130. Why You Have Adrenal Fatigue with Dr. Tricia Pingel

Dr. Tricia Pingel 0:06

We need to give to ourselves because we give to ourselves. It's amazing how it all falls into line.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 0:15

Welcome to the Your 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. Today you get to hear from Dr. Tricia Pingel. Today's focus is on recognizing stress. We're going to chat about the nutritional impact of chronic low grade stress that leads to future disease development. Dr. Tricia is going to encourage you to start prioritizing yourself and to set boundaries important to health and longevity because our current lifestyles and technology have a massive impact on our health and she believes we become so accustomed to it that we're failing to recognize the significant impact stress has on our health. Let's get started.

Thanks for joining me for another episode of The Your Longevity Blueprint podcast. today. My guest is Dr. Tricia Pingel, aka the Hip Hop Energy Doc was a naturopathic physician and energy expert. She has helped hundreds of people restore their health by showing them how to identify the stress causing their symptoms, restoring their nutrition depleted by stress and assisting and changing their mindset to repel incoming stressors so that they can return to their happy, vibrant and energetic selves. She's the author of the total health turnaround which has sold over 60,000 copies, creator of DIY programs like the 30 day total health turnaround, the seven day ultimate detox and the 30 day blocking for weight loss. She is the CEO of Total Health Apothecary and the CEO of Pingel Progressive Medicine and Naturopathic Concierge Medical Practice. She's a health blogger and the host of Facebook and Instagram weekly lives Ask Dr. Pingel. She has appeared on lots of TV shows and she has contributed as an expert to many publications. It's no secret that this mom doctor and hip hop enthusiast is known as a hip hop energy doc. Dr. Pingel is commonly found dancing all over social media cheering on her two boys at football creating healthy vegan recipes in her kitchen, and snuggling her three dogs and cat at home with her husband in Phoenix, Arizona. After experiencing her own health struggles and personal loss, she strives in creating a community of positivity, gratitude and living every day to his fullest potential. Welcome to the show. Dr. Pingel.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 2:20

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 2:22

I don't even know how to pronounce your name. Did I say that right? Angle? All right. Well, tell us your story. How do you become the hip hop energy Doc,

Dr. Tricia Pingel 2:32

You know, I think I was coined to hip hop energy doc, because I love to dance, but getting into, you know, and I just feel like I guess I live every day to its fullest potential. And I've been through so much in my life where I feel like doors have been shot, or I've been down on things or whatnot. And I just came to a point in my life where I thought, You know what, we have a limited amount of time on this planet. And we might as well spend it doing things that we love to do. And I would say that dance is probably my favorite thing. I mean, I don't think you ever see me on the dance floor. I'm not worrying about anything else. I think it's it's probably my biggest stress reliever. So that's how I became the hip hop energy doc. And then I figured, well, heck, let's take it to social media and see if people like it, and people do. And I think there's a lot of dancers out there that are afraid to get up and do it, because they're afraid of what people are think. But there is so much beauty and dance when it comes to stress reduction and health and exercise and just mood. You just got to keep moving.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 3:32

I love it. So tell us Have you always had this energy, kind of tell us a little bit about your personal struggles and how you got into specifically treating adrenal fatigue because I want to get into adrenal fatigue. I think a lot of us, a lot of the listeners have this. So did you struggle with that? Is that part of your story?

