53. Keto Green Approach to Hormones with Dr. Anna Cabeca

Dr. Anna Cabeca 0:04

When we are healthier when we are grounded, when we have a strong foundation, when our cup is full, everyone else is better, especially our children around us. Especially when you see your children starting to go in different directions bounce off walls, check your energy first, what conduit? Are we for them and that's why our health is critically important for the health of our family.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 0:33

Welcome to the longevity blueprint podcast, I'm your host Dr. Stephanie gray. My number one goal with the show is to help you discover your personalized plan to build your dream health and live a longer happier, truly healthier life.

You're about to hear from Dr. Annika Becca the girlfriend Dr. You'll get to hear her incredible story as well as hear about her keto green 16 approach to hormone balance and we'll dive into her jova product which is an all natural non estrogen anti aging cosmetic cream for your delicate feminine parts. Let's get started. Welcome to another episode of the longevity blueprint podcast Today my guest is Dr. Annika Becca. She is known as the girlfriend Dr. is a triple board certified Emory University trained ob Jen. She speaks from experience she has risen from her own ashes of personal tragedy that spiraled into depression from not one but two rounds of menopause, weight gain hair loss and many other debilitating symptoms. her journey led her around the world to learn about true health and natural healing.

Dr. Anna came away empowered with the knowledge that modern medical training and research combined with time tested wisdom and remedies will yield indisputable results. Dr. Anna is the author of two best selling books the hormone fix a groundbreaking holistic lifestyle program for menopausal women and keto green 16. A comprehensive nutritional plan to staying healthy and slim at any age. She's also spent years developing and perfecting a complete suite of life changing products and programs that we're going to talk about today. Everything Dr. Anna develops as part of her own daily routine and based on her exhaustive research and never ending quest to find solutions that help women reclaim their vibrancy, sexuality, health and happiness. So welcome to the show. Dr. Rebecca,

Dr. Anna Cabeca 2:14

it is great to be here with you. Thanks for having me, Stephanie.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 2:18

Well, as I mentioned in your bio you to have a story that led you to write your books and create your healing products. So let's start with that. Let's start with your story what really drove you to become the girlfriend doctor?

Dr. Anna Cabeca 2:30

Yeah, you know, it is you know, the saying our mess becomes our message. So I think it my It started with my doctor's bag was completely empty, you know, exhausted everything in my doctor's bag and the best of my colleagues. Also their doctor's bags were empty. And it was just said that I was early menopause at 39 infertile and the only chance because we were so desiring to have a baby at that time another baby, and that the only chance I would have would be egg donation. And so it was grief upon grief. Because definitely, and yeah, my story that we lost our son, our only son in a tragic accident. And so the consequences of that, that tragic, D that trauma, the grief and, and really affected my hormones. And yet we didn't make the connection, the reproductive endocrinologist didn't make the connection.

My fellow ob gyn didn't make the connection and just said, Oh, call your early menopause. I mean, that's just early menopause. And it is what it is. Yeah, donation is what it is, right? And I said, Well, you know what, it's not a choice for us at this time. And that led me on a journey really, I took a sabbatical from my practice and led me on a journey around the world looking for answers. And so as a result of that journey, and many of the answers that, that I found, I was able to reverse that early menopause. And not only that, but become pregnant with my beautiful baby girl, Eva Marie. So

Dr. Stephanie Gray 4:01

we're gonna say that.

Dr. Anna Cabeca 4:02

Yeah, so yes, at ID four, it had her at 41 the toddler was told I would never be able to have and that was a result of these these practices and, and products that I now implement and write about and you know, certainly certainly was not something that I studied, I learned about a medical school, like reverse early menopause. What I mean, like the chance of that is like, we just don't even talk about it right, but chances so like unlikely and, and then not understanding the effect of trauma and PTSD and how that would affect me and continue to affect me. So as a result of that, I'm just passionate about getting the word out and helping others just restore their hormone balance and health. I'm 54 now with a 13 year old who just turned 13.

So yeah, it's been a journey. It's so important to stay healthy and I love what my platform is all about helping women through menopause breeze through menopause and as the Japanese say into your second spring They call menopause the second spring, this time of life. I think that's a really beautiful, better way to talk about it than what we do here in the States.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 5:11

Sure, I love hearing your story. And I was hoping there would be a happy ending there. And there are several happy endings, not only were you able to restore your health and your hormones and have a baby, now you're helping others do the same. So I love that. So let's break down hormones and talk about what they are, how they influenced my health and how they change as we age. We've talked a lot about a lot about that on this podcast, but it doesn't hurt to just continuously go over that listeners need to hear it over and over again, how important their hormones are. So what are they? How do they influence our health? And what changes as we age?

