143. Biomarkers of Vitality— How To Achieve Thick Hair, Plump Lips, & Youthful Skin Naturally

I feel like I needed to like, I need to like, fully debrief about the weekend because there was like so many moments where I was just like, internally, I was like banging my head against a wall. I was like, and then that was like that moment, Kylo and I told you, I was like, I just need to go grab a pillow after wiping my child's butt for the 12th time, like I just need to go grab a pillow and literally like scream into it. So I like, that's what I did. And my God bless, the gal that like literally like works with me, she's, she's 60, okay, she's from Venezuela. She's my freaking literally second mother, okay. She's like, oh, sweetie, just leave me with the kids, like you just go take five. This woman, listen to me, okay, this woman had six kids in seven freaking years. What? She had her first child at 15 and kept it going with the same guy, okay? Her last kid, she lets me know this last week, I was like, this is insane. She goes, my last kid, my sixth kid, the doctor was in the clinic with me. He goes, hey, do you want me to just, you know, nobody has to know. Bro, he snapped her. Okay, she's like, so that she couldn't go pregnant again? Yes. Yes. And so she, because of the operation, this is, oh my gosh, this woman is a saint, okay? Six kids in literally, like an insane amount of time, she was literally getting pregnant one right after the other. She was nursing multiple kids at the same time. All of them sleeping in the bed with her, she would have like one kid on her lap, the other kid on her other lap. One would be on one boob, like, and her body knew, like crazy, super young, like obviously 15 is a really young age to start. But this is what she said, her, at the time, partner, husband, whatever he was, he's a loser, we don't like him. Because she couldn't have sex for a couple of months, is what like, apparently she had missed her the doctor. And she thought he had said that she couldn't have sex for six months after the procedure. So she was like, avoiding her, her man. He got up and left six kids. My guy, that is not the mood. And then came back when they, when they were like 18 years old and was like, I want to be together again. She was like, what? What? Goodbye. What do you mean? Yeah. So whenever I feel like I'm sorry, this wasn't, this wasn't like in a, like I was picturing like a 40 year old man. This was like a child. This was like, I don't know how old he was. I didn't ask him. I mean, obviously they were young. I'm sure he was probably young. I'm sure he was probably young with her because that's kind of how it goes. Like in Venezuela, they typically get pregnant really young. And same here in Peru for the most part, like a lot of people get pregnant like 17, 18, some people 15, 14, I've seen it like, you know, because it's the culturally, it's like a lot different than the US. But yes. So then he comes back. Guys, welcome to the podcast. By the way, I'm just keeping the most ridiculous weekend and then trying to put it into perspective because I was like, when she was telling me this story, I was like, I literally have nothing to complain about. I was like, I'm sitting here like in my house, I've got extra hands on deck while my husband is out of town for 48 hours, mind you, only it was literally only 48 hours. He flew out at three, he left the house at 3 a.m. to get his early flight and then came back at midnight last night. So like I didn't even have it that bad, but I was just going through it because the kids were sick. And she tells me this story. Respectfully, I'm just going to shut up now because I look like a spoiled brat. Anyway, but you did wipe 12 butts and I guys, guys, I was fighting for my life this weekend. Like I was like, I didn't see the other side and if anybody saw my Instagram stories, which I have not even been going on Instagram that much lately, but if anybody saw those Instagram stories, it was literally a cry for help. I was like, I'm going through it. Is anybody else going through it with me because I cannot see the light of the day. I posted this one story and it was just me and I was so exhausted and it was like literally having two children under the age of three years old is like going through the car wash with the windows completely down and the sun roof open. Like that's how I feel all the time. Okay, but you have to explain why you have to explain what was going on. Guys, both of my kids had like a cute diary like I and my first thought was like it was Luca first, right? Like it always is. It's always the older one first and then the little guy gets it. Luca, I was like, he's in swimming classes, right? So I was like, oh my gosh, it's the chlorine. We're high dosing vitamin C. I don't want him to be depleted in vitamin C. Like we're high dosing it. He's learning how to swim. And I am like crunchy, but I am not crunchy enough to be like, no, actually my kid can't go in the pool. He's a chlorine. Obviously, it would prefer if he swam in the ocean, but our ocean is extremely dangerous to swim in, especially for a child of his age. So I was like, well, where are we going to learn how to swim? Let's do swimming classes, obviously, as every adult would love their kids to know how to swim, especially when they're around a pool without supervision. My kid has never been without supervision. Obviously, when he learned how to swim, that's the goal later on in life. But so, yeah, so that I was like, it's the chlorine causing this, this absolute disaster of a weekend. Like, I could literally cannot characterize as anything else, but a disaster. Luca is like, do I let me, buddy? He's like, my tummy hurts. My tummy hurts. We'd go into the bathroom. He would sit down. He'd do his business. He'd get up. And I swear to God, five minutes later, he'd go. My belly hurts. We'd go back. We were like, we were on a routine schedule. I was like, there were moments where I was literally holding Alessio while helping Luca wipe. Oh, my God. And there's my husband. Yeah. And my husband, at this point in this podcast is calling me, okay. So yeah, so that was, that was that. And I like I said, I thought it was the chlorine. Sorry to make this debrief so long, but then my little guy got it. And I was like, hmm, something's up. That's not the chlorine, because he's not in swimming classes. And the only possible excuse that I figured was like, it's gotta be a parasite. 