Dr. Tricia Pingel 3:48

Absolutely. I kind of went into medicine from two different perspectives. One I was that person that was always going to the doctor who wasn't necessarily sick or diseased, but not well, you know, losing hair, low muscle mass feeling tired, not sleeping, well, horrible menstrual periods, horrible gut health. I mean, I was bloated. I had stomach aches from the time I was little. And every time I'd go to the doctor, it was like, hey, you need to go to a therapist. There's nothing wrong with you. You're perfectly fine. You're healthy, get over it. So I went through most of my life with that type of response, I guess from the conventional medical system. And then when I became a young adult, I experienced a lot of loss. I've lost my dad, I've lost my mom, I've lost my grandparents, everyone who was around me has passed on and when they were going through their health struggles, I was there trying to be their patient advocate and dealing with medicine on the other side, and not getting the education that I needed to help me feel good and helping them. So all of that kind of came to a head in my late 20s And I said you know what, there has to be a better way to have more patience. Education, more proactive ways to forward your health and I ended up landing in naturopathic medicine. So you can believe it, I was originally going to be a veterinarian, that was my path. Which is why I have, you know, three dogs, two cats, and you know, but I switched it, I was ready to go to vet school and came across naturopathic medicine and said, You know what, like, with everything I've gone through, and I still wasn't well, at the time, to be honest, I really wasn't where I wanted to be. But I started on that path, started seeing a naturopath myself and started to realize that I really didn't have a lot to do. It was just small, little tweaks, it was just somebody sitting down and looking at me from a holistic point of view and saying, Look, your diet needs some adjustment here, you know, these herbs can really help you, here's where all this is coming from. And I started to just improve with that. On top of that, also experiencing my own adrenal fatigue. Because I went through medical school, I had two babies, I had a husband, I'm a very driven person, I was exhausted, and I was sitting in an office visit one day, I'll never forget it. And I was talking to a patient and she was 100%. Me, like, I was looking in a mirror. And she was like, This is how I feel, this is what I need. This is where I feel lost whatnot. And I don't your elbow sort of crying during the visit? Because I thought, okay, I know, I thought no, this is me too. And if I can sit here, and I can help these people, I can help myself. And that, I think is the turning point for me personally, to where I said, Okay, I'm no good to other people, if I'm not taking care of myself. And my patients are no good to other people, if they're not taking care of their selves. So why don't we go on this journey together as a doctor and a patient and Let's heal each other. And I think there was just a turning point for me, I started doing my own protocols, I started really paying attention to my outlook on life, prioritizing myself, and amazingly, now I have more energy, I do more I can take better care of my patients, I enjoy my life, I enjoy my work. And I think so often, Stephanie, we think that we always have to be at the bottom of our list. In order to be productive, we have to give to everybody else, so that we can get it all done when in reality we need to give to ourselves, because if we give to ourselves, it's amazing how it all falls into line totally is a long story short, that's how I ended up here.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 7:21

Those for my listeners who have heard my story, that's kind of why I wrote my book and created my blueprint as well, the longevity blueprint, right in the name of that podcast, because I was struggling with issues and I was helping patients and I thought, Man, I'm getting other people and not treating myself. So let's create this protocol that I too can follow to regain my health. So our story's a little similar in that. What else? I think I've had adrenal fatigue, I think I still have some degree of that. So let's define that for the listener. So what exactly is adrenal fatigue?

Dr. Tricia Pingel 7:46

I think we all have it, because we now live in a society where we're just constantly stimulated. So adrenal fatigue ultimately means that the adrenal glands are dysregulated, they're not working as they're supposed to. Now, this could mean that cortisol is too high. This could mean that it's too low. This could mean that it's in between like a roller coaster, which is how I find most people. It's up, down, up, down, up, down. And I think we've kind of created this society where we're constantly stimulated. And because we're so stimulated, we feel

Dr. Stephanie Gray 8:16

unstimulated We need to get used to being okay. unstimulated Yeah, oh, we

Dr. Tricia Pingel 8:21

need more coffee, oh, we need medications to boost us up. Oh, we need to take stimulants. Because we're so tired. When really what's happening is our body is just simply overstimulated. And that causes fatigue, it causes an overwhelm, just breakdown of everything we do. When we look at adrenal function, we're looking at essentially two different nervous systems, the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system. And the sympathetic nervous system is that fight or flight, I often say if you're in the woods, and you're taking a hike and you see a bear, what happens in that moment, you know, your heart rate goes up, your blood pressure goes up, you start to panic, you get really honed in and you start running, and you don't pay attention to the flowers you run by, you don't even know what direction you're running, you just run right. And during that time, you don't stop to have sex, you don't stop to eat, you don't digest your food, you just run and you get away from it. And we were built to do that. And it's actually a very efficient system. But our problem is we continue to turn the corner and see another bear. Sometimes there's five bears, some there's just stuff coming at us. And so what happens is less and less time and that parasympathetic nervous system, I can't remember it maybe, you know, I had looked at the stats at one point, it was like we spend at minimum of 80% of our time and sympathetic fight or flight when we're supposed to only be spending like 15 to 20% of our time in it. So it's no wonder that we have cardiovascular disease, we have diabetes, we have GERD that you know reflux disease, we have anxiety we have passion we have in Sami, of course because if you're constantly running from a bear, you can't do any of the maintenance and you're depleting all of your nutrients. Vitamin C B vitamins, minerals. So what you consumed doesn't even get absorbed appropriately. And we end up in what I call a hamster wheel of just slow disease development. And to your point that sugar impacts our longevity. So I really do think it's important for us to start to be mindful of how much time are we really spending over here, when we should be spending more time over here dancing or doing something that we really want to do?

