, a mix of the A in the base. So, you know, that’s just an interesting thing to put into play when you’re trying to balance yourself and figure body out.
[00:06:28.870] – Sam Ridgeway
OK, but, you know, when when we talk about nutrition, I think one of the things that just from my perspective, a lot of people think that this is like something that encompasses your whole life, like nutrition.
[00:06:38.590] – Sam Ridgeway
But you can, like, do like an 80, 20 rule or something. I mean, you don’t have to be good all the time to have good nutrition. I mean, I think that’s a problem that people say because people get this idea that you have to go one hundred percent eating like eating lettuce all the time, but I mean, if you if you eat well most of the time, you can still live life and still have great nutrition, right?
[00:07:01.870] – Kristen Rossi
Absolutely. I’m I’m very strict with what I eat. But even for me, I don’t care what you say when it’s PMS time. I want the cake. I want the chips. Just it’s fine. But just learn your body and know what aggravates you, learn what really doesn’t agree with you. So you won’t tend to eat those things as much. They could. Also called inflammation and swelling, just weight gain just from that, just from being inflamed.
[00:07:27.100] – Kristen Rossi
So it’s a big component.
[00:07:30.590] – Sam Ridgeway
OK, so now we’ve done hormones and then we’ve kind of touched on nutrition a little bit, and now let’s move on to the importance of exercise. So how much of a factor is exercise when trying to maintain a healthy lifestyle and maybe even. Is there one exercise that’s better for another at achieving results?
[00:07:50.330] – Kristen Rossi
There is same thing I always tell my clients, you know, find something that you enjoy doing. Obviously, if someone hates running, they’re not really going to want to do it.
[00:08:01.260] – Kristen Rossi
If someone enjoys cycling better, then do that because you’re going to be more motivated to do that. Again, they say certain blood types have to do with certain exercises. They say the A’s like more yoga pilates. It’s nothing. You can’t do anything else but just better for your body. The B is more tennis, cycling, resistance, training. O’s are the aerobics, the hit in the hit exercises, interval training, more intense workouts. And A B is like walking, hiking, golf, dance, just for examples.
[00:08:34.790] – Kristen Rossi
But you don’t have to be excessive. You should. I do believe exercise is a big component of keeping yourself balanced just for your lymphatic system, your circulatory system in general, besides even weight loss and muscle mass. So but again, nothing in extremes is needed, especially when you’re home.
[00:08:55.430] – Sam Ridgeway
How often should how often should you exercise? Like I mean, again, this kind of goes into the whole nutrition thing where people think one hundred percent of the time I have to eat. But exercise is something that has to consume your entire life either. Does it I mean, you can be have your exercise and still be able to do all the other things in life as well. How often should you exercise?
[00:09:19.510] – Kristen Rossi
I mean, my personal opinion, I would tell my clients to exercise at least three, three, four days a week doesn’t have to be crazy.
[00:09:28.180] – Kristen Rossi
I do recommend some kind of cardio, even if it’s a fast pace walking because cardio helps to increase your good cholesterol. Like I said, helps your circulation. It’s not just about a weight issue. I personally exercise for stress relief too. Which a lot of people do, so I enjoy it. If that’s the case, then some people do it more often like I do for that reason. But I would say three to four times a week is plenty.
[00:09:55.570] – Kristen Rossi
And again, you don’t spend two hours in the gym. That’s that’s not necessary. You just do what you need to maintain to burn a little bit of calories and keep your body moving so you don’t get osteoporosis. You do need the muscle mass. So you don’t get osteoporosis and you keep your body functioning. I mean, if you’re trying to lose a significant amount of weight that’s different.
[00:10:19.230] – Sam Ridgeway
How important is weight training for women? I mean, guys have this whole thing about weight training and the cardio, they throw that in whenever they want to.
[00:10:27.000] – Sam Ridgeway
Women seem to go to the other side where they heavily rely on cardio. But weight training is important for both sexes. Isn’t weight training just as important for women as it is for men?
[00:10:38.700] – Kristen Rossi
Yes, weight training is very important for women. Like I said, especially because weight training has been shown to severely prevent or reduce osteoporosis. Osteopenia. Women need that. Muscles protect your bones. That’s what they do. So if you don’t have any, you’re more susceptible to fractures, to softening of the bones. So this is why it’s needed.
[00:11:02.640] – Sam Ridgeway
Right, and I also you know, I also personally think as far as esthetics go, I think women exercise a lot.
[00:11:08.580] – Sam Ridgeway
And even if your goal is just esthetics, just looking better, weight training is so important because you can get flabby skin. And I think a lot of women go off and try to exercise cardio that away. You’re not going to cardio that away. It’s going to take weight training to build that muscle, to stretch that skin, to get that tone.