'Cause like, they've been, not only have they been in this pool, but like, Luca and Alessio have been with my dog, my new baby dog, Papaya. And she's been like all over them, like definitely liked Alessio's face multiple times, and I couldn't really control it. She's all over Luca. Like, we're just, you know, it's kind of that phase of puppyhood where you literally cannot control them. So I was like, maybe it's a parasite. And also they've been playing with like, the hose water in the pool and like, there's been multiple moments when both Luca and Alessio have jokingly, Luca jokingly, Alessio not doing it for real. Tried to like drink the hose water, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, literally sprinting across the yard to like stop it. So yeah, so those are my, those are my options. And then my wonderful gal that works with me here. I mean, you're Alicia is her name, the OG was six kids. She got sick. She went down. We were like, whoa, whoa, something's up. We don't know what it is. Maybe it's a parasite. I'm not next. I do. Girl, I've been wiping these butts. I'm good. Like I'm in there. Like I'm in there more than anybody else's. Granite, I washed my hands, obviously. But that's one of the few moments, like you, you really got to scrub, scrub your hands after that. That's it. No, but I'm good. I'm so, I'm, I'm so good. I'm just waiting for it to hit Rodrigo. I wonder. Oh, no. Well, at least she don't have to wipe his butt. Hmm. Facts. We're going to work. I'm actually literally going to practice with Luca like this weekend wiping his own. But I just felt like that wasn't the right time with the Rio. It's not the right time to learn how to do that. You need to teach him. Sorry for TMI guys. Like, wait, no. Last one of the things when you told me, when you told me that, Alessia was running across the yard. Oh my god. He was running home. And we have like two different things happen. No. He's been living in Little Chaos because when Alessia was running through the yard, guys, he was, as he was walking, like kind of like walking, stopping, he was going poop. And while I was trying to grab him to get him on the potty, because if you guys know I did elimination communication, so he usually poops like on the toilet. While I'm grabbing him, papaya is going behind him and what he thinks he's doing. I'm like, I'm like fighting for my life. I'm like, no, stop, don't eat that. Like literally, I'm like a mess. I'm like, I don't want to see him surprised. I didn't let out like a one big huge cry over the weekend of just like, well, guys, we got through it. Like, so bad. Um, yeah. So that is what happened and, yeah, and then Alessia also pooped in the tub yesterday, stood right up in the tub and just went for it. I was like, cool. So anyway, anybody that's looking to try to conceive, I just wanted to give you that as your future. Kyla? I can't wait. I'm not trying to conceive. Wait. No, no. We got my sponsor. Later on. Obviously later on. No, no, no. Later on in life. This is what you have to look forward to. I'm going again. Wait a minute. Is my DMs now you're having a baby? No. No, no, no. She don't know, but I'm just saying like, like, obviously, there will be a, there will come a time where she is trying to conceive. And I will be getting texts from her later on in life when I'm past this face, when I'm, when I'm, when I'm past this face and it will be, I will be sending you empathy texts back. I could be like, listen, girl, I have been there. It's going to be great. This is quite the intro. Let me tell you something, whatever I went through this weekend was not a biomarker for me for vitality. I was like, I'm gonna need to, I'm gonna need to get. But you know what? Because you are vital, you were able to handle it. Facts. We'll go with that. That's facts. I was, we, we, we went for it. Okay. I'm gonna let you go this episode because I don't even know what the heck we're talking about. So biomarkers of vitality is a concept that kind of like, initially I saw, like, well, okay, Ray P and some of these guys have really touched on a lot of this. And I know that there's a lot of people in the space of kind of like, talked about this. They use this phrase, like biomarkers of vitality. There's some people on Twitter that have also kind of gone over this. So what is it? This is kind of where I'm gonna like, I'm gonna set up the whole podcast with this sentence. The modern day beauty procedures, typically mimic biomarkers of vitality. So what we're gonna talk about today is how standard beauty procedures mimic real life, real time biomarkers of vitality. And how can you actually achieve those biomarkers of vitality naturally? Okay. Um, I wanted to start out actually this conversation with something interesting I found out. So I wanted to read it to you. And maybe we can kind of start from there because I think this is enough that like this kind of sums up exactly where we're gonna go with the conversation. So in a lab study where women were photographed with varying makeup levels, both women and men specifically preferred faces with literally more than 40% less makeup than the models initially applied. And participants typically overestimated how much makeup others would find attractive. Several neurobehavioral studies in summaries report that men tend to rate women as more attractive when they're wearing minimal or natural look makeup while heavily made up faces are seen as very artificial and high effort. Maybe what many men call a natural face is usually still a made up face. They just misjudged the amount of cosmetics and don't often realize the subtle foundation contour and eye makeup that is there. So I wanted to start out by reading that because I think that that's really, really interesting because of the way the culture is now. It feels like more the more you're done up, the better, um, the more, you know, the bigger the lips, the longer the hair with hair extensions, the pinker, the cheeks, you know, you get where I'm going with this. It's like these initially were things that literally actually signaled fertility and they have kind of been hijacked and we've gone way too far with it. And to like, kind of also add to that these procedures that people women are paying for, whether it's their multiple hundred dollar a month nails that they get done very long, whether it's French, whatever, long thick nails that they pay for. A lot of these like little beauty procedures, they are overcompensating for a lack in natural vitality or a lack in those, those, um, yeah, that, that natural signal that everything is working optimally in your body, if that makes sense. Yes. I actually, I love the topic. I'm excited. Let's, let's go into like one by one, I guess, of like the different biomarkers, um, but this is something I have been very interested in, um, in the last like few years because I don't know if anyone listened to the episode that I recorded maybe like two months ago. And like natural beauty tips, I am someone who for like all of my teenage years and then early 20s really struggled with feeling attractive because the only picture that I saw of beauty was wearing a lot of makeup and having perfectly straight hair and all these different things. And so I would like try to force myself into this box of like, okay, I got to burn my hair to a crisp to get it perfectly straight every single day. And like, I got to put on this makeup and I got to do all these things, but it just like felt so weird and unnatural to me. And when I started leaning into like, how can I support beauty in a way that is actually natural? So like, for example, how can I make my hair healthier so that I don't need to do all these things to make it look beautiful? How can I make my skin so healthy that I don't even need to wear makeup and all these everythings and when I started to lean into all of this, it made me feel so much more comfortable in my own skin. It made me feel comfortable in my hair and like every part of me where I was like, wow, you can actually like, health hack yourself to be natural. This is going to, I feel like we're going to rub people the wrong way. So easily with the words. I mean, say it. I got to be careful. I, yeah. No, I get what you're saying. Just like, how do you enhance your own in a natural beauty? How do you enhance that because I think that yeah, we can feel, we can feel really dull and we can feel really like just blank