Dr. Stephanie Gray 10:24

So for the listeners, I know we've talked a little bit about this on the show, but how would one know if they're in fight or flight or not? Because I think sometimes even with my my story, I had severe tachycardia. And honestly, back then, I mean, now looking back in that moment, of course, I was overstressed. I had way too much on my plate, whatnot. But in the moment, I didn't think I did. You know, I had a great morning, seeing patients, I sat down at my desk, and all of a sudden, I had this super high heart rate and landed me in the ER, like, I was like, blind to the fact that I was probably on the sympathetic overdrive in that moment. So how does one know if they are in fight or flight or not? And how do you with your patients kind of test for this adrenal fatigue?

Dr. Tricia Pingel 11:05

You know, for me, one of the big indicators is you have a symptom, you go to the doctor, and you're told there's nothing there. You have tech, a cardiac, oh, your heart's fine. Okay, well, then what's causing? Oh, well, well, it's fine. You're fine. Okay. This month, maybe we should think about this being a physiological functional response, right. And I think a lot of self reflection. And I think anytime you don't feel great, you know, I have this this thing, which always drives me crazy is you go to the doctor, and let's say you're 50. And they're like, oh, that's normal for 50. And there's like this acceptance that we're supposed to be feeling like crap, like, that's normal. And I just can't subscribe to that. I certainly don't expect to feel like I'm 15 When I'm 50. But at the same time, I should feel good. And if I don't, and nobody's telling me why they're just throwing a medication at me and managing the symptom, I think that's a good indication that you should have a full workup. As far as the full workup goes, I love biochemistry, probably my favorite thing. I'm a total dork. And I love to get a full blood workup of the entire endocrine system, lay it all out and balance it next to each other. There is so much information that comes from that. Is the body storing estrogen. What are the DHEA levels? What's the conversion between testosterone estrogen and progesterone, could progesterone be going to cortisol, there's all these little things that happen is the thyroid storing, there's all these little things that happen in that interim, between health and disease in the body, right? You when You can look at that as a holistic picture and really sit down and have a full discussion with your doctor about it, it usually becomes pretty clear as to what's going on. There are all these Specialty Tests. And I think when people are a little bit newer to evaluating this, they use them. For me, it's been so many years that when I sit down and I look at a full overview, and I talk to someone about their symptoms, we usually collectively come to a decision that there might be a little more fight or flight going on and maybe being recognized. The cool part is when you realize what it is how fast you can remedy it. I mean, I think we're missing so much education, right? You go into the doctor, oh, your labs are all off take care. You know, it's like, well, wait a minute. Tell me why I mean, it's a lot easier to commit to a diet and lifestyle. When you know why you're doing it. You know, I could hand someone 20 supplements, but if they don't understand what they're trying to do, or what markers are trying to watch and modify, they're not going to be as compliant. Right. So I think addressing this is just having the opportunity to sit with someone who understands it and really have a good powwow about the mental, emotional health and the physical health and how they blend together.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 13:43

I agree, I run a lot of the same lab tests. And once we've been in this long enough, we both have probably been at this over a decade. It's like you can just kind of tell the patient that walks in your office, just probably the majority of them right that their adrenals are stressed whatnot. Can you talk about the difference between someone who has high cortisol and low cortisol? So what would be the difference in those symptoms? Yes, some people fluctuate, but just for the listeners, let's kind of talk about symptoms of high and low cortisol. Yeah,