Dr. Anna Cabeca 5:39

Yeah, you know, and and hormones are amazing. They're really energetic messengers, not just chemical messengers, hormone messengers. They're energetic messengers that communicate with our body, just, you know, communicate different parts of our body and different cells and different organs. It's pretty darn magical. And this is the issue with hormones, why? It's hard. And many doctors say, well, we can't test your hormones are this sad? There are ways we can test there's no perfect way. But there are ways we can test and it's the reason there's no perfect way is because they are energetic molecules. And so we're just beginning to understand them. Each hormone has an energy, like each person has an energy and our energy shift day by day, I don't know about you. But you know, mostly, I've got really great energy. But there's some days especially after that, just

Dr. Stephanie Gray 6:22

yeah, day by day, hour, by hour,

Dr. Anna Cabeca 6:25

by hour, right, and energy shifts. And that's really important to understand, they also all interact with each other. So I like to describe hormones, like there's a whole body of hormones and that are communicating with each other. And to give a visual of this, think of like a classroom or a university setting in our grand university setting. And in the classroom, there's all different people, right, each one has their own unique purpose, their mission, their giftings. And that's hormones, that's the bundle of hormones, but they and that includes our reproductive hormones, and you know, like estrogen, testosterone, da ta, hormones that I spent my career and buku bucks studying, right? But these are actually the minor hormones, they are the body of hormones, but at the front of the classroom, are your are your professors or your teachers, right, your leaders. And this would be where these really special hormones come in that are major players. And that's insulin and cortisol.

And as I was study, studying ob gyn and studying all these hormones, and really dialing in getting a progesterone and estrogen, I always wanted to get to the underlying underlying issues, what are the smallest changes I need to make, to get the best results? Well, you have to go to the eight your hormones, though insulin and cortisol be those major hormones, then think of the Dean of the university or the principal of the school. And that is oxytocin. I call it the crowning hormone, the mother hormone, that hormone that when that oxytocin is is, is charged up in the lead, running appropriately, well grounded, right, a priority doing the right stuff, then everyone else falls into place. But when there's chaos with oxytocin, insulin, cortisol, the entire student body are out partying on a disorganized fashion. And that's kind of like our hormones. hormone system.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 8:20

I like that. I haven't heard that analogy. And I want to come back to oxytocin because we haven't talked a lot about that on this podcast. So I want to come back to that. But But let's let's go back because of your story and the stress your body was under, right, let's come back to cortisol for a second here. So hormones are sensitive to stress, especially between the ages of 35 and 60, which it sounds like is when you had some major stress in your life. And I would agree with that I'm in that that age demographic as well. And I have a busy practice and trying to be a mom or I just have a lot going on right now. So let's talk about stress and the impact of stress on our hormones, specifically, our adrenals and cortisol. Like, let's talk about that relationship.

Dr. Anna Cabeca 9:00

Yes, absolutely. And this is where I didn't understand it until I'm lived it right. And we know that cortisol is a master hormone when of you know, our survivor hormone, we need it or we would die. And in fact, people who can't produce it do and that's really we have to supplement with cortisol and certain people like with Addison's disease or something. And so cortisol is this life saving hormone when we're under stress, or in my case, post traumatic stress. There's this constant like and you're constantly triggered. And there are chronic everyday stress like in a pandemic with lots of uncertainty. For instance, there's chronic CT, you're watching the news on a nightly basis. I mean, there's chronic cortisol that's gonna deplete our progesterone which is one of our neuro protective hormones that helps make air I mean, all our other hormones in our body, like our duralock reproductive hormones are derived from progesterone. So cortisol is going to deplete that progesterone and the other thing too, is when cortisol is up for too long means frying out our nervous system. It's the most acidifying, caustic hormone in our body. And so when that's happening, cortisol is up the paraventricular nucleus in the brain is like, hey, you're frying me out, I gotta shut you down.

So it suppresses the adrenal gland production of cortisol, in however it does it, and at the same time, because when cortisol goes up, oxytocin goes down. So when cortisol is up for a long time, and then is suppressed, cortisol is down. And oxytocin is down at the same time also suppressed. And this is that dangerous, very dangerous place where, you know, there's isolation, depression, there's that sense of not feeling love, like, I would hear it after I experienced this, I heard this from so many I love my husband, but I don't feel love for him. I love my work, but I don't feel I loved my work, but I don't feel love for it anymore. You know, it's that feeling that it's a physiologic I say, it's the physiology of divorce, because with this low cortisol, low oxytocin, that's the physiology of disconnect. You go into a crowded room of people you love, and you're like, I'm all alone. Nobody likes me, you know, whatever this city, I mean, you're that that very terrible state. And I was there, I was there after PTSD, chronically and, you know, I had a bit of a lift of oxytocin with the delivery of my daughter and breastfeeding, things were good, marriage was better. And then after, you know, everything dissolve, the marriage dissolved, I burned out from business.

