Free The Hormone Reset Diet by Sara Gottfried

suggested menu for resetting your estrogen. For nutritional data, check out the Notes section. 16

    SOY: RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
    Soy has been popular for more than five thousand years in Asia. Why have we recently demonized it and made the choice to consume soy endlessly confusing? Sometimes I will order tempeh while out to dinner with friends, and they stare at me in horror, convinced that I will become estrogen dominant and develop breast cancer overnight, and that my thyroid will stop working. I disagree: small amounts of whole soy, preferably organic and fermented, have been shown to be a great choice when you go meatless. Allow me to unravel the mysteries of soy and offer sane, evidence-based rules of engagement.
    Here are my recommendations:
    Avoid GM soy.
Genetically modified (GM) soy crops were widely introduced in 1996, and today up to 94 percent of soy available in American grocery stores has been genetically modified. Unfortunately, there is evidence that GM crops cause harm to your gut, microbiome, sex hormones (including aromatase, which is involved in estrogen synthesis), and insulin. For this reason, I assume GM soy is guilty of harm to your body until proven innocent, and I advise you to avoid it by choosing organic whole soy or soy that is labeled “Non-GMO.”
    Eat whole soy.
In Asian countries, people eat moderate amounts of whole soy as part of a healthy diet. In the United States, Big Food pushes weird and highly processed foods under the guise that it’s healthy. Does “soy protein isolate” sound like a good idea? Instead of eating the whole-food version of soy, we try to isolate the “healthy” part, and it may be the reason behind the conflicting results, and by extension, the confusion about whether soy is good or bad for you. 17 I recommend eating only whole soy—not the isolates, not the processed version, but fresh soy food, such as organic tofu and edamame.
    Eat fermented soy,
such as miso and tempeh. Several recent studies show that fermented soy at a dose of approximately 60 grams per day raises progesterone, lowers cholesterol, and prevents hyperglycemia. 18 Fermentation removes genetically modified components.
    Short version: Don’t let soy confuse you. Eat whole and non-GM soy, preferably fermented. If your thyroid is slow, limit yourself to two servings of whole soy per week.
    From Dr. Sara’s Case Files: Kristy, Age Forty
    • Lost 17 pounds in her Hormone Reset and 7 inches off her waist.
    • In her version of the Hormone Reset, “wild-caught salmon replaced chicken nuggets. Fresh spinach replaced chocolate chip cookies.”
    • The first few days were rough. But soon something beautiful happened. She had energy—true energy. Not the shaky, temporary energy of coffee or sugar, but a real intrinsic fuel.
    • Kristy started to notice other changes, such as no back pain or constipation. The weight began to fall off. Now she still doesn’t eat sugar, rarely consumes alcohol and dairy, and she sleeps deeply and restfully.
    • After completing her Hormone Reset, she lost another 28 pounds, for a total of 45 pounds lost.
    WAYS TO WEAN YOURSELF OFF ALCOHOL
    When I completed my residency in obstetrics and gynecology in 1998 I was thirty-one and worked at a health maintenance organization (HMO). I was a bit of a purist and thrilled to practice the evidence-based medicine that I’d spent nine long years learning, night and day. I was assigned to a retiring physician and took over his practice of three thousand patients. It stunned me to find that most of them came in for their annual visits requesting Valium and other tranquilizers, so they could sleep and generally cope with a stressful life as a modern woman, and asking for a water pill, so they could deal with their fluid retention.
    I was shocked and more than a little judgmental. This wasn’t the evidence-based medicine I had learned at Harvard Medical School and the University of California at San Francisco, where I’d served