Dr. Tricia Pingel 14:09

I break it down in stages. stage one, stage two, stage three. So stage one is high. Stage two is roller coaster, stage three is on the floor, right? So stage one high it's the super let's call it the Superwoman phase. You're kicking butt you're doing everything you're on top of it you feel like you're on top of the world you're in control you're taking stuff on oh hey, I need this oh, do it you know you just keep bringing stuff on. You might not be sleeping as well but you're not necessarily fully exhausted yet. I have seen in more recent years. But I have seen in recent years, a lot of ADD and then stage a lot of just lack of focus feeling kind of like you have so much going on. A lot of the times you can get very overwhelmed during the stage because there's just it's that never ending to do list. Most people I meet by the time they come to me is stage two because stage Run, you feel great, you know, it's not until it starts to fluctuate that you go, gosh, I can't really sustain this, can I? What was it my grandmother used to say, you know, burning the candle at both ends, right? While you're good, then then it gets down there to hit. We spend a lot of time in stage two, I think it takes a lot longer than people think to get to stage three, we go up and down for a while, when you hit stage three, the cortisol is just not pumping out. It's just not it's, it's at a very low level, almost to the point of an adrenal insufficiency. By the time you get there, there's usually a ton of pain, a ton of depression, a ton of weight loss, almost a hopelessness. My goal when I went into this, and I started recognizing the very strong impact of stress on health is I really have a mission to catch people in stage one, I really want to capture them then. Or the beginnings of stage two, because all of the rest of that can be prevented. If you can just recognize if people can start to recognize how much they're and here's a test, maybe not for you, for your audience, for sure. When you wake up in the morning, what's the first thing you do? Most people check their phone? Cortisol, that's the problem dopamine hit, you're hooked to the phone before you go to bed. Do you check your phone? So when you get home from work every day, or whatever you're doing? Are you constantly checking your phone? So every time you're doing that, it's your body's saying, oh, I need more. I need more, give me more stimulation, give me more stimulation. And it's almost like an addiction. So I usually can tell just from that question alone, how stressed out the person is because that in itself causes cortisol irregularity. So taking time for yourself in the morning, waking up, spending time with your family, drinking some water, you know, going outside, maybe if you drink a cup of coffee or tea going outside and just sitting, I personally love to listen to music, some people like it silent and not jump right into that. Go, go go go go. So

Dr. Stephanie Gray 16:59

yeah, yeah, I hear some of the most I listen to a lot of podcasts, you probably do as well. But I hear a lot of very successful people just say I'm not looking at my phone until 10am or whatnot, by they don't even go there. And I think that takes so much self control. But I see the value in that too. So that can be a charge to our listeners to at least try to push off looking at your phone a half an hour an hour trying to try to push that. I mean,

Dr. Tricia Pingel 17:20

I think back when we were growing up, when I was in school, my mom would go to work. And she check her voicemails at work and return her phone calls at work. And then she'd come home and maybe she'd check the answering machine and see if there was anything pending. And then she sat down and had dinner with me. Like, and then you know, whatever we did for the evening, and then we went to bed, you didn't go back to the office and check her voicemails. And I think, you know, I'm a concierge doctor, right? I'm accessible. But at the same time, I still set those boundaries. Okay, I checked my phone between, you know, 8am and 6pm. And I schedule all my stuff during the day. And I think it just comes down to setting a lot of boundaries so that you can actually be more available and more present in your own life, which brings joy, happiness and

Dr. Stephanie Gray 18:05

longevity. Yes, and we're allowing you and God work. I don't like the word charge. I need to find a different word in charge. But we're telling the listeners that it's okay to do that. We're recommending giving permission. That's what I was looking for giving you permission to do that. Yeah. So let's talk about how Adrenal Fatigue is approached by traditional conventional medicine. I think he kind of already said they just say you're fine.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 18:29

It's not. It's not. I mean, I get pushed back on that all the time, I'll post something external fatigue isn't real adrenal fatigue isn't realistic. Okay. Well, if it's not real, then why does 80% of America complain of stress related fatigue and office visits? I mean, that's a pretty big number. I think fatigue might even be the number one complaint in our country. And if we're not going to do something about that, we're just going to dismiss it. I mean, it's sad. And I think that's where we come in, is to really look at where's that interim between health and disease? I've had so many patients go in and have their cortisol tested through urine, and they didn't come back with Addison's disease. So all of a sudden, they were fine. Your cortisol rhythms were all over the place, and they've felt horrible, you know, to go to a doctor feeling horrible and leave the doctor feeling horrible. And then six months later, still feel horrible. And then six months after that still feel horrible. I can imagine if I hired a plumber to like fix my sink, and it was in exactly the same condition A year later, I probably wouldn't rehire them. Good point. You know, I think they need to open up to this opportunity. Now with that said, I've met so many amazing physicians in the conventional world that absolutely believe in adrenal fatigue and treat adrenal fatigue and I'm so grateful for that because I do think it's changing. Historically, though, it's been pretty much ignored. And I think your audience would probably agree to that and how many people have gone in and said, I'm just tired,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 19:52