And that's that chronic cortisol, oxytocin disconnect. And I was like, what's happening? I love my work. I loved my husband, I don't feel love anymore. And that was a really, that was a really powerful discovery, I had to understand what was happening. And so that is that is the consequence of chronic stress. And now during pandemic, I'm hearing it, increase in breakups increase in roommate splitting up increase in divorces increase in burnout increase of leaving a job, not if you have one, you know, mean, so there's a lot of this burnout going on right now. And there's a physiology to this.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 12:14

Yes. And I and I also, I feel like there's been a lot of infertility, I know, there's a joke that there's going to be all these COVID babies because people are home. But if they're stressed out, they're not going to be able to, you know, have high quality eggs and have great fertility outcomes. So I think that as well. So we've talked a lot about that on this podcast, as far as stress, right initially can raise your cortisol. But what we haven't talked about is what happens with oxytocin, you're saying that, that that connection hormone that you have when you're you know, breastfeeding, you have a child, right?

Dr. Anna Cabeca 12:44

That's right. Your husband? Yep, yeah, plus plummet. So

Dr. Stephanie Gray 12:50

I can see why all the more reason why we need to get the cortisol well down. We don't want it to crash. But we want to win and get our adrenals back in shape. Because I'm then assuming that's part of how we would restore oxytocin. I don't know what the answer is. No, I can prescribe oxytocin. I'm assuming that's part of getting oxytocin levels back to where they need to be.

Dr. Anna Cabeca 13:09

Yeah, you can prescribe it. But that's not the number one answer. That's a short term fix. And we don't want to prescribe it long term, because that will deplete our body's ability to decrease our body's ability to make it exactly like with any, whenever we're using hormones, if I want to use the lowest effective dose, but in a, in a healthy way, right. And so with oxytocin, we want to do the things that increase oxytocin. So this is the lifestyle This is where I kind of built it into my keto green or keto alkaline plans that I write about. And it is that oxytocin is the most alkalinizing hormone in our body. And when we are in this healthy, you're saying I'm talking about, you know, our blood pH will, will stay stable, right? When we talk about blood pH, we know it's gonna stay safe. We're gonna draw a blood pH from our radial artery arterial blood gas. And because the venous pH changes, right, but arterial blood gas is going to stay as close to homeostasis as possible as close to 7.4 slightly alkaline as possible on our and we will rob Peter to pay Paul to get it there.

But cancer, chronic malnutrition, starvation, all these things create a more of acidic and what we use as a vital sign when I've learned to use was my urine Ph. So checking urine pH as a vital sign, I think everyone should do that. It is a huge biomarker, it's a vital sign. It's as important as your blood pressure and your pulse in figuring out how you're interacting with your body. The what I found is that we incorporate oxytocin activities, our urine pH becomes more alkaline. So gratitude, journaling, laughter play, having great sex, having a part you know, having a great time out with your friends, and you know, and these things they can say, Oh my god, I knew I even ate terribly, but I'm so alkaline today because I had so much fun and laughed my ass off at that, you know, with my girlfriends last night or whatever it may be right and oxytocin is so alkalinizing so the gratitude journaling, the walk on the beach, the things that decrease cortisol increase that you find joy in that brings you joy that makes you smile when you think about it, incorporating more of that into your life increases oxytocin and helps you reset this this oxytocin cortisol balance.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 15:22

So I want to make sure for the listeners that they're following. So you're saying cortisol makes you more acidic, right? That stress hormone makes more acidic. And oxytocin is more alcoholic? Is that what am I hearing you? Right? Okay, just want to make sure. So then what is the goal? So if someone wants to gauge that you're saying that benchmark if you can test your urine pH, what is their goal? So the higher the number is more alkaline? So just for the listener, so where do they want to be?

Dr. Anna Cabeca 15:46

We want to get it over seven. So between diet and right attitude and gratitude and all these good things, between diet and lifestyle, we want that urine pH to to healthfully like, wake up above seven, go to bed at seven, you know, and that's kind of working towards that, you know, right now, I'm just done a 72 hour water and herbal tea fast. One cup of coffee

Dr. Stephanie Gray 16:08

before this podcast, you're just finished.

Dr. Anna Cabeca 16:10

I did I just I just broke the beautiful keto green salad and a keto green smoothie. I'm like, Oh, yeah, it's it's but you know, I you know, it's important I was on vacation last week, Stephanie, I was in Mexico, you know, a little too much tequila, you know, needed really to reset, the great reset. This really does help. And so looking at, you know, checking urine pH, getting it above seven, it's been a really important marker for me. And now 1000s of women in my online groups, just checking to see what happens when you are in different situations. It's not we're normally have a acidic urine pH when we after we exercise or when we're stressed, when we have too much acidic foods. And this part of you know, part of my discovery process and helping women bounce their hormones. When we're in ketosis, and in an alkaline with an alkaline urine Ph. physiology, I mean, you just feel amazing, you feel energized and not in a hyped up, wait, you feel clear, the fog is lifted, I call it energized enlightenment, you feel more spiritually connected more in tune and clearer with your intuition. It's really a beautiful place to be. And so just checking your mph can make a really big difference. And just seeing what happens when you're under different situations.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 17:24

