06/16/2026
7 unhinged things I do that the average 15-minute insurance appointment will never:
1. We prescribe testosterone to women when clinically low or nonexistent. To restore a normal female range, not to bodybuild. It’s the hormone behind drive, libido, motivation, and the spark midlife women say they’ve lost.
2. We treat a ferritin of 30 as low. Standard labs flag “low” at 11. By 30, hair is thinning, workouts feel impossible, and anxiety is climbing. I retest until women are at 70–100. That’s where they actually feel like themselves.
3. I tell stressed women to stop intermittent fasting. Skipping breakfast suppresses T3, raises cortisol, and tanks progesterone in women who are already losing it.
4. I recommend red meat. Often. Heme iron, B12, creatine, zinc, complete protein. The data linking unprocessed red meat to disease in healthy adults eating a whole food diet is weak. Most women we see are nutrient-depleted and need it.
5. We run labs in optimal ranges, not normal ranges. “Normal” is the range of the general population (news flash…the general pop is not well). Optimal is where women function. A TSH of 3.5 is technically normal and clinically suboptimal.
6. I fix how you eat before I add more supplements or meds. Bloating in midlife usually isn’t just a probiotic problem. It’s years of stress, irregular meals, and meds that wore down how your body breaks food down in the first place. Adding more pills on top of a system that’s not working is a band-aid. The real fix is how you eat, when you eat, and giving your body what it needs to digest again.
7. We prescribe progesterone to women of all ages, not just in menopause and not just with estrogen replacement. High estrogen relative to progesterone is rampant and it’s driving heavy periods, PMS that takes women out for 10 days a month, anxiety, sleep loss, migraines, and fibroid growth.
Progesterone is more supportive and has fewer downstream risks than birth control. I believe one day it’ll be a standard answer. Right now, almost nobody is doing it.
If you’re sick of falling through the cracks because you don’t have an illness but you don’t feel like yourself at all, schedule a free discovery call.