okay, take care. And that's really I think, begs the importance of functional medicine. I'm glad that you're feeling like more conventional Doc's are more Being maybe more open minded to this now, but that again, kind of big part of my book as far as I kind of describe the difference between conventional medicine and functional medicine, conventional medicine being more of the fire department, they're here to put out big bad ugly fires. So if you have Addison's disease, they'll treat you right. Or if you have a heart attack, they'll treat you but more of a carpenter approach where we help repair and rebuild the body happens with functional medicine, not with conventional medicine. So let's talk about rebuilding patients bodies when they have adrenal fatigue. So tell us your process for kind of helping people with adrenal fatigue. Yeah, and

Dr. Tricia Pingel 20:29

it's highly customized, but it essentially comes down to four different areas. One diet, you have to eat a diet that repeats the nutrients being lost by stress. So nutrient dense food, now I'm personally plant based people always say, oh, gosh, does that mean I have to go vegan? No, it doesn't mean you have to go vegan, everybody's body is different. What I'm looking for is are you eating nutritionally sound food that's replenishing what's being lost. That's what I care about and doesn't work for you, right? Number two, there's always an element of exercise, we have to get moving. Now somebody in stage three is probably going to have a different exercise regimen than someone in stage one. But something to consider is often, especially when you're starting to gain some extra weight, you always think that more is better. The more you run, the more you push, the more you with adrenal fatigue, that's not always the case, because you're already in a stimulated state, you're already running from a bear every day. So if you add on more bears, that's not always great. I've had more clients over the years, particularly in stage one and early stage two, that when they actually backed away from exercise, and just did strength training, Pilates, yoga, they lost weight. And after doing CrossFit and you know, hit and all this for years, and that's

Dr. Stephanie Gray 21:39

totally my story. Many of my health issues kind of happened. I will say shortly after I got married, and I was trying to get fit. So I was doing CrossFit because I used to be a gymnast, and I thought to have any sort of muscle gain, I have to do CrossFit. And it got to the point where I literally could not physically I push my body way too hard. But I got to the point where I couldn't do it. I couldn't even get on a treadmill, my heart rate was so high, even jogging on a treadmill. My heart was moving. So hey, Mike, what's going on? Why am I so short of breath, because like knowing your limits, I was I was pushing myself just way too hard. And so I do tell patients, it's not that you can't do CrossFit, you need to listen to your body. But don't do CrossFit 60 days a week, do yoga on some off days, right have calming down days, if you're going to have some stimulating days and just pay attention to kind of where you're at with adrenal fatigue and and whatnot. 100% agree, go back home and revenue. But you're saying number one, number two, within less one to three, it's

Dr. Tricia Pingel 22:30

supplement, you know, often we can't replenish some of those nutrients. Or we have you see in the bloodwork that maybe there's some hormone conversion issues, or some liver congestion or things that all inflammation, you know, maybe the immune system has taken a hit from the stress. You know, stress impacts every aspect of our body. And that's what my book goes into is it basically a stress is the core. And then each chapter talks about the top 10 medical conditions in our country and how stress contributes to those or causes them, and probably is the most unrecognized factor and untalked about you know, no one talks about it. So often you go and you customize a supplement approach to that. There's some generals, you know, almost always, they're going to have to be on some sort of methylated B vitamin or some sort of C and usually minerals and probiotics. But then often they do have to do extensive liver or hormone support or such as that. Number four is the hardest one, hands down. Because anybody can, you know, just follow the rules and change their diet, exercise and take supplements. But the hardest part is in the brain, to turn off that phone, to say no to people to prioritize yourself, to practice gratitude with your body. I think when you're under a lot of stress, it's really easy to be you know, Debbie downer, it's easy to look at yourself in the mirror and say, Oh, I look horrible. I don't look like I used to my clothes don't fit, I'm miserable. You know, why can't you be better? Why can't you be like I used to be. And that's just bringing down that energy and keeping you in that fight or flight, that urgent emergency stage of I have to do something as opposed to just saying, Okay, I am where I am right now, because I'm supposed to be here. And I'm going to now move forward with gratitude and appreciation and positivity to improve my life and improve other's lives. I don't think anyone can argue that when you genuinely give to somebody else in some way, you feel better about yourself. So some of those techniques that I use is writing a gratitude journal. And this could be as simple as I was running late for work today by 10 minutes. And instead of saying, Oh, I was late to work, it's like, but I got 10 more minutes with my child at home. And that was great. Taking something and reframing it and turning it positive. I'm also scared. Yeah, it's huge. Yeah, because it's so easy to pick the negative. And by the way, and if you're on your phone and scrolling social media, there's negative everywhere. And the last couple of years have been an absolute testament to that just the more negative stuff we're seeing the more anger we have as a collective unit. The more distress the more fear the more anger and fear and anger don't lead to progress. They keep you on the same spot, right? So sometimes there's a level of acceptance that has to happen. And goal setting, and gratitude and appreciation to move to the next level. One of my favorite practices is I try to smile at three people a