[00:11:27.330] – Kristen Rossi
Absolutely. You’ll you’ll be thin, but you’ll be thin. You’ll look frail. As we get older, our skin sags so there’s no muscle there. You may be thin, but you might not look as nice as you would want to if you had a little muscle on.
[00:11:45.600] – Sam Ridgeway
I think exercise is super important, but let’s just let’s talk about it, because everybody gets injuries from time to time. So what are some medications out there that can help heal injuries and even assist with recovery and or maybe even optimization there?
[00:12:03.000] – Kristen Rossi
There are great medicines out there. And I am not knocking conventional medicine. Not at all. I mean, if you have uncontrolled blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, these medications are essential. But our whole thing at Viking is get the body stable. I’ve had many patients come off their blood pressure, their diabetic medication. So conventional medicine is OK. But these other healing peptides that we have, t Viking – BPC 157 to TB500
[00:12:33.770] – Kristen Rossi
. They’re great for musculoskeletal repair repair excuse me.
[00:12:38.070] – Kristen Rossi
BP157 in an oral form is great for any kind of stomach issues. Gastritis, stomach upsets. Glutathione is amazing. We, we have an intramuscular, it’s great for any inflammation in the body. It’s kidney and liver support. They use it for hepatitis patients, for Lyme disease and these are all natural, most of them are natural in your body or agree with your body to help healing rather than popping a pain narcotic or an anti-inflammatory all the time which are going to destroy your stomach. Thymosin Alpha 1 is great for your immunity, helps to increase your immunity in your body. So all these things the secretagogues, the growth hormone boosters, help your growth hormone get boosted naturally. They help with metabolism, with fatigue, with trouble sleeping. All of these things can get you to where you need to be. So you do not have to rely on other medications for the rest of your life.
[00:13:41.470] – Sam Ridgeway
You know, my wife and I, we’ve had a few surgeries between us, my elective and not, but every time we’ve used BBC and TB, it’s amazing when we go into the doctor, get our checkups, they’re always like, oh, my gosh, you heal so fast.
[00:13:59.060] – Sam Ridgeway
And they always attribute that to well, but you eat well and you exercise. So that’s going to be. But it’s not. It’s BPC 167 and TB500. Those two things together can feel like nothing I’ve ever seen. It’s absolutely amazing. And I don’t – I just nod my head because every time you talk to a medical doctor about it, they look at you like, oh my gosh, is that even legal? And I’m like, yes, yes, it really is legal.
[00:14:20.720] – Sam Ridgeway
So it isn’t like you said before, you’re not knocking conventional medicine. But that doesn’t mean conventional medicine is the answer all of the time. There are other things out there that are just as effective to heal, but you may not get from your conventional doctor, but are absolutely amazing. So I think you had an injury. You healeded with TB or VPC or.
[00:14:41.770] – Kristen Rossi
Yeah, I really saw my pectoralis muscle. It was really bad, but it’s it was amazing. Yeah, I was there within two weeks. It was I was very impressed. And then besides that, there’s also the other aspect of supplements which these doctors, these conventional doctors don’t really delve into.
[00:15:09.670] – Kristen Rossi
And a lot of patients, they fall into that they’ll go on Amazon and just order all these supplements, which are not high quality supplements that basically get excreted through your urine, through your stool. You don’t even absorbing them. And they’ll spend all this money when if you got. High quality supplements, for example, liposomal vitamin C. People will take tons of vitamin C if it’s not a liposomal vitamin C that’s covered, so it’s not going to be broken down your gastric juices.
[00:15:38.300] – Kristen Rossi
It’s not doing anything for you. You’re going to get the minimum amount and the rest is getting to your urine. So I recently had my hormones checked because I wanted to see where I was. And the doctor informed me that my hormones were phenomenal and I was probably still very fertile at almost forty three years old, which is not really what I wanted to hear, but. I take supplements, I eat well, I take care of myself, so that all plays a role.
[00:16:06.480] – Kristen Rossi
I mean, Echinacea is great for your immunity. Goldenseal is like a natural antibiotic.
[00:16:13.640] – Kristen Rossi
DHEA can boost your especially in women, your testosterone levels, probiotics for your stomach. Zinc helps to control the estrogen if you have estrogen dominant or dim. Chlorophyl is a great internal deodorant. So all of these things Primrose for women with fibrocystic breast, primrose and iodine are amazing. And unfortunately, a lot of doctors don’t know this, just like a lot of doctors aren’t going to sit down and speak to you about nutrition and exercise. But we do. So it’s it’s important.
[00:16:48.560] – Sam Ridgeway
So we’ve we’ve we’ve talked about kind of that is in primarily the older category. But how about the younger women? And it’s not the younger women don’t need hormone therapy. I mean, having a baby and so on can really mess up. And you may not bounce back from that in many cases. But for those that don’t necessarily need prescription hormone therapy, but they still want to optimize their body, what are some other options for them? Well, like I said, all of the supplements can help you if you don’t technically need to start on testosterone yet, you can take DHEA that will help just boost you a little bit.