compared to like what's going on around us. And so I have like a way that I want to like, describe it if, if you don't mind if I do go for it. So let's talk about the main features that typically mark their biomarkers of vitality that we tend to overcompensate for with procedures. This is like again, this is not a knock to people who are using this stuff. I think we've all, it's all fairly safe to say we've all done this stuff. I'd say that if you are somebody that is looking to like, for example, hair extensions is a great one. You desperately want really long hair, but then the end result of hair extensions is your hair falling out, your own hair falling out. And it can be so frustrating because you could feel like you're going in the cycle and you're never going to achieve that naturally long thick hair because you're using the hair extensions that you're desiring your hair would actually look like. And so like, how do we achieve that natural long hair without breakage, without this, without that, right? So here are the biomarkers. It's luscious hair, it's full lips. It's an hourglass shape, more or less, it's typically like a signal of fertility, long thick nails, a pink vibrant complexion that signals that we are ovulating. Obviously, this is much more so at certain times of the month, the pink cheeks typically signal when we're ovulating and men subconsciously also pick up on that. And then also, I want to just side note, this is not just for men. Like I'm not talking like, oh, we're trying to attract men, we're trying, like that's not what this is about. This is about you feeling best and most comfortable and confident in your body and feeling like. In an effortless way. Exactly. Thick eyebrows are another one. We see lots of eyebrow threading, lots of like tending, you know, all that stuff, right? And then a, for example, a, you know, pretty sharp jawline, women who typically see like a receded jawline, receded chin, yeah, sorry, oh my gosh, yeah, receded chin, a bit of a, like a laxed jawline almost in a receded chin, they'll typically get chin filler to compensate for that, that, again, that receding chin. So we can actually fix it structurally if we change postural habits, which is something like, I'm trying to go through right now, I'm going to be slowly like changing like some postural habits, functional patterns, some other stuff. So let's, let's go through a few of these and to talk about the beauty procedures versus the, the natural biomarker and how can we like achieve that? Do you want to start on any one particular or do you want me to just like, I, I, I, I, I want to start with hair, okay, let's start with hair because it's like my favorite topic. I like for my entire first 23 years of my life, I would hide my hair. I would always have it in a bun or a ponytail or a clip and I would never like let it out because I was so like ashamed of my hair and I was like my hair is terrible and ugly and it's a mess and like only when I started embracing it and taking really good care of it, did it become literally my favorite feature on my body and I just think it's really good. I, let's start with hair. So hair is such an important indicator of vitality and specifically like what a woman's hormones are doing. So on our body, we have energy saving features when we go into a stressed state. So one of those stressed states would typically be like low thyroid and the thyroid is a major controller of that metabolic rate. It's a major controller of your metabolism. It's a major controller of that furnace that you have inside of you. So if you're constantly running cold hands, cold feet, it's typically like a low thyroid, you know, hypothyroidism signal. If you are seeing like lower basal metabolic body temperature, that's typically tied in with the thyroid, not getting like that blood essentially to those extremities, etc, right? So the thyroid is kind of in control of this like your metabolic rate in a way. And when we are down regulated in that metabolic rate, our body has natural energy severs. Kick into place. One of the first places that the body is going to like let's say kick start is it's going to stop growing hair because that is an energy expenditure that is not necessary compared to some of the other places that the body will essentially reallocate that energy to go towards in a stressed state with a low thyroid function. So that's why a lot of times and I can personally attest to this for postpartum, we are in a heightened stress state. We have really hyperlactin levels from breastfeeding. We are not sleeping literally at all and if you're a co-sleeper like you might get a little bit more sleep here and there. If your bottle feeding it just depends, you may not get any sleep at all. Or you know, even if you're a co-sleeping like I do, my baby still wakes me up multiple times at night and for nine months, you know, postpartum. So you go through this extreme stress state, the most common thing that we see in women postpartum, for example, is going to be low thyroid function. So energy conserving and what is the symptom everybody talks about postpartum? Literally everybody. Hair loss. It is an energy and it's not a bad thing, okay? Like I want to like reframe people's thoughts is like, hair loss is not a bad thing because your body is doing what it needs to do to reallocate that energy where it needs to go. So it can be really frustrating. I just have to stop you there for a second because that mindset, I wish everyone had. Like when your body is quote unquote failing you, recognizing like my body is so intelligent and it is taking care of me in the best way it knows how, gives you so much grace. Sorry, I did not mean to interrupt you there, but I just I wish more people would have that grace for their body. I have a bunch of new hair and you can see it like because I've been hair oiling like crazy. I have like a lot of new hair kind of coming in in different places. My hair is a grease ball right now, so it's not a really good reference point. And I haven't showered it and I'd slightly like no one can see it. I usually been I've been taking better care of it than I had in previous because I had the bleached, you know, broken ends for a really long time. And I've been actively like just now kind of starting to realize that I was not taking care of my hair in the way that I should and postpartum really showed me that because postpartum I was like, well, is this going to be the month I lose my hair? Is this going to be the month I lose a lot of my hair? Is this going to be the month? You know, I was kind of like thinking in that way. And so I was like, well, let's take precautionary steps to prevent that. So I didn't experience like a large amount of hair loss this time around postpartum. But I was actually able to I feel like in fact grow a lot more hair than I've had for a little while going through this like hormone crazy crescendo and fall crescendo of all over the last couple years between pregnancy and postpartum and stuff. And by rosemary hair oiling, which I know we've talked about a bunch of the podcast, my hair is sprouting in all sorts of places now. And it's just like all around a lot healthier than it was in the past. So going back to what I was saying is, yes, hair is a really great indication of like what your bumpers are doing as a woman in a bun, exactly in mineral status, et cetera. Like when we go and look at minerals, we literally