Dr. Stephanie Gray 25:16

day, like strange, random people, look up

Dr. Tricia Pingel 25:19

a grocery store, and I'll be in line and someone will be there. And I'll just smile at them and say, Hi, good morning. And it's funny, because often they're caught in their head in that moment, they're thinking about what they're supposed to do next. But I almost break the cycle for them by just saying, Hey, how's your day? Good morning, and then they smile back. And then I received that energy back from them. And usually it doesn't always prompt a conversation, but it usually prompts a break and that energy that that nervous energy, that's one of my favorite practices that everybody could go do right now or tomorrow morning. So I can just say hi to people, especially someone that looks like maybe they need it, it just to create more community, less stress on them and on you.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 26:01

Beautiful, I want to go back and I, I hope you don't mind, I'm gonna ask you a personal question, because I don't know you super well. So tell me why you're vegan. I'm just curious. I have had many vegans on the show. And they've got to give me their response to that. But kind of telling me your reasoning. Well, and I

Dr. Tricia Pingel 26:15

should say, I'm not technically vegan, because I will still eat honey, Liz. So mine came 100% from a health perspective. When I was a kid, I had horrible stomach aches all the time. Everyone would keep trying to feed me meat. And that's what my family I grew up in Seattle, we had a lot of fish, I did okay with fish. But anytime someone would give me any red meat, I would take a couple bites and just go and I would start eating all the vegetables as I got older, and I started to really hone in on what my body was asking for. I just don't feel well when I eat it. And this has been a gradual progression over time. I started by eliminating beef poultry, I still ate fish and dairy. For a while cutting out dairy was a huge game changer for me. Huge. My stomach aches went away, my acne went away. My fatigue went away, my bloat went away. I had so many digestive concerns for years that nobody ever asked me about a doctor's visits. And nobody ever said, Hey, how often do you go to the bathroom? Ever? If they would have asked me when I was 13? I would have said once every 10 days. They didn't ask why I didn't. So then I gradually started eliminating more and started to find that when I eat something that my body doesn't agree with, I have a reaction. So I started to notice that anytime I would eat a meat product, my body would have some sort of reaction. And I thrive and have better energy when I lean more towards plant based foods. So it's been a gradual thing. I still will eat honey, if there's an egg and something you know, if it's a gluten free cupcake on my son's birthday, and it has egg in it. I seem to do okay with it. But I find if I eat eggs regularly even you know like grass fed or high quality, I start to develop symptoms. So I think it was a result of me just listening to what works for me. I'm very tall. I'm very thin. I'm very active blood type A you know, I am like my body is like burning on the plant.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 28:01

Did you have any I know I want to read your bio. Obviously you've written several or you have several recipes like a vegan recipes. Would you mind sharing maybe one or two of your favorite recipes, something that you incorporate on a daily basis?