[00:17:26.470] – Kristen Rossi
You make sure your zinc is to help you with your immunity. Make sure you’re taking vitamin C so all of this will help your energy. You can also take Lipo C that will help to give you energy. There are amino acids are vitamins, and if you have more energy, you won’t feel as tired. You’ll be able to have better workouts and you’re supplementing whatever you’re lacking, vitamin wise, amino acid wise in your body.
[00:17:59.590] – Sam Ridgeway
OK, all right, so we’ve covered a lot of stuff so far, but let’s let’s just talk about one last thing here before we before we jump off. Most of us have been stuck in the house since the pandemic started. And, you know, you’ve deviated from your normal workout routine. And given the fact, Kristen, that you are also a personal trainer, I’m thinking maybe you could show us kind of some at home exercises women, too, can do to kind of ease back into the swing of things.
[00:18:29.530] – Sam Ridgeway
And before that happens, I want to just kind of tell just a little bit of story. Before this whole pandemic thing started, I was under the assumption that you had to go into the gym. It doesn’t matter if it’s me, men, women, whatever. I was under the assumption that you had to go to the gym for two or three hours and workout constantly. You had to do that every day in order to get results, because that’s, I think what you’re you’re kind of told.
[00:18:50.230] – Sam Ridgeway
But when the pandemic came and it could go to the gym anymore and my wife was like, hey, you need to buy a Bowflex, I’m like, now this thing is going to just blow over. Well, she said, no, it may not. So I did. I ordered the Bowflex. It came within five days. You can’t get that now. But anyway, it did. And thank God for her for many other reasons. But this particular one, thank God for her, because I actually found out that I don’t need to go to the gym for two thirds.
[00:19:12.280] – Sam Ridgeway
I canceled my entire gym membership. I work out of my Bowflex to the extreme. I have an extra bench in the select with that’s what I do. I walk downstairs, I workout for about 30 minutes a day. I do the treadmill for 20 and then I’m done. And that has given me the results, the same results as the gym for like two hours. It’s absolutely crazy. So my point with the whole story is don’t think for one second that you have to consume your entire life with working out to get results.
[00:19:41.170] – Sam Ridgeway
It really doesn’t take that. You don’t even need a gym membership. You can actually do it at home. So, Kristen, why don’t you all let’s turn this back over to you and why don’t you just tell him some of the things that they can do, just like I said, to ease back into the swing of things after they’ve been cooped up during the pandemic.
[00:19:56.570] – Kristen Rossi
Yeah, there’s there’s a lot of things you can do at home, I personally, with my clients, I mean, honestly, you can have a whole workout with just a band.
[00:20:05.120] – Kristen Rossi
I mean, obviously, it’s not going to be especially a lot of us that work out hard with weights. It’s not going to be like that. But just to get, like I said, back into it, like you said and your circulation going, it’s a great workout. So I usually start, and there’s so many things you could do. I just show you a few, obviously just warm up like this and I tell them to hold their arms, pull them apart, and you can work your biceps like that.
[00:20:38.480] – Kristen Rossi
You can put it behind you. And work out the back of your arm by pulling it apart. And you can get a little leg work out. Can you see with them? I can, yes. OK, so just go up like this. For your legs, you can rotate it, get your outer thighs. And you put the band up on your foot, you can get a quad workout. And put on your ankles. Pull it apart again, you can get your obliques.
[00:21:31.990] – Kristen Rossi
And then put it on your feet. So those are just some simple things you can do at home, get your heart rate up, circulation going, and all you need is a band.
[00:21:52.340] – Sam Ridgeway
OK, well, Chris, I appreciate everything you’ve done, I think it’s that’s something we’ve covered hormones, we’ve talked about nutrition, we’ve talked about exercise. What healing peptides, peptides to actually optimize your performance to go beyond just the healing. Talk about those medications. We’ve talked about simple exercises that you can do at home.
[00:22:12.980] – Sam Ridgeway
Is there anything else the band is fine. Is there any exercise equipment that you can just go down to Dick’s Sporting Goods, Wal-Mart or some of neoprene weights? What kind of stuff should or should you have in in a home gym, even if it’s just a little makeshift gym?
[00:22:29.030] – Kristen Rossi
Well, I mean, especially for women, like we were saying, the weights. So definitely get some kind of weights just to have. Stability ball is always good. You can do a lot of exercises with that.
[00:22:42.500] – Kristen Rossi
What else can you do?