take a chunk of our hair. For a hair mineral analysis to say, OK, are we seeing tons of heavy metals that are showing up at our hair that will cause hair loss? Are we seeing an abundance of certain minerals over other minerals are we seeing in balances? So the hair really shows like so much of what is going on with our, you know, our state of vitality, our hormones are thyroid and then our mineral and balances and heavy metals. So if we start to kind of look at those key features and say, wow, I'm actually, I've got really high levels of arsenic because I've been living in a country that eats a ton of rice. So I should probably start using a little bit more sauna, probably should start, you know, doing some brushing with my, I have a bores, I like a, sorry, I have like a, it's like a bowl, um, got a born brush. Yeah, it's a bowl horn comb and like doing that with red light therapy and hair oiling and stuff to like try to naturally re-stimulate this growth and then also supporting the thyroid. So like when you drew us root cause, you're going to start seeing the benefits. But the problem is is that our culture wants instant gratification. So when we start to feel like our hair is thinning, what do a lot of girls do? They will go and they'll get hair extensions. But the worst part about that is that those hair extensions are actually going to cause that hair that's already weak to follow even more causing bald spots, et cetera. So one of the things that we really do need to embrace when we're looking at these natural biomarkers is realizing they're not going to change overnight. So we need to have grace, like you said, and we need to take time to allow that turnover to actually happen. Yeah. And to get curious as, because when you understand that, oh, this is a mechanism inside my body to protect me from XYZ, it's getting curious about, okay, not like, oh, my hair is falling out. What supplements can I take to fix it? It's like, okay, but why is it falling out? Okay, how can I support that root cause? How can I support my thyroid better? How can I reduce my stress levels? How can I increase my mineral levels so that I'm actually supporting what my body is communicating with me that is depleted? And then you will naturally be able to fix that thing rather than trying to like buy all these like hair gummies and all of these different things and like hitting at the symptom, rather than hitting at the root cause of what your body is trying to communicate. And one of the best things that you can honestly do for your hair as well is get it under some red light, like get it under some red light. And if you're in the ocean a lot, like Kyl and I are both are, it's like oil, oiling it consistently because after being in the ocean, it's amazing and it's full of minerals and stuff. But after years of me being in the sun in the ocean, you know, as somebody who used to bleach my hair a little bit here and there, I haven't bleached it in like a year and a half, almost two years now. But, you know, as somebody that like, you know, had that bleach, sun bleached hair in the sun and in the ocean where it's like high salt content, you know, it tends to dry out and get brittle and break. So it's like if you're doing some of those activities as well, just taking that extra step of like, okay, I'm going to hair oil once twice a week, I'm going to do a hair mask, you know, to try to like preserve that integrity and, you know, long term. When you start doing that month over month consistently, the results show for themselves and you like genuinely feel a million times better. Yeah. The first six months that we were living in California, my hair suffered. It was so cold because I was so used to being in such a humid because we moved from Florida so used to be in such a humid climate. I never had to do anything to my hair, like it was always honestly like too humid and like my hair always had moisture in it. And then we moved here and it was such a dry climate with the salt water and the sun. So I had to start one just protecting my hair from the sun, like wearing hats more often, like when I'm going to be in the sun for hours. But also I do a weekly hair mask of coconut milk blended with full fat coconut milk, like from a can blended with half of an avocado and I let that sit on my hair for an hour and then I do my normal shampoo and conditioner, game changer. Anyways. Yeah. I love it. I love it. No, I have the rosemary hair. It's like a rosemary caster, hair oil, like thing that you like spread through here. It's amazing. Like I can say. And now the other thing that coincides with hair I want to talk about are thick eyebrows. So I'm just going to like bunch them in together. Thick eyebrows, actually what I should say is thinning eyebrows, in fact, missing the outer third part of your eyebrow. So you'll see a lot of women, especially older women, they'll be missing like a finger tips worth of their eyebrow on the end of the temple by the temple. Yes. That is a classic, a literally classic simple symptom of hypothyroidism. That is one of the main physical attributes of hypothyroidism that most people can like most practitioners will be able to tell before they even run a panel if your thyroid is potentially having any issues. So a lot of people to kind of obviously like, you know, make up for that will do things like eyebrow threading and we'll do 10 day. You know what I'm saying? Like just to make them look fuller healthier. Now I'm not against that. Like if you don't think your eyebrow is not returned, like if you think your eyebrow is probably not going to return, maybe you just like have had that for a very, very long time. You've worked on your health, your health is great, whatever. And that's just like something that you, you know, do, I'm all for it. Like I love a nice, I love a nice little eyebrow liner, I'll put a little eyebrow liner here and there. That's like not the problem, but I think what I'm trying to get out is if that's a symptom that you've had, that's actually because of a deeper root cause, right? So the thin eyebrows, especially that thinning outer part there, they're another signal that you have a decreased metabolic rate and we need to kind of get to the bottom of maybe why that's going on, right? Why, why are we seeing that happen? So like are we also seeing that outer third eyebrow missing with the cold extremities with hair loss on the scalp, you know, some of these things can all be bunched together and you can kind of pull them together and be like, oh, yeah, weak brittle nails as well, like not getting enough circulation to the fingertips, et cetera, right? Like all of that stuff can kind of start to point towards a similar direction, one direction, maybe we're having really, really, imbalanced cortisol and we're dealing with low thyroid, et cetera. So I wanted to bunch the eyebrows in there because I feel like that's just like another part of the hair that we don't talk about enough. And not to mention PCOS, one of the characteristic traits of PCOS is unwanted hair in regions that it shouldn't be growing. So that's another thing that we, I haven't even talked about, you know, we have all these beauty procedures. I am, I got my first wax a couple of months ago, Kyla knows about it because I am one of those people that I do like to like have minimal hair in certain areas every month. I just, I have realized that like, lasering for me, it's going to take me