Dr. Tricia Pingel 28:12

Absolutely. And I have all these on my website at Dr. pingle.com. So definitely check that out. I think my favorite meals usually are some sort of bowl because it allows me to kind of look at the macros a little bit. So I'll usually have some sort of grain and I'm gluten free. So it's usually a quinoa or buckwheat or millet and love millet if you haven't tried millet man, love millet. So I'll usually have a little bit of that. And then I'll have a bunch of variety of vegetables. I usually try to have multiple colors. I love sweet potatoes. I love broccoli. I think broccoli is probably my favorite. Sometimes I'll swap up broccolini you know, I'll throw different like variety of vegetables. And then for protein, I'll typically do something like a lentil. Or I'll do garbanzo beans are hummus and I love nuts and seeds. So I pile nuts and seeds onto everything. And sometimes it's hot, I'll do different types of sauces. I think the key to vegan cooking or to plant based cooking, and this may extend into meat cooking as well as the SOPs, it's the flavoring, you know, and it's finding different and creative ways to make sauce. So I use a lot of ginger. I use a lot of cayenne, I use a lot of cardamom. I'm really a fan of southern Indian cooking, where it's just warm arithmetically it's just very warm food. That works really well for me, it keeps my digestion going it keeps me full of energy. With that said my husband's completely the opposite, right. So everyone is so unique and so different. And I think if I can get a client to start to listen to what their body's asking for and feeding that. That's where I see the success. But some of the recipes on my website, my sweet potato enchiladas love those. I personally eat organic non GMO tofu. That's kind of a taboo area. Some people say yes, some people say no, really for me it comes down to balance, kind of think of another one. I have a vegan which

Dr. Stephanie Gray 29:59

I'm going to Are things on your website or on your website? Yeah, my bass. And I all

Dr. Tricia Pingel 30:04

goals are the easiest because they're quick, and you can prep them ahead of time and you just whatever you have on hand, you know. And once you get that all laid out, you kind of have a general, five different sauces you could use, you can take the same bowl and make it Mexican, Indian, Asian, like you can change the flavorings in it and make it a completely different meal. And I think that's probably why bowls are my go to.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 30:26

And if you're listening and you choose to eat meat, organic meat, hopefully right, you can easily add in some lamb, some beef whatnot, right to those bowls easily. Yeah. So here's another question. Have you always been so positive? Or do you did you use because you do you strike me as that person who would smile at me at HyVee? Like you're that person? At the grocery store? Sorry, if you're not from Iowa, you don't know what HyVee? Is? That's our grocery store. Have you always been this way? Is this in your blood? Or did the kind of losses and the struggles you've gone through? Right? And you kind of having that adrenal fatigue, whatnot, kind of flip a switch and you that turned you more positive? Would you say?

Dr. Tricia Pingel 30:59

Both? I think when I was a child, I was very wide eyed, very happy, very charismatic type personality. And I think the loss, the struggles, the pain, the grief, took me down, took me down to where I wasn't really myself, I was just going through the motions. I kind of felt like I don't know, not so severe as that I wouldn't have taken my life to anything to that extent, but something of just Why move forward. Like if everything's falling down, why keep doing this, and what's the point type attitude and I think I had that for a little while and I lost the spark in my eyes. And when I look at pictures from that time, and I compare it to now you can see it's gone. Like the sparkle that I have refound it was completely gone. And I think that experience and coming out of that is what has made me positive. And it was a huge tragedy that did that. And I don't think I would have come out of it. If I wouldn't have lost my mom. And I wouldn't have gone through that horrible grief. I don't think I would have appreciated so much of what I had and where I'm at and what my health is. And I watched her I went through cancer with her and watched her decline. And when she was maybe about a month before she passed, I said, Hey, Mom, do you have any regrets? And she said, You know what I regret the most. And I said what she goes worrying about those stupid 10 pounds, how much time have I wasted? And I thought, you know, that's a really good point. She said I'd give anything to have that 10 pounds right now, because she had wasted down to about 80 pounds, she was five foot 10 had no muscle mass. And you know, past a few weeks after that. So I do think there was some, they always say with great loss, and great tragedy comes amazing opportunity and change. And I 100% believe in that. So I would say I'm now like I wasn't I was a kid walking, dance. Let's live each moment because guess what, I could wake up tomorrow and not be here. And I think that's become so real to me with losing everybody how precious life is and how short time actually isn't that we really have no control over it outside of just living every day to its fullest.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 33:09

Amen. Absolutely. Okay, that's great show up. Before we wrap it up though. I want to go back and spend a little bit of time on supplements because you very briefly kind of flew through those when you're saying you know, 123 and four. Let's go back to what supplements right you heavily used for these patients who are really suffering, right because you're saying stress depletes nutrients. So which ones do you commonly supplement with your patients? Let's spend a little bit of time there and talk about herbs to your naturopath. So let's talk about herbs. Yeah, yeah, we've got

