“Period pain is common but not normal.” That statement blew my mind when I first heard it from Dr. Laura Belus. We had the opportunity to chat with her a while back about girl stuff. Dr. Laura Belus is a naturopathic doctor and believer that getting healthy doesn’t have to be hard. I’m so excited to finally share this interview with you. It’s long overdue. Bon appetit!

Joelle:

Dr. Laura, first off, can you tell us what a naturopathic doctor is and how that differs from conventional medicine?

Dr. Laura:

That's a great question. In the simplest way, naturopathic doctors use natural therapies to get to the root cause of your health concern. We are similar to your conventional medical doctor in the sense that we study the body, we know how drugs work, we know how to read your lab tests, all of those great things. But instead of prescribing a drug at the end of your visit, we tend to look a little bit deeper to understand what we can do naturally? Natural ways to help change or work on the health concern that you're looking to change.

Joelle:

I’m a huge advocate for root cause medicine vs symptom medicine. You specialize in natural remedies to eliminate PMS. Can you talk a little more about what we can do to help relieve issues with PMS?

Dr. Laura:

Yes. So when I started my journey as a naturopathic doctor, I worked with women and men with a lot of health concerns. But as I started to share my story about acne, about hormonal health, I had a lot of women saying, "Hey, I have PMS. I have breakouts around my cycle." And everything in between. But a lot of this kind of started to zoom in more on women's hormones.

Every woman, at least when I grew up, your mom told you PMS was normal, cramps were normal, feeling moody was normal, bloated and weight gain, all normal. And then when I became a naturopath, I said wait a minute. No, it's not. It's common, but it's not normal.

When I talk to women about PMS, every woman is different. Some have cramps, some feel it's mood changes. Some are really tired. It just depends. Every person's unique. But one thing I would highly recommend for women is in that period of seven days before your period, try to reduce your caffeine and your sugar content that week before. Those are really inflammatory. So what that means is women will tend to experience more bloating, more pain, and definitely more anxiety and mood changes because of those foods.

Now, I'm a chocolate lover and I love my coffee more than anybody, but I want women to think about trying this for five or seven days before their period to see if that makes a difference. For a lot of women, their pain and their symptoms can go way down just from those two things alone.

Joelle:

Let’s talk shedding extra pounds. This is something that you also specialize in. Could you elaborate a little bit on how we can do that naturally.

Dr. Laura:

So the first question I ask my clients when I work with them one-on-one is where is the weight? Where are the extra pounds? And where in your body those extra pounds will stick, tells me a little bit about what's going on. For example, midsection weight gain around the belly, belly fat, middle of the tummy, that's usually diet-related. Either you're eating too much dairy, sugar or carbs, and your body's just not processing them well. A lot of women will also say they're bloated too. So not only is the scale higher than they'd like it to be, they physically feel uncomfortable. If there's issues around the lower body, hips and thighs, that's usually hormonal and that's specifically estrogen.

If the scale is shifting one or two weeks before your period that's water weight gain. That usually has to do with estrogen. So if we're going to approach weight loss from that realm, the first thing is of course, work with a naturopath, work with someone that understands hormones, but to start out on your own, fiber and what we call cruciferous veggies should be your go to. Cruciferous veggies are the family of veggies known as broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts. Some of us love them. Some of us don't love them. But those are amazing to detox your estrogen specifically. So adding in cooked, cruciferous veggies, one or two cups a day can make a world of difference helping to reduce that water weight gain.

Joelle:

Regarding fiber, would you suggest we have the supplements or get it in our food?

Dr. Laura:

Food as much as possible, but there's one food that can really help not only increase your fiber, but specifically it's like a sponge with estrogen. Fiber can be found in a really good food source called flax seeds, ground up flax seeds. So flaxseeds look like little sesame seeds. They're small. But they need to be ground up into a powder. You can buy these from the bulk store, online, but if it's in a powder form, that's how you want to consume it. Either throw it in your oatmeal, throw it in a smoothie, in a soup or a stew or chili. But you want to be adding that ground flaxseed up. And that's going to soak up that estrogen like a sponge.

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