a long time. It's going to take me too long. And I was like, let me just get a little, a little, a little wax. We're going to get a little, we're going to relax, but, but I remember like a lot of gals and I talking about like with PCOS, like symptoms, gals will get hair growth here, unwanted hair growth. That is like dark green color. And sometimes they'll use different tools to like scrape, what is, what is that tool? Thermoplane, dermaplaning, those dermaplaning and other things to remove the hair, right? And then the same thing with the chest. Sometimes you'll get like darker hairs on your chest from PCOS, like symptoms. So that's an external signal that something internally is off, right? And I, I just think that that's like those little cues. They're not just, oh, like one off, oh, just like, oh, I just have this is just, no, it's not typically this way, which means that something is probably causing that, especially if you maybe haven't had it in the past. So like, let's take a look and see why that may be happening, right? So I wanted to bring that up. What other ones should we go through? Let's move on to the cheeks. I think the, this is a really not just the complexion, but like the plumpness, yes, I think is a really interesting one. Like complexion and plumpness. So let's start with the pink complexion first and foremost is a basic biological adaptation that occurs around ovulation where the cheeks will be subtly, extremely subtly to where you may not even be able to pick it up like with the naked eye, but the subconscious of the male can. And that sounds like, but I'm like, again, we're not doing this just for the men, but it's interesting biologically can pick it up subconsciously if they're put two photos together. If you put two photos together of women, one, ovulating and has deeper pinky cheeks versus one that's not necessarily ovulating and also their facial structure might be slightly changed as well. The men will literally choose the other photo almost always. They can subconsciously read it and that is a biological evolutionary, I think, adaptation that occurs, right, for signaling, you know, fertility. And I think that that's really important. Women were photographed daily without makeup, over a full cycle. The researchers found cyclical variation in facial skin redness with redness increasing in the days before ovulation, staying higher into the loodial face. This was deemed as more attractive. So what do we do? Well, I know that when I put on makeup, one of the first things I typically grab is a blush. And I will put a little bit of blush on the little, you know, main part of my cheeks, because I love the way that that looks. And that is not just for any reason, not just because it's a makeup trend, it's because it's biologically innate. We feel more attractive and we have that direct symptom when we are ovulating. And obviously, we feel like bosses and cool girls when we ovulate. So that's science, okay, that's science. So that's that. The plumpness is another really great one, like cheek plumpness is just like another overall sign where we don't have those salo cheeks. I have salo cheeks right now. I'm like, like I said, I'm just attributing it to me being constantly dehydrated from breast feeding and what a salo. Salo is like when they have like kind of like a, like a, like a, like a little, like describe it. Yeah, like a little dip in your cheeks. Maybe you're not necessarily like full of collagen, you know, the same way. Maybe you're not getting great sleep. Your cheeks will fall. Okay, well, you'll get darker circles. I have to tell you something that I've been, I've been, because I were both staring at each other in the camera while we're recording this, but we're also staring at our own photo. And something that has been a, like, theme of the last six months. And I just think this is so interesting and tied to this conversation because in the last, honestly, year, we've been living in California for almost a year. And this is, it was the year that I got significantly more healthy, like healed a lot of nervous systems regulation and like lowered my stress and gotten the sun and like, just way healthier lifestyle. And in the last six months, Jesse has had this weird obsession with my cheeks, like all my face. And he like is always like pinching like the tops of my cheeks. He's like, they're just so plump. Like they like, they just look so like plump and healthy and like, cute. And I'm like, honestly, that's crazy because when I look back at pictures, like my cheek plumpness changed as I got more regulated. And that's so funny. I just like. Oh my gosh. Yes. No. And my cheek plumpness changed with breastfeeding. And then when I like stopped breastfeeding for a period, like a short amount of time, it came back. And it was like kind of back for pregnancy. And then when I started breastfeeding again, and I also like will attribute it to dehydrate. I get really dehydrated. I tried my best, like, look, I literally have coconut with me right now. I literally have a coconut. And I still feel dehydrated. I have obviously cannot see her on camera. She just have another one that is literally bigger than her head, as an actual coconut with a straw sticking out. Yes. I do. I try my best, but like I feel like in press, like breastfeeding, like, especially in summer, I feel like trying to stay hydrated is a fight for my life. Like, and I 90% of the time can't even do it. But I'm like, okay, you know what? It's okay. I'm going to sleep, and all my fine lines and regals go away slowly because I stop breastfeeding and I kind of like get my fluids back to myself. That's when I'll, you know, I'll probably get maybe, maybe it'll recover some of that. But yes, all that to say, that pink cheeks and plump cheeks are another really, really important sign of general vitality. So what do we do? We do the cheek filler to kind of compensate for that, typically, especially as we age. Whereas like some of the hacks that you can do for this particular thing is like eating tons of gelatin will typically help enrich cheek plumpness. Also, I want to kind of gelatinous meats and like, called like soups with the whole chicken and the bones and all the broth and like the gelatinous parts of the animal. Like real news for our girl nourishment, go for all of it, cartilage, like literally eat the cartilage. We're going to make a t-shirt that says hot girls eat cartilage. I would, I would wear it. I would wear it. Hmm, 100%. No, and that kind of also goes hand in hand with the, so the, the cheek fullness also goes on along with full lips. So let's talk about full lips. Now, genetically speaking, there are some people that typically have thinner lips. It depends there are certain regions in Europe that obviously have thinning lip, like thin neural lips. Obviously, South Americans where I'm at, everybody's got these huge beautiful, gorgeous lips, including my husband. I'm like, sir, your lips are ridiculous, like it's fine. I have not, I don't have thin lips, but I have like, I'd say normal-ish, like slightly plump. But if I am dehydrated or have high cortisol, my upper lip disappears a little bit. It does. Wow. And I can see it. I know, like, I know if I'm going through it, I like, I like, no, like if I'm high cortisol. And let me allow me to explain, ladies, because a lot of us are running for procedures as we age to get lip injections. So full lip signals healthy, progesterone, first