I want to come back to that into kind of the keto green approach that you've created. But before we get there, I want to go back to hormones for a moment because we talked a little bit about stress as impact on the hormones, but what role does gut health kind of play on our hormones and on our ability to manage stress and inflammation? How does gut health tie in here? Well, I

Dr. Anna Cabeca 17:42

think we can't fix I mean, really near impossible to fix our hormones if we don't fix our gut. So that's between diet and nutrition, taking away the sugar improving the diversity of our gut bacteria, because we know we have the Astro below and especially important for women and men because you see men with man boobs, we call them moobs. We we don't want that. And we don't want women with breast, lumpy brass breast diseases, breast cancer. And, you know, not to mention anxiety and depression, insomnia, all the things that from an imbalanced gut bacteria and balanced hormones can get that result from that. So the stroke alone is really essential for estrogen metabolism. And if we have unhealthy pathways, we know that it increases our risk for these other inflammatory diseases.

So gut health is really important. So my three day fast, was part of like 72 hours to react, the failure lies. And so you can do it many ways, I went to never have anyone start out with three day water fast, right, so you'd start out with a keto green fast and just like smoothies, and bone broth, or then just a bone broth fast. And, again, bone broth is very alkalinizing, very alkalinizing rich and fat rich in college and very healing to the GI tract. Gonna make some little bit later I think, bone broth now let's keep the healing going. Right. And so you can do bone broth fast and with some keto green shake, so again, eliminating sugar, very low allergy, good, you know, quality protein, and then just see how your, see how your body does over time. And I think that is really a big part of a part of this process.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 19:23

So what about sexual health? So I would ask, why is

Dr. Anna Cabeca 19:27

my favorite topic, you know that? So

Dr. Stephanie Gray 19:30

you have some products here that they can help in that arena. But why is this a relevant topic to all women, regardless of if they're, you know, having if they have a sex life or not like, Why Why is this important? And I oftentimes, on these podcasts, previous podcasts have talked about how important testosterone is for libido and sex drive and whatnot. And I and I have a feeling we're going to talk about a lot more than that. So all I'll ask about your opinion on sexual health and like you said, you like talking about this topic, so I'll just let you take it away.

Dr. Anna Cabeca 19:58

Yeah. I do. Love to I've lectured I've taught physicians about electron women's sexual health all over, all over the world I've talked Brazil and Portugal and Poland and Israel I mean a man I've been all over talking about this I'm so passionate about this topic because universally there's no area more vulnerable to any individual or couple than our sexual health, our sexuality or sexual health or sexual response. We are so vulnerable when it comes to this and as a privilege as a gynecologist and obstetrician and working with couples husbands and wives getting to know them because I was the sole solo practice for years, get to know a couple and then postpartum problems that they can have with sex and intimacy problems, because I had such a beautiful relationship and taking care of them and during their pregnancy, husbands also felt very comfortable talking with me about these issues and so and that just that just kind of just you know, was a really became a really big part of my practice is helping couples with this issue.

Whether it's lack of desire and why that is whether it's caused by discomfort with intercourse, especially as we get older vaginal dryness is you know, and chronic stress will cause vaginal dryness to so chronic stress, pain, postpartum pain, and I knew about that because I had an anterior tear with my first pregnancy delivery and I hurt for a year I couldn't have it hurt like hell to have sex right? And no, I'm an OB right and now like I didn't know what to do I know what to do now so and pelvic floor therapist thank God for that right. And Joe like the one of the products I created, thank God for it because it really does help restore. But with vaginal dryness, if you have pain every time you do something, why would you want to? You're just going to take sex off the table. And there are other reasons, there's certainly medications that can cause issues with vaginal health. Even anti histamines can decrease your ability to orgasm. How many people aren't anti histamines at the season of the year? Right. So allergy meds and so these are things that can really affect your your sex drive and for both, for both men sexual function for both men and women, and especially during this transition time period and perimenopause and menopause, men are going through andropause.

And initially, women's vaginal dryness and decrease in lubrication happens before men's erectile issues, typically, but then so there's this disconnect, he doesn't want to cause her pain and she's just gonna power through, you know, and and so there's also a disconnect in the bedroom. And then what happens? Less orgasm, less pleasure, less intimacy, less oxytocin, the hormone that keeps us together. Right. Do you see how this plays out? Yes. And it's, it's unnecessary. It's so unnecessary. Because we can reverse erectile issues, we can reverse vaginal dryness issues. And we can do it naturally without a prescription pad for the most part. And so this is a really important piece. And so there are many reasons that you know, are and again, getting a vaginal health tied into gut health too. So keto green healthy fats, healthy, diverse, good bacteria within our gut plant foods help with gut diversity. And same with vaginal bacteria. There's vaginal, this many strains of lactobacilli in the vagina and other strains of bacteria.

