Thyroid issues in men: thyroid healing from a man’s perspective. Learn about how Christopher Toto found out he had Hashimoto’s and started his journey to heal this thyroid. Discover some of the unique challenges thyroid issues in men have and get some great tips for thyroid healing whether you are a man or not.
Cris Toto is a Primal health coach who specializes in helping women 35-60 with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis overcome their autoimmune symptoms using evolutionary science, diet, nutrition and lifestyle interventions.
He is known for his unique process for helping women solve the riddle that is Hashimoto’s thyroiditis. Cris after conquering his own Hashimoto’s condition has developed his process under the guidance of some of the foremost experts in ancestral health and wellness, Cris has a track record of helping 100’s of people get out of pain, avoid surgery and get back to doing the things they love.
With over 17 years in the alternative healthspace, Cris’s accomplishments include being an award winning massage therapist and personal trainer, founder of the Primal Italian health coaching company, and creator of The Hashimoto’s solution.
His program offers a step by step guide to achieving health and vitality despite one’s Hashimoto’s condition in less than 90 days. Drawing from his extensive training and knowledge of anatomy, physiology, nutrition and evolutionary science, plus the work he has put into helping his clients get out of pain, restore their energy and lose the unwanted weight so they can love the reflexion in the mirror and get back to doing the things they love, Cris’s unique approach to reversing autoimmune symptoms sets him apart in the industry.
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/cris-toto72
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Transcript
AnnaLaura Brown: Hello, this is Anna Laura Brown, host of the Autoimmune Rehab podcast, where we talk about how to actually thrive and heal your autoimmune condition rather than just covering it up with pills and changing your diet and hoping you’ll feel better one day. We feature solo episodes on helpful topics and interviews with guests who have actually walked in your shoes with autoimmune disorders who have years of experience in helping people to thrive and not just survive with autoimmune challenges. I’m a health coach who started this podcast because I was diagnosed with Hashimoto’s in 2018 and would like to inspire hope and transform health for people with autoimmune challenges. So, keep listening and let’s get you the help and hope you really need. This is the autoimmune rehab podcast and today I am happy to welcome Chris Total to the podcast and this is going to be a pretty interesting different conversation than I think a lot of you will find helpful.
AnnaLaura Brown: Chris will introduce himself a little further, but his story is Hashimoto’s as well, but in case you hadn’t noticed, I mean, you’ll probably figure it out with the voice and if you’re watching the video version that he’s actually a man instead of a woman and a lot of the other stories we’ve have all been women because a lot of the Hashimoto’s cases are women. so I’m happy to have a man come on and talk about his experience with thyroid issues. Christopher, welcome to Autoimmune Rehab and tell us a little bit more about who you are.
Cris Toto: one of the few men I know that have gotten Hashimoto’s. I was struggling with my health for a while, 10 years. and then I didn’t know what to do. I was losing my hair. I was struggling with my energy levels. I was putting weight on. All the classic symptoms that you hear everyone get. but no one, since I wasn’t a woman, would want to check my thyroid levels out. I went to doctor, surgeon after surgeon, and they all wanted to give me a p anti-anxiety or they wanted to perform surgery for my chronic pain. but I turned all that around.
Cris Toto: I was diagnosed at 50 years old in 2022 and I took me six months to get my hormone levels regulated but I was still experiencing symptoms and then I discovered Mark Sison’s book the primal blueprint. I read Max Lugavir’s book, The Genius Life, and just watched master class after master class, read a thousand books and finally figured out that my lifestyle got me into this mess and my changing my lifestyle could get me out. So, I kind of went paleo.
Cris Toto: I stopped eating gluten, dairy, soy, all the toxins. The standard American diet I kind of completely eliminated. And within, let’s say, 12, 16 weeks, I was completely symptom free. I dropped 40 lbs. and felt like a human again. I felt like I was in the best shape of my life since high school. And that prompted me to change my life, change the trajectory of what I was doing in this world and to become a coach and help other people who are suffering with autoimmune diseases, specifically Hashimoto’s. and…
Cris Toto: I coach other people suffering through it. And from my experiences and what I’ve learned, I helped them go through. It took me years and lots of money to get done in 12 weeks.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, that’s amazing.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, it’s a good testimonial right there to the power that diet has. And sometimes I think we just don’t realize, how powerful changing the diet can be a big one. So, you mentioned that part of the reason people wouldn’t test your thyroid levels was…
AnnaLaura Brown: because you are manned. And how did you finally get somebody to wake up and say, “Hey, listen to