and foremost. And if you see a decrease in the size of your lips that you haven't seen, like, that you've noticed, like I remember seeing a complete shift, like a real shift in my upper lip being like, hmm, it is definitely not as plump. Maybe my jaw's changed. Maybe my teeth have changed. No, no, no, everything is still the same. Everything is still the same. Sorry, guys, I just like half dropped my mic. No, so when you're lip, if you notice, as you age, subtle changes in the size of your lips, the plumpness, and you feel like they're kind of getting that pruny look, that is typically a sign that progesterone also could be going down, which is not good. And cortisol could be taking front and center. So for women that are on hormonal birth control, which is suppressing ovulation and suppressing the production of progesterone, wow. Girls. That. And you know what? And you know what? Women, if you are on hormonal birth control, you're not producing progesterone because you're not ovulating. You're literally missing an entire part of your cycle. Yeah. For years. Like, and also this would be hard for young girls to catch, I feel like. Like I feel like, because you're young enough, you still have lots of collagen, like, but as you start to get into your late 20s and stuff, that stuff starts to become noticeable. Like you can look at yourself and be like, I am not 22 anymore. What's going on my lips? Like things like, I can look at myself on a day that I'm dehydrated to be like, you look like a salo, which would go drink some water. Like, you know what I'm saying? But then it's so interesting when you look at women like Noel Cavari for example. She is like the epitome of like nourished woman. She's got four babies, but she's just like the full, beautiful lips and cheeks and hair. But she doesn't have any procedure. She is like natural beauty queen, but she is so focused on her thyroid and her metabolism and her cortisol and all these different things. I also want to bring up something about Noel too. She has Eastern European roots, which typically they have some, like, they tend to have these extremely plump features. They have these cheeks. They have these high specifically like very plump cheeks. They have very specific like big robust lips, like, like some of the ones I know, especially from like the region's Poland, like all of those areas. Those are also sometimes genetic traits that can, yeah, actually be enhanced, but dietarily speaking, yeah, they're also eating like way better than we are typically Eastern European women. Like they know what's up. They're eating nose to tail, gelatinous, collagenous cuts. So they're like, they're a double whammy because they're like, we've got the genetics and we're going to, like, we're going to literally eat to optimize the genetics even more so. So then they're like, yeah. So we should take a chapter out of what the Eastern, like Eastern European women do because they figured it out. They figured it out. They figured out, like, they're amazing. And their recipes are incredible, like insane. So yes, like she's like a testament to the fact that like you can do it, like you, you really can do it. So she, I love, I love the fact that she just had her fourth baby. I like losing my bone reading the birth story. I was like, four babies in how many years and I remember like a one point she was breast treating all of them. And I was like, that is just incredible. You also have just have a really, really hard mindset going back to my story of me at the beginning of this last weekend. I probably have a little bit of work to do. I have a little bit of wisdom. No, but she, yes, it's so full lips, healthy, progesterone. And here's how we get full lips, naturally support your loodial phase. Sorry. Tell me. Yes. No, yes, 100%. But also raw carrot salads, raw carrot salads, rapeseed was like big with this. But raw carrot salads are amazing to actually helping plump the lips in particular because they are, it's like the progesterone salad. Like raw carrot salad is so amazing at eliminating excess estrogen, helping to lower cortisol, like spikes, and then promoting progesterone in term as well as detoxifying, allowing helping your body remove endotoxin in the bacteria from like the GI track. So when women do like, I know there was a challenge going around. When women do like 30 days of raw carrot salads, they have pretty, and I will say this is anecdotal. We don't have like clear evidence-based research that's been studied and funded. But there was Kori Maloy dead, like I remember, she had like a challenge going on. It was like the 30 day raw carrot salad and women were in real time uploading their results from their 30 days transformation. And one of the biggest differences was, I think it was cheek volume and lip plumpness. Lip plumpness specifically on the upper lip. Can I ask, why can you not just like eat a raw carrot straight? What is the like magic of the other ingredients? So I think a lot of people cannot eat raw fruits, or sorry, not fruits. I feel like a lot of people cannot eat raw vegetables, typically. I cannot eat a raw carrot by itself. Like if I were to go and literally just chomp on a raw carrot, I would get crazy gas after. Because of the amount of fiber. No, no, no. Oh, interesting. Okay. So when you shred it, the way that you shred it, and then you add the like compounds that kind of help with this salad, you're supposed to add, well, it kind of depends. Everybody has like variations, but you're as supposed to add like an acid. So like lime juice and olive oil and salt. That's typically like how I eat it. You can also add pepper if you want to. And it helps you adjust it. So when you do this, it helps you digest it. And it kind of, I think it also helps like the lime, for example, helps activate the liver, the bile, you know, so there's, there's different. And I want to go back into and like say that, yeah, I couldn't eat a raw carrot just like chomping on it. That would probably make me really gassy because raw like salads like that, like I could not do. So that's why they recommend coating it in an oil like olive oil, which is extremely anti-inflammatory for the gut for your whole body, for your life. Like literally drink a liter of olive oil, you'll be like, set for life, add a little bit of salt. Shinto lime juice. You're like, drink a liter a week. I don't care what you said, literally, you're standing cup. Also, you know what we're not doing for our lips? We're not drinking out of straws, except for the fact that I had a straw with my coconut. That was just because that was the only way I could get the coconut water out. Like, I refuse to be like a consistent straw drinking girl because that basically pushes your lips like this into that like dried reason for them. So instead, we can quash our lips. You can quash all your lips. You hold one side of your lip down while you quash all the other side and it can actually release the tension because you get a lot of myofascial tension right here around those nasolabial folds. We need to get this on video format. So we can actually show people what we're, she's pointing to the creases. She's pointing to the creases between, like, under your cheek folds. Yeah, those like creases below your nostrils but like slightly outside of your smile creases. Yes, your smile creases. I feel like a lot of people know the word nasolabial folds, right? I definitely do not