And that's important, right? And we don't want yeast in there and we don't want to implement inflammatory stuff in there. And you know, and certainly like no dirty Dixon there, right? We don't want anything unnecessary in the vagina. So and that goes with with hormones to because I love using bioidentical hormone creams including testosterone da ta, estrogen progesterone app, but I hated it anyway, inserting anything into the vagina. And if I don't have to, I would say if it doesn't give you pleasure, there don't put it in there. You don't have to but sometimes you need to really to restore vaginal health especially women with incontinence or or sister seals or prolapse you sometimes we want, we will do but as a maintenance like topical creams and that's why I created Java with da ta and plant stem cells and some really other key ingredients to help the vaginal floor.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 24:12

But tell us more about that. So she's alluding to a product one of her products which is called jova

Dr. Anna Cabeca 24:17

j ul VA like boba with a J.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 24:20

So this is a non estrogen based cream. Yeah, so go back over those main ingredients and why you formulated this product to have those and who should use this.

Dr. Anna Cabeca 24:30

Yeah, I was a big referral physician. I had patients from all over the world and and especially patients that kind of hit those those end of the roads like our breast cancer patients and patients who had had GYN cancers and other issues, I end even with MS and severe dryness issues right. So I started to be a referral physician. So I was really loving using bio and I looked at the research. So what can I offer my breast cancer patients that were safe and could restore sexual function So that's how I learned about da ta and testosterone and started implementing that and then also using it before my surgery such as incontinence surgeries or sista sealer prolapse surgeries to create healthier tissue.

Well, the better and better I got at that Stephanie the less I needed to operate, the patient completely healed and so with Jehovah because when I close my practice in 2015, I burned out close my practice that was like before advanced what I write about in the hormone fix, you know, I get it be at that point now means me like, I swear, how many years ago was that like, you know, almost eight years ago, so I was I was at least 20 years older than I am now. Right? And and at that time, I was brain fog burnout bla, and that was a point of struggle is down, turn that from PTSD and burnout, but I learned and so that's why I now implement You know, every like, I've learned what I've learned to teach. So but part of this my patients were like doctrine I no one will give us your hormone creams. And so I'm like, I can create a cosmetic from I was a chemist before I went to med school I'd had a skincare line and I'm like, I'm very picky about the ingredients of what we put in our on our bodies.

And so I work to create this cream and just started using it and I love it because we don't have to use it visually. It clitoral, to anus and I call that the most valuable real estate of our body. And it makes a difference. Like we worry about aging lines here, here here. The aging lines that we get down there that happened to 100% of us as we age, we can reverse those to a really significant degree. So using this this cream topically and prior to intercourse and can go on the penis as well. I mean this is it can go on the upper lips, too. I'm coming out with a lip formula I don't see wearing Yeah, and so makes a huge difference. So to help with to help with integrity, the healing of the skin with keel exercises, the decrease in bladder leaks, we have people that you know, I'm getting ahead of myself and my 40s with do high intensity class and, and wet myself during during I'm like, Ah, that's not acceptable that will keep you from exercising. Well, I'm gonna tell you I'm doing high intensity hit classes harder than I ever done at 54. Then I did that 34. So yeah, postpartum can do some do doozy so we can restore it. No surgery, right? No surgery.

And this is really important. So with pelvic floor exercises, and and the right ingredients, the right nutrition, the right diet, the right habits, the right lifestyle, we can reverse this thing. It's not no such thing as one magic pill or magic cream or anything. But yeah, Java is on my vanity, it's in my bathroom. You know, I think it should be on every woman's vanity and and definitely an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So that's what's coming, we have 1000 over 15 105 star testimonials on my website, they just will make you cry. So beautiful saved my marriage, I can exercise again, I'm playing with my kids or grandkids. And, you know, I was able to be intimate again with my husband after 10 year hiatus. I mean, there's so many beautiful stories out there. And it does make a difference. It certainly is part of my daily regimen.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 28:15

It's a non estrogen based so for cancer patients, they can use it so that you have

Dr. Anna Cabeca 28:18

a lot of oncologists that are recommending it to their patients, which is so nice. And we're getting great results.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 28:25

So that is something that we will post link to in the show notes because that sounds exciting. I'd like to try that myself. Yeah, that's I'm gonna send you some stuff. So let's go back to diet for a moment, because you just mentioned that as well. But I want to hear more from you about your this keto green kind of approach that you've created. Right? So most women Yes, want to balance their hormones. But of course, they want to lose weight in the process as well. So you've created kind of this novel approach to help women over 50 beat the Bulge. So tell us about this approach and why it works so well and why it helps to balance their hormones. you've alluded a little bit to that. But let's expand on that.