[00:22:45.220] – Sam Ridgeway
I mean, what if you had to choose if you had to choose a cardio piece of equipment, I mean, you’ve got your your bike, you’ve got your recumbent bike, you’ve got your treadmill, you’ve got a rowing machine. Well, you’ve got a StairMaster. If you had to choose one piece of cardio equipment, what do you think you would put into your home gym?
[00:23:04.930] – Kristen Rossi
To be honest with you, again, that’s an individual preference. And I always ask my patients I alway get a full history , you know, any medical problems? Some people, if they have bad knees, treadmills aren’t going to work for them. So then a recumbent bike would be better or an elliptical. Any kind of cardio machine will give you what you’re trying to accomplish, cardio wise. But that’s an individual preference some people love to spinn.
[00:23:28.060] – Kristen Rossi
So the peloton bike is really big and they need the motivation. If you like to run, then obviously the treadmill. But again, you have to see if they have any injuries where one would be better than the other.
[00:23:39.600] – Sam Ridgeway
You know, one of the things we have at the house, what I bought because of the pandemic was the mirror and the wife and my daughter love the mirror. And you basically you put it on the wall and you it’s a mirror, but you see stuff in it like you see video in the mirror. You can choose from all these different classes on your phone. There’s a monthly subscription, but you can do yoga. You could do it’s every everything.
[00:24:02.610] – Sam Ridgeway
It’s incredible, the different variations that they have. So that’s another one. I’ve seen the machines, the tone machines that come off the wall. So I think there are a variety of things that you can get in your home gym to kind of spruce it up and give you that variety because you don’t want to do the same thing over and over again. So there are a number of different things out there that you can get, just kind of go searching for them.
[00:24:23.400] – Sam Ridgeway
But I think like I did with the Bowflex, if you want weight training and you want an all encompassing thing, that Bowflex is absolutely amazing. So different things that you can use. But anyway, Kristen, I want to thank you. And one more thing. You actually do personal training, right?
[00:24:38.990] – Kristen Rossi
Yes,
[00:24:39.780] – Sam Ridgeway
I mean, someone could someone contact you, like, become a client of yours to do personal training and and how does that actually work? Is that video is that what’s that around lately?
[00:24:51.980] – Kristen Rossi
Yes, because the video I mean, I do have some private clients, but like I said, everything is kind of was switched to video due to the pandemic. But, yeah, I could I could train someone in an elevator and I don’t need a lot of equipment.
[00:25:09.900] – Sam Ridgeway
OK, so, Kristen@vikingalternative.com . Can can they reach you like that if they wanted to somehow come in and set up a training session, become a client of yours.
[00:25:18.120] – Sam Ridgeway
Well, again, this is Sam Ridgway’s. This is Kristen from Viking Alternatives. And just to go on to women’s health, they used it to get you healthy. There are multiple facets that have to come together for true health. They’re like like pillars and all the pillars have to be there or else the structure is going to fall. So we have nutrition, we have exercise, we have hormones. And one thing that we haven’t talked about is sleep.
[00:25:40.590] – Sam Ridgeway
And this is in my mind, sleep is the other important thing because my day is one hundred percent different if I get quality sleep the night before. So I think that is I think that’s just as important almost as exercise and nutrition and the whole scheme of things. Is there anything you can do to get better sleep? Just one last thing. What would you recommend to get just the best night of sleep you possibly can?
[00:26:03.070] – Kristen Rossi
Well, I mean, supplement wise with sleep. Progesterone itself, which a lot of women need, is phenomenal.
[00:26:10.550] – Kristen Rossi
I’ve had many patients with trouble sleeping. They fixed their progesterone, balance it out because they were lacking and they’re sleeping like a baby. Testosterone also helps that as well. And the hormones that are in balance would definitely help with sleep.
[00:26:32.070] – Sam Ridgeway
Is there a target and I always use the example of my wife and it’s the whole menopause thing where hot flashes covers on covers of sweaty and can’t sleep all the rest of that.
[00:26:41.550] – Sam Ridgeway
And I think one of the educational things that we need to bring out for a lot of women in that category that just deal with these problems is that you really don’t have to deal with these issues if you get your hormones balanced. My wife now has none of those symptoms at all, and she’s not the only one. There are countless other women that have come to us with in that menopause phase that we’ve just we’re skating them right through it, like it’s that it’s that helpful.
[00:27:08.190] – Sam Ridgeway
Balancing your hormones makes that much of a difference in your life. So I think that that’s that education just needs to get out there. I think these things help with that. So, Kristen, I want to thank you for coming on and doing this. We’ll probably have another one down the road. But again, Viking Alternative medicine, which is VikingAlternative.com. You want to get with Kristin at Viking Alternative.com , become a client of hers for Nutrition and exercise coaching. All right, perfect. All right, Kristen. I appreciate it. Thank you. Have a great evening. And thank you, everyone.