know that word. Okay. Well, yes. Well, you can be sickly and you can massage it and it's great. You can massage it and you can use gouache and do all that stuff. So that's like another, another great thing because progesterone, like, ultimately, we really just want to increase progesterone as the ultimate, like, ultimate goal for your skin health. And because it helps regulate water balance and it improves tissue hydration and stuff, especially in the lip region. So if you see pro national progesterone, uh, increase, you're going to see better water retention in that skin. Maybe that's one of the things that we were, we were just talking about chialis skin. I feel like your progesterone is probably fine though, but, um, yeah, like, improve that tissue hydration and that's like, I was specifically seeing most around your mouth. You don't know what I'm doing currently to work on my tissue hydration is I am, I've been buying a whole aloe leaf at the grocery store, literally $3 for an entire thing of aloe. And then in the beginning of the week, I'll, um, like, prep it, like, I'll like, take the, like, you know, the skin off the green part off and I'll cut it into little chunks and then I do two things with that first. I blend it into water with some salt and I drink like a little aloe drink in the morning, but then also I'll take a chunk of it and I'll just like rub it all over my face in the morning and let it sit for like 10 minutes and then rinse it off and put a moisturizer on. And I notice a very big difference when I do that regularly. I have a question. Do you remember that omolian daystand that we went to in Peru that like sells the aloe drink outside? I didn't go to it. I didn't go to it. Mia went to it. Yeah, but I thought I took you. No. It was raining. It was raining. Yeah. Okay. Well, we have like an aloe vera stand outside. It's an omolian terria, omolian terria, yeah, something like that. And they basically make these aloe drinks and they sell them for tensile ice. I get them all the time and they do a 12 herb tea, so it's like cat's claw, star anise, chamomile, horse tail, like all these different types of herbs. And they like, they'll usually do it with like honey and some else and then they scrape aloe vera into it. And sometimes other things, but I just ask for the aloe. They'll do chia seeds, linoza seeds, which is I think flax seeds and other stuff. They'll make this like big like really, really like slimy drink. And it's amazing, but I do it with aloe and I drink it and yeah, I can tell a big difference for my milk supply. So it's like, I was so soothing for your gut, yeah, so soft. I gave my kid a little bit of it for diarrhea, but then I was just worried that it was going to make him go more. So I was like, okay, let's just do this in small, small, small doses and see what happens. Okay. What's up? I can't believe not. I think we hit all the facial features, right? Yeah, snatch jawline is another big one that I want to touch. So snatch jawline is typically a signal of a couple of things. One that your jaw developed correctly and that you don't have that receding chin. And two, that means that you have healthy lymph flow and that you maybe have optimal posture or better than your nasal breathing. And that your nasal breathing and not mouth breathing. So let's talk through this from it like childhood until now what we're seeing. So childhood is major, major jaw development era. So if your child is mouth breathing anywhere from, you know, infancy into those early two to three years of age, you need to be on it. You need to be looking for signs and signals that their mouth breathing consistently outside of when they just get like a cold or something. Luka doesn't nose breathe or sorry, Luka doesn't mouth breathe. He knows breathes majority of the time with the exception of if he gets sick, he's obviously switching to mouth breathing a little bit more night for sleeping. And that's like been a big thing. And I'm like, right now I'm pretty confident he's got good jaw development happening, but I'm still looking out for it because I know how bad my experience was with everything that I'm like worried that, you know, something might change. And then as he gets like his adult tea things will start to like, you know, show that he's clearly, you know, doesn't still have enough space. So really, there's a few things that you can do for like childhood, which is getting them specific straws that teach their tongues to stay on the roof of their mouth like is normal so that their nasal breathing, they're allowing for that wide palate to develop. And ultimately that's also going to long term be better for their brain health, for their lymphatic clearance of the head, which is like a lot of times when you're not sleeping super great or you're waking up really puffy, you're not having great lymphatic drainage happen at night. This can be impacted when you're mouth breathing versus nasal breathing. And it can lead to this double chin, this puffy face that like when you wake up, you just don't feel very good. These are just all classic signs that we try to cover up with beauty procedures, right? We'll, you know, a lot of like I mentioned earlier, girls will get chin filler to kind of make that chin extend a little bit more to kind of balance the facial profile. You know, some gals will get these upper eye bleps. I don't know what they're called that basically keep that, those eyelids like up and around to give them this look that they're not as puffy as they may be when they're waking up. So again, these beauty procedures essentially just kind of try to correct what may be structurally wrong or didn't or misdeveloped, right, or maldeveloped, misdeveloped, or which word is the right one. But yeah, so it's really interesting when you start going down this rabbit hole and you can correct it. You can correct your structural changes, you can, you can like correct and open up the sutures in your, you know, in your, in your head to then start forming a wider palette, like there's all these corrective procedures you can do, not many people know about them and also not many people are willing to take that time to do that because they're not just an overnight quick fix, right? Boast Spring is a great resource as well for like really restructuring the upper part of our body to give better posture to create a better like visible jaw structure. Have you gone on supposed to bring it all? I have a Denebo Spring class. Yes, I've done a Boast Spring one Boast Spring class. I am doing functional patterns. Functional patterns is great as well, both of them are great for, also if people, also if people want to dive deeper into just like the jaw topic and like learn about it and understand the book, The Dental Diet by Dr. Stephen Lynn, he has a few chapters that go really deep into jaw development as a child and like the foods that you need to eat to develop proper jaw and all about mouth breathing and all these different things, fascinating. That was the first place that I really went down this rabbit hole and learned so much for it. I definitely recommend going to that and then the one other thing that I want to touch on is we don't realize how tight the fascia in our face and on our skull and like all over our head can get and one of the best things that you can do to keep your face, your features looking good and keep just everything like in the right place, keep, even like