Balancing Hormones Naturally

If you’ve been told you have low progesterone, your first question is probably how to raise it. About 90% of the women in my DMs are asking some version of this. In this episode, Leah walks through the symptoms, why progesterone drops in the first place, and five things you can start doing today.
In this episode:
The symptoms of low progesterone, including brown spotting, painful or heavy periods, PMS, anxiety, and digestive issues before your period.
Why “brown spotting is just old blood” is the wrong place to stop asking questions, and why your cycle is considered your fifth vital sign.
Why symptoms are a gift, and what happens to them (and the cost of fixing them) when they get ignored.
Why your body will always prioritize cortisol over progesterone, and what that means when you’re living in fight or flight.
What regulating your nervous system actually means (it’s not a bubble bath), and how to check in with your body and shift your state in two to three minutes.
The supplements and foods that support progesterone, including vitamin C, vitamin E, vitamin B6, magnesium, and potassium rich foods.
How seed cycling works, which seeds to use in each phase, and why grinding them fresh matters.
Why eating enough food, especially good fats, matters for hormone production, and what your body does when it thinks it’s in a famine
How food sensitivities, gut health, and toxic burden tie into progesterone.
Why progesterone cream isn’t the answer for everyone, and the stories of clients who lengthened their luteal phase and carried a successful pregnancy by finding the root cause.
How to sleep in complete darkness and why it’s the easiest hack on the list.
When to test progesterone (5 to 7 days after ovulation) and why you have to track ovulation first.
Why this episode is for women who are ovulating, and what to look at if you aren’t.
Pick one thing from this episode, start today, and report back on how it goes.
Leah’s Favorite Things: https://www.leahbrueggemann.com/favorites
I’m Leah Brueggemann, a Functional Diagnostic Nutritional® Practitioner and Hormone Health Coach, helping you balance your hormones in effective and realistic ways so you can live a healthier, happier life. Through the Balance Hormones Naturally podcast, you’ll discover why your cycle is so important to your everyday health and how you can use nutrition to help support the rise and fall of your hormones and finally feel truly amazing.
Let’s connect:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/balancinghormonesnaturally/
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leah_brueg/
Website: https://www.leahbrueggemann.com/
Email: leahbcoaching@gmail.com

You’ve been told to cut calories, do more cardio, and crunch your way to a flat stomach. None of that is going to work. Belly fat is a hormone problem, not a willpower problem, and until you understand what’s actually driving it, nothing is going to change.
In this episode:
- Why belly fat is different from every other type of fat, what makes it the most dangerous, and why you can’t spot reduce it with exercise.
- The three hormonal drivers behind belly fat, estrogen that isn’t detoxing well, cortisol imbalance, and insulin resistance.
- Why women need more sleep than men and what a bad night is actually doing to your cortisol, your cravings, and your insulin the next day.
- The client who lost 12 inches by focusing on cortisol and adrenal support, not cardio and restriction.
- Why your fasting insulin is the number to watch years before glucose or A1C starts to move, and what optimal actually looks like.
- The drainage pathway check, sweat, pee, poop, and breath, and why none of your detox efforts work if these aren’t open.
- The soluble fiber foods that help your body detox estrogen, including carrots, chia seeds, oranges, and sprouts.
- The supplement that mops up LPS toxins in the gut and supports your mucosal lining at the same time.
- Why manually balancing blood sugar supports your sleep, your cortisol, and your estrogen detoxification all at once.
- The circadian fast that helps clear insulin overnight without starving yourself.
- Why stevia and monk fruit still matter during your fasting window when you have insulin resistance.
- Apple cider vinegar before meals, how much, how diluted, and exactly why it helps.
- The two supplements Leah reaches for with insulin resistance, myo-inositol and maitake mushroom, and the data behind them.
- The app that locks Leah off her phone at 9pm every single night and why she credits it for better sleep.
- EFT tapping shown to reduce cortisol by 43%, and how to use it as a sleep ritual.
This is not a five day fix. But if you do these things consistently, you will see belly fat start to move, and it will stay gone.
Leah’s Favorite Things: https://www.leahbrueggemann.com/favorites
I’m Leah Brueggemann, a Functional Diagnostic Nutritional® Practitioner and Hormone Health Coach, helping you balance your hormones in effective and realistic ways so you can live a healthier, happier life. Through the Balance Hormones Naturally podcast, you’ll discover why your cycle is so important to your everyday health and how you can use nutrition to help support the rise and fall of your hormones and finally feel truly amazing.
Let’s connect:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/balancinghormonesnaturally/
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leah_brueg/
Website: https://www.leahbrueggemann.com/
Email: leahbcoaching@gmail.com

You can eat perfectly, take all the right supplements, and still feel like your hormones are a mess. If you’re not sleeping, nothing else is going to work the way it should. Here’s exactly why, and what to actually do about it.
In this episode:
Why sleep and hormones aren’t separate conversations, they’re the same conversation.

The cortisol and progesterone connection, why poor sleep steals from your keep calm carry on hormone and then makes sleep even harder.

How estrogen regulates REM sleep and why perimenopause, menopause, and postpartum hit so hard at night.

The hunger and fullness hormones that get completely thrown off when you don’t sleep well, and why you’re not weak for craving sugar 
after a bad night.

Why your thyroid mineral gets depleted by stress and poor sleep, and how that loops back into weight.

The melatonin fact nobody talks about, most of it is made in your gut, not your brain.

Why you cannot out supplement a sleep problem.

The four hour window between dinner and sleep, why it matters and what to do if you’re always hungry before bed.