Dr. Anna Cabeca 29:00

Yeah. So and it really comes from the second you know, another part of my story is that when I was 48, just burnout, struggling single mom at this point managing two teenagers and a wee one in elementary school. And then overnight, like after having lost, you know, I'd been well over 240 pounds, lost over 80 pounds, kept it off for nearly a decade. And then, you know, overnight without doing anything different, right? Stephanie, your patients will come in and say, you know, hey, without doing anything different, I'm gaining weight and I'm like to add that there's a Snickers bar in your purse or you're driving through for an extra meal or you're not exercising as much but serious. God will make me humble and without doing anything different. I gained 20 pounds overnight. Nothing different. So you know, I'm like, What the heck's happening and that's what I write about in my second book, keto green 16.

The 13 weight management hormones of menopause, not just about estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, those were dialed in thyroid know dialed in, right dialed in. That's my expertise that was dialed in what else was going on? Right? And so here is like, well, first of all, you know, and then brain fog, irritability snapping at my children, like, Who's this monster that showed up this morning? Like, where did she come from? You know, and be seriously asked my kids, they will not hold back and tell you, you know. And so this is a really important that was part of my discovery. First of all, I was like, Okay, well, I knew about the keto diet, because my oldest daughter had seizures. And I know about keto for helping with seizures, as well as a keto or carbohydrate restricted diet for helping my patients with chronic yeast infections are candidiasis. And so I'm like, okay, cutting out all carbs. And like, you know, within a week, I felt like I was hitting a wall, like, I didn't like how I felt and what's going on.

And so that led me to do something that I told my patients do when I'm detoxing them, check your mph, like what's happening checking my blood check in my urine pH, what's going on here? My urine pH was as acidic as the pH paper read. And that was a big eye opening moment for me because it was like aha moment it was like, Oh, no wonder I feel irritable. No wonder I don't feel grounded, I feel inflamed. I feel on edge. You know, I'm not, I'm not at this, this that healthy base, baseline basic foundation, that my body will thrive at that we know based on research that more alkaline, if we maintain a more alkaline urine, we have less risk of diabetes, heart disease, inflammatory disease, cancer, osteoporosis, etc. So that for me was like, Okay, let's start adding all the low carbohydrate greens, I mean, beet greens, I've thrown those away for years, right? beet greens are one of the most alkalinizing nutritious, amazing foods, and you know, cruciferous vegetables, and spinach and kale and started adding all this into my diet. And then also with that starting to get more alkaline, feeling better.

And, you know, doing more and more intermittent fasting because it took me a long time to get into ketosis. Again, I'm a scientist, I measure, you know, what gets measured gets managed, right? We know that in business and in personal life, what gets measured gets managed. And so you know, checking urine ketone, what's my, what's my glucose level, what's my urine, ketones, what's my blood ketones? What's going on? You know, with my urine pH, what's happening each part of this day me was very fascinating to me. And so, as I did that, in the mornings, I would get up in the morning, and I would go out for a walk on the beach, or go out I do my gratitude journaling. Before I start my day, I was more alkaline all day, more alkaline, more grounded, nicer all day. That's the power of oxytocin and decreasing cortisol. That's the power. And so in my book, my first book, the hormone fix, I really talk about those ways that we can increase oxytocin in our life and how physiologically powerful that is, right?

Laughter family connection, most powerful medicine. There is and I'll share with you that as a practice, because again, I told you single mom, teenagers, you know, not loving me post divorce, right and all girls, and we went to elementary school and three different schools and I'm doing this supporting my family doing this all and burn, you know, burnout off the time. And as I started doing this, I kind of from spiraling down re, you know, changing my energy from this negative spiral into this really positive, grounded place. I remember when morning, so we'd like typical morning would be the girls told me this goes you know, Mom, you remember when you were just we were late to school and you drive through Starbucks, just because we were late anyway. I'm like, Oh, yeah, I remember that. And so like from that hectic because I have to drive them all to three different schools, right. And so I remember specifically, as I'm doing this, and really working on that gratitude practice, and, you know, like focusing on where did I see love And where was I loving?