prevent things like TMJ and things like that is facial massages of your face and of your scalp where you're releasing the tension in all of the fascia and different parts of your face. You can do this by yourself. You don't need anyone else to do it. You don't need to pay for expensive things but learning how to properly massage the fascia in your face. Absolute game changer. The other thing that you can do to help the fascia in your face, because it gets like yeah, we get a lot of facial tension in our like frontal part of the face. You can actually put your hair into a high really tight ponytail and that what that will do is it will pull the fascia and it will pull it back so you can wear it for like a, just depending on how long you feel like you can tolerate it, wear it for an hour, wear it for however long but every so often if you pull your hair into a really, really tight bun or ponytail, you can actually help your fascia relax a little bit in your face. I had this, I don't know what her, her like title is but it was this sort of like, facial therapist person that I saw a couple times and she would start every session by literally for 10 minutes like gently pulling my hair in different places of my scalp to like start like prepping and releasing the fascia and it like, it's so relaxing, it's really cool. And Jesse when he's really stressed, he'll be like, can you pull, because he would go to her too and she would do the same thing. And so now when he's stressed, he'll be like, can you just like pull my hair and I'll like work on the fascia and his scalp and like pull his hair in different places and like move fascia around and it's great. I think that like that is the biggest misconception is that we cannot change our facial like aging and facial structure in the placement and these things but you have to remember how many muscles you have in your face and just like how you work your muscles in your body, you can work the muscles in your face to achieve better proportions, to achieve like a lifted look, like you can tone the muscles in your legs, you can also do the same thing with your face but it takes time, it takes practice and yeah, I think that sometimes, you know, we find that like procedures tend to be a little bit more of an easier route. Like kind of just, yeah, so that's another thing. If you want to go down to the rabbit hole, Anastasia beauty, she has really, really good techniques on releasing the fascia. I've done some of her stuff and love her stuff and I think hold on. Let me look this up to make sure I have it right, but I think her name is the body shaman. Hold on. I'm gonna hold on. There's another gal too, it's like yoga, it was like face yoga, something, the beauty. That's the one I'm, that's the one I'm talking about. I know it's, she's like Native American, I think. Yeah, so there's a quite a few different accounts and they have classes and all sorts of workshops that you can do to start to learn and the results can be like pretty rapid depending on if you stay consistent, so you just kind of have to, you just have to like stay consistent with that type of stuff if you want to see it. I think the biggest moving of the needle, Oscar Patel, I think his name is on Instagram. He's doing a lot right now as far as it goes with thumb pulling, which is a technique to try to open up the jaw, especially the upper jaw. He's got all these techniques between face taping, thumb pulling, et cetera, where you can like physically like, like change the structure of your face without braces and stuff with trying to open up the sutures on the bottom part of your skull. So there's a lot out there that we're just now starting to kind of learn about as far as it goes. And so it's really nice because we are in the age of information, although I was telling the Kyla that like the internet is also kind of dead with AI, so don't get sucked into any of those fake accounts, but yeah, just I think that it's good to start doing your own research on the root cause of some of these things that maybe you're insecure about. I know I've had some really, you know, I've had some insecurities over the last few years, specifically with posture from breastfeeding and some of the hair loss stuff. And then, you know, just, oh, skin was a whole other ball game that we could go on for days about. But starting to look at the root cause of why we may be having some of these issues. And yeah, just trying to go from there to address them. Yeah. I think the biggest thing for me that I'd like, again, really like kickstarted this journey a couple of years ago is like, I knew that I was never going to be the girl that like woke up and spent like 45 minutes doing my hair and my makeup and all these things. Like, I was never a makeup girl. I never knew how to, like, I didn't know how to curl my hair. Like, I was, I never was that type of gal. And like, I wished I was like, I loved all my friends that were, but that just wasn't me. I wanted to find a way. Like, I felt so frustrated that I was like, I either have to spend 45 minutes every morning doing my makeup and doing my hair and all these things. Or I have to just be unattractive. And that is like genuinely what I believed in my head for so long. I was like, there is no way to look attractive without having your hair blown out and your makeup done and everything perfect. And so then when I went down this path of like, can I actually attain effortless beauty where I wake up in the morning and I'm like, I look great. Don't need to put makeup on. Don't need to do my hair. My hair is beautiful and thick. And like, my curls are happy and all of these things and I'm not having to go through this long routine, but I can still feel beautiful and put together. And like, now I'm at the point where we'll go on a date and I'll put on a really nice outfit. And I don't do anything to my hair. And I put like two minutes of makeup on maybe. And I'm like, I feel fantastic. Like when we get married, I'm not going to have a full face to make. I'm not even going to do my hair like in some fancy way because I've attained this level where I can feel beautiful naturally without doing a lot of things. And I'm not saying everyone needs to be there or like hating on someone who wants to do the hair and their makeup and all these things. But that was such a place of relief for me when I got there and it was like this weight off my shoulders. If that's not your style, that's not your style and that's okay. It's never been my style either. And if it is your style of somebody who really loves to take care of your hair and it feels like therapy to you or doing makeup, doing hair and that stuff, that's also great. Like, if it's therapeutic to you, but if it causes you more anxiety to do all of that stuff and still feel like, like, then it's not worth it. So you need to find something that ultimately does work for you and explore root causes of some of these superficial insecurities that we kind of talked about to see maybe, can we optimize them with some tweaks in our diet and our lifestyle, et cetera? And can we tweak, you know, X, Y, or Z? Can we find the root cause of this or that without going to and looking for a procedure? Mike? That was Rob. That was fun. I love, I hope. I love chatting. I just also sweated a lot, so I'm going to go drink in the coconut. Well, I'll let you go. You go drink in the coconut. Until next time, girlybops, we'll talk to you soon.