The screen habits that are wrecking your middle of the night sleep without you realizing it.

The iPhone red screen hack, blue light glasses, and the sticky red paper on the Kindle.

Why what you do in the morning is equally as important as what you do at night, and the two minute outdoor habit that resets your circadian rhythm.

The brain dump routine that gets everything out of your head so you stop lying awake with a mental to do list.

Leah’s full six minute nighttime habit stack, acupressure mat, legs up the wall, near infrared light, and a visualization exercise.

The foods that actually help your body produce melatonin, including tart cherry and pistachios.

The supplements worth considering for sleep, magnesium glycinate, reishi, valerian, and CBD.

You don’t have to spend a lot of money to sleep better. But you do have to stop skipping the basics.
Leah’s Favorite Things: https://www.leahbrueggemann.com/favorites
I’m Leah Brueggemann, a Functional Diagnostic Nutritional® Practitioner and Hormone Health Coach, helping you balance your hormones in effective and realistic ways so you can live a healthier, happier life. Through the Balance Hormones Naturally podcast, you’ll discover why your cycle is so important to your everyday health and how you can use nutrition to help support the rise and fall of your hormones and finally feel truly amazing.

Let’s connect:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/balancinghormonesnaturally/
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leah_brueg/
Website: https://www.leahbrueggemann.com/
Email: leahbcoaching@gmail.com

The healing journey doesn’t have a finish line. And sometimes the hardest part isn’t the protocol, it’s what happens in your head when things don’t go the way you planned. Leah shares the full story of how she got here, from fibroadenomas and painful irregular cycles to minerals, mold, and becoming an NLP practitioner.
In this episode:
Why Leah’s healing journey started with a golf ball sized lump and a breast cancer family history on both sides.

The years of going in circles with functional doctors, naturopaths, and specialists who each had one answer that never quite fit.

What actually worked after six months of implementing the right foundations, regulated cycles, raised progesterone, painless periods, and a positive pregnancy test.

Why discovering minerals postpartum was the missing puzzle piece that made her fibroadenomas completely disappear.

The mold in the basement, the joint pain at 30, and how it knocked her labs sideways even as a practitioner who knew exactly what was happening.

Why she sent her own labs to another practitioner instead of reading them herself, and what that taught her about staying objective in your own health.

The note her husband left her that made her cry in the shower and gave her the next step she needed.

How the mold experience led her directly to becoming an NLP practitioner and why she brought it into the Hormone Reset Program.

Why telling yourself “I am healed, I am amazing” doesn’t work and what actually rewires the subconscious.

The small daily shifts that make the big changes, noticing the good, not letting a bad day mean anything, and treating feedback as just feedback.

Why nothing is an emergency and how that one reframe changes everything about how you show up for your kids, your business, and your health.

Why you need someone else to hold the bird’s eye view for you, because even practitioners get lost in their own weeds.
You don’t have to figure everything out. You just have to take the next best step.
Leah’s Favorite Things: https://www.leahbrueggemann.com/favorites
I’m Leah Brueggemann, a Functional Diagnostic Nutritional® Practitioner and Hormone Health Coach, helping you balance your hormones in effective and realistic ways so you can live a healthier, happier life. Through the Balance Hormones Naturally podcast, you’ll discover why your cycle is so important to your everyday health and how you can use nutrition to help support the rise and fall of your hormones and finally feel truly amazing.
Let’s connect:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/balancinghormonesnaturally/
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leah_brueg/
Website: https://www.leahbrueggemann.com/
Email: leahbcoaching@gmail.com

If you've ever wondered whether your anxiety is causing your hormone imbalance or your hormones are causing your anxiety, the answer is both. And once you understand the loop, you can finally start to break it.
In this episode:
Why anxiety and hormonal imbalance aren't separate issues, they're a feedback loop, and you have to stop the cycle to fix either one.
How chronic stress eventually tanks your cortisol even when you're still under the same amount of stress, and why your test comes back low when you expected high.
Why your body will shut down ovulation when it doesn't feel safe, and how stress is directly connected to fertility.
The digestion connection nobody talks about, why chronic stress is the reason you're bloated, constipated, or not fully eliminating, and how that loops back into hormones.
The progesterone piece, why stress and anxiety steal from your keep calm carry on hormone and make everything worse.
Why identifying as an anxious person is creating an expectation loop your body keeps proving correct.
The difference between "I am anxious" and "I'm experiencing anxiety right now," and why the wording actually matters for your hormones.
How your brain wires itself based on repetition and emotional experience, and what that means for PMS, PMDD, and mood.
The regulatory sandwich, a simple before-and-after tool for moments that trigger your nervous system.
Why five minutes of breathwork twice a week isn't going to cut it, and how to actually habit stack nervous system regulation into your day.
Why you literally cannot feel calm without enough magnesium and potassium, it's a physical fact.
What brain rewiring inside the Hormone Reset Program actually looks like, and why supplements alone will never be enough.
Your body isn't broken. It's protecting you based on old patterns. But you can change that, starting today.
Leah's Favorite Things: https://www.leahbrueggemann.com/favorites
I'm Leah Brueggemann, a Functional Diagnostic Nutritional® Practitioner and Hormone Health Coach, helping you balance your hormones in effective and realistic ways so you can live a healthier, happier life. Through the Balance Hormones Naturally podcast, you'll discover why your cycle is so important to your everyday health and how you can use nutrition to help support the rise and fall of your hormones and finally feel truly amazing.
Let's connect:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/balancinghormonesnaturally/
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leah_brueg/
Website: https://www.leahbrueggemann.com/
Email: leahbcoaching@gmail.com