And where could I laugh at myself in that part of that gratitude journaling practice? I remember one morning, I came downstairs and I was like, oh, man, I gotta get up and get everyone. Everyone ready. And then my one of my teenage daughters came down. She's like, Hey, Mom, I'm ready for school. I fix breakfast. I'm like, what, who's this towel, big love on her face. And she's like, gives me a kiss. So she goes catch the school bus on time. And then my little one comes down, says I love you mom and gets off to catch the school bus on time. And I was like, What alternate universe did I come into? And that's why I say this because we sacrifice to make sure everyone else is better. But let me tell you, when we are healthier, when we are grounded, when we have a strong foundation, when our cup is full. Everyone else is better, especially our children around us. Especially when you see your children starting to go in different directions bounce off walls, check your energy first. What conduit are we for them, and that's why our health is critically important for the health of our family.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 34:58

So good. So Then when our cup is full, and everyone else's, it's better to I love that. Could you be missing out on magnesium. If you aren't already taking magnesium you likely should be our deficient food sources caffeine consumption, stress and exercise, rob us of magnesium, which is an important cofactor for hundreds of processes in the body, it can calm your mind and ease your nerves to help you sleep at night and help reduce anxiety, PMS and headaches. It can relax your muscles when you have cramps your bowels when you're constipated. And it's required for energy hormone production and vitamin D absorption. If you're interested in exploring more about how magnesium can help support you living a longer, healthier life, and the exact type of magnesium supplement to look for, check out my blog post the magnificence of magnesium found at your longevity blueprint calm or slash blog, and use code magnesium for 10% off our magnesium keylite product at your longevity blueprint.com. Now let's get back to the episode. Well, you kind of already alluded to this, I was gonna ask you what is your daily routine? Like what do you eat? What are your lifestyle practices? And you kind of just shared a few of those. But can you tell us what a day in the life of Dr. Anna is like?

Dr. Anna Cabeca 36:13

Yeah, I'll actually give today and always really working on staying in the present. That's the key staying in the present. So before I get out of bed in the morning, I think to myself, where did I see love? Where was I loving? And where did I laugh at myself? Or could have laughed at myself? And this morning? Sometimes it's just when I thought like, you know, what was what was so you know, where did I see love yesterday and it was just something that Eva did with the horses and you know, out at the bar, and I'm just laughing on the way home as we talked about it. And that was just a moment I could reflect on that just was That was perfect. That was good for me. And I get out and I got to six o'clock hot yoga class, infrared hot yoga here in Dallas amazing.

And I'm now addicted, which I don't like exercise at all. I'd rather sit on a couch and read all day. So I did that got my daughter off to school breakfast and packed her lunch, got her off to school, and then I prepare for my day and about 10am I broke fast with a keto green smoothie. And I just had at one again, just before our call at 12 o'clock. I followed that keto green smoothie with a keto green salad which had just lettuce and some turkey meat and some Zafar, which is a time spice and sesame seeds. Sesame seeds are really great for hormone balancing. That's one of my favorites too. And some olive oil is some Himalayan sea salt, some pepper on it, and avocado. So that's a typical, very good keto green salad. And so the rest of the day if I if I eat again, which I've may or may not haven't decided we'll see how the day goes which is nice. But I'll have like a keto like keto green dinner, I like to try to eat by five or 6pm ideally, we'll see how it goes with kids schedule.

You know I'll work today till we have classes and our girlfriend doctor club live q&a today. So till about seven o'clock or six o'clock and take then. So that's kind of the evening routine tonight because my daughter has Bible study, take care to Bible study, the bedtime will be a little later. So typically like winding down around 930 10 o'clock, and really working on that evening ritual. So that evening ritual and you know, maybe having a cup of tea, a hot cup of tea, and some evening supplements and really focusing on Guinea just allowing myself to have a good night's sleep, which I have had to prioritize because as an OB in a solo practice. There were years I didn't sleep solid night through

Dr. Stephanie Gray 38:48

my bed, you're beating me to my questions because I was about to ask you what one of your favorite recipes is, but you just told me your salad, which is great. So tell me about the smoothie? The keto green smoothie what what's in there.

Dr. Anna Cabeca 38:58

Yeah, so I use my markup class which is my herbal adaptogenic combination with over 30 superfoods and so it's very alkalizing so I put a scoop or two today I put two scoops in and my I use a keto green shake mix which I've created again I'm very picky right so I wanted things that were clean and there's nothing on the market like it so and it's all vegan protein but with nuts and seeds as well as some plant based or other plant based proteins and other you know full complement of multivitamins and nutrients. So that keto green to add the protein and then adding some extra fat with some MCT oil and a quarter of an avocado. Avocado is seriously the track right you can also use zucchini, frozen zucchini, but avocado makes your smoothie so crude, creamy. It's just so so so good. Sometimes if I have other greens, I might put them in there today I didn't and yeah, that was it. That was a water and ice Oh yeah, some coconut coconut cream in there to just to add additional healthy fat.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 39:55

So you kind of changed your diet to eating this way you've created the products right? support that lifestyle, and you were able to lose the weight. Is this is this an approach for women who are also not in menopause yet? Is this an approach for all women that they can be successful

Dr. Anna Cabeca 40:10

with? Yeah, this is really, I think this is the way we need to eat through menopause. The keto green way, with intermittent fasting at least 13 to 16 hours between dinner and breakfast, some occasional longer fasting like I've just done, and just breaking up with sugar altogether. But now I say that, and I still like my feast days. I'm a true glutton at heart. I love my feast days. I love my wine. I love my chocolate. I love these things. And it's really important for metabolic flexibility. So we can't do the same thing the same food day in day out seasons change for a reason.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 40:42

Oh, yeah. And over and over. Yep.