Dr. Tricia Pingel 33:38

herbal and we've got nutritional so on the herbal I use. I use blends because when you're working with herbs, they very rarely work just by themselves. They have a very balancing action to them. So for example, I love ashwagandha because you can put a check on the in balance with Rhodiola ginseng, and ginseng won't be as stimulatory but it will help with the adrenal gland. So there's some balancing going on. I will say Ashwagandha is a Nightshade. Some people are allergic to nightshades a lot of people don't know that they start taking an adrenal herb blend and they feel horrible. So I do want to point that out. Some of the herbs that I use in the evening to calm cortisol help you sleep. Better focus is I use amino acids such as this is a mouthful for your audience. I'll break it down slow phosphor turtle serine Phosphatidyl serine and l theanine, which are amino acids and usually I combine those with things like Bacopa ashwagandha. This is some of the general ones. And then there's also blends. You can take the morning that kind of wake your adrenal glands up which would be more along the lines of Rhodiola ginseng, sometimes licorice, I still put ashwagandha in there. Yeah, those are the basics. I mean, they kind of vary a little bit on the nutrient side. You deplete B vitamins hands down with stress. And B vitamins are used in pretty much anything that has to do with metabolism. Breaking down fats breaking down proteins breaking up creation of energy, so B vitamins and a very specific that they need to be methylated that's a whole nother show to talk about MTHFR. But I have MTHFR mutations, my family had them, I'm pretty sure that's how my dad passed, have cardiovascular disease because nobody paid attention to that mutation. So I'm very big on methylated vitamins, vitamin C, very important for the adrenal glands and any other sort of antioxidant. So that could be in the form of herbal could also be in the form of using an acetyl cysteine, which is an amino acid to go make more glutathione, selenium, zinc, and definitely magnesium. Magnesium depletes like crazy under stress. So minerals, B vitamins, vitamin C, herbs. And then as always, there is a huge link between the brain and the gut. So I always like a really good probiotic in there and make sure that gut flora is that those would be the main ones. And then I tweak from there. If they're having if they're going through menopause, or they're having menstrual issues, there might be some additional liver support over there. I do take personally, a really good liver support every night, I feel much better when I do I have better energy. I feel like I digest things better. So I always think it's great for general health, but it doesn't necessarily always relate to adrenal fatigue directly.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 36:15

Awesome. Good summary. Okay. Well, tell us I read a little bit about this in your bio, but where can listeners find you?

Dr. Tricia Pingel 36:22

Dr. pingle.com? Is a great start. It has all of my handles on there. Definitely Instagram and Tiktok. I do a little bit more dancing than on Facebook. But definitely check that out. But Dr. pingel.com,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 36:35

awesome. Awesome. And last but not least, what is your top longevity tip,

Dr. Tricia Pingel 36:38

reduce your stress and prioritize yourself!

Dr. Stephanie Gray 36:41

Did you hear that listeners Say that again.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 36:42

Say it one more time, reduce your stress and prioritize yourself, prioritize your health you have to you don't have a choice. Otherwise, you're going to just keep getting stepped on and get farther and farther down the chain. And it'll be harder and harder to come back up.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 36:58

So you actually do have a choice, I'm gonna occur to you, you do have a choice, you can do nothing. And then you said will happen right, your health will deteriorate. But yeah,

Dr. Tricia Pingel 37:05

we always have a choice. And that's, that's actually a great point you bring up we always have a choice. Like you could go into the grocery store and not smile at someone. That's your choice, but you won't have as good of a day, then if you do

Dr. Stephanie Gray 37:16

doctor's order. And that's great. Thank you so much today for coming on the show and sharing how important it is for us to recognize how stressed we really are to put that cell phone down, really teaching us to set boundaries, teaching us what we can do about adrenal fatigue. So thank you for sharing your story and coming on the show.

Dr. Tricia Pingel 37:30

Thank you so much for having me. I had a great time.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 37:37

I agree with all of Dr. Pickles tips. I'd encourage you to check out her social media. She's hilarious. She literally mixes Hip Hop dances with health tips. And I'd also love it if each of you would smile at three people today. I think it would do them and your adrenals some good. 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. Leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. I do read all the reviews and would truly love to hear your suggestions for show topics guests and for how you're applying what you learn on the show to create your own longevity blueprint. This podcast is produced by Tim podcast. Thank you 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.