Dr. Anna Cabeca 40:44

And so that metabolic flexibility is really important. I don't think the keto Greenway is just a good idea. You know, I think it's mandatory. Because once we get into ketosis, and really focus on, you know, hormonal health, bone health, you know, anti inflammatory the whole keto alkaline way, our brain uses ketones for fuel, preferentially, you know, if glucose isn't available, right, when but the issue is, as we get older, the brain's ability to use glucose for fuel, as research has shown, it's hormone dependent. So as our hormones are plummeting, our brain is starving. So this may be part of the reason that women have over twice as much Alzheimer's as men. So we want to avoid that completely. So it's not just a good idea is it is a way of life. It is a way of life and it's a really good easy way of life. It takes time, it takes time.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 41:38

Yeah, I agree. And you I mean, you and both your books, you have recipes, there's I mean, the whole back of this book is wonderful recipes. So I encourage the listeners, check that out. For sure. You have given us so many helpful tips, encouraging tips, I'm sure to many of them. But I have to ask what your top longevity tip would be. I asked all my guests that so what would your top longevity to be it can be something you've already mentioned. But what's your answer there?

Dr. Anna Cabeca 42:03

Yeah, yeah, you know, I gosh, oh my goodness, I you know that Eric, I'm debating all these things. You know, everything comes to my head like you know, get keto green, check your urine pH, get that alkaline. I mean, all the you know, exercise move daily. I think the number one longevity tip is have good relationships, have loving good relationships with yourself, with God with others.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 42:26

I love that I've no one has said that. I've asked this question, you know, 70 times. So no one has said that so i i like that. Good, unique answer. Well, tell us where listeners can find you.

Dr. Anna Cabeca 42:39

Easy to find me at Dr. Anna calm. So Dr. A, and N a.com. We're on Instagram at the girlfriend doctor and and we driving Kettering community on Facebook.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 42:50

Wonderful. And I know you also have a free gift for our listeners. So tell us about that.

Dr. Anna Cabeca 42:55

Yes, so we're gonna send you to a gift page which has some free samples, my Java sample and just small amount for shipping. So at Java trials, that's seven nights of Java, you can smell it, feel it, it's just amazing. And you're going to want you're going to want it I mean, seriously, it is something I consider essential beginner essential vanity stuff for your vanity for sure. And longevity. And then also it has free for trial pack for mighty maka, my adaptogenic formula, and a hormone quiz, you just kind of check in to see where you're at, like, what is your hormone toxicity score and what again, what gets measured gets managed, and sometimes we we can follow lab work, but ideally, how our symptoms and often you know, like within a couple weeks, we see our symptom score decrease significantly. And that's what, that's what we're here to do. And again without a prescription pad right without a drug.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 43:53

That's wonderful. Well, thank you so much. We'll post the links to all those free gifts in the show notes. So thank you for coming on the show you clearly practice what you preach, which is wonderful. I love your story. I'd encourage all the listeners to check out your books, of course. Yeah, again, we'll post those links in the show notes. So I just want to thank you for being so open and vulnerable and sharing your story and just for your passion with what you do. You're changing the lives of so many women and and, and men but specifically women so thank you so much Dr. Anna, thanks for coming on the show.

Dr. Anna Cabeca 44:21

Thank you

Dr. Stephanie Gray 44:25

Well What fun was that to talk to Dr. qhubeka not gonna lie I'm eager to go test my urine Ph. I might have to do some experimenting on my own to see if an hour of laughter turns that you're in more alkaline it certainly sounds like it will. laughter is the best medicine. But with all seriousness, I encourage you to read her books and try her mighty maka and jova products and the link included in the show notes you will also see her magic menopause and sexual CPR courses as well. We also now carry the job of cream in store at the integrative health and hormone clinic and even have a seven day free trial while supplies last. Again online use code Stephanie g 10 for 10% off using the link in the show notes Be sure to check out my book your longevity blueprint. And if you aren't much of a reader, you're in luck. You can now take my course online where I walk you through each chapter in the book. Plus for a limited time the course is 50% off, check this offer out at your longevity blueprint.com and click the course tab. One of the biggest things you can do to support the show and help us reach more listeners is to subscribe to the show. And leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. I read all the reviews and would truly love to hear your suggestions for show topics, guests or how you're applying what you've learned on the show to create your own longevity blueprint. The podcast is produced by the team at counterweight creative. As always, thanks so much for listening and remember, wellness is waiting.

The information provided in this podcast is educational. No information provided should be considered to be or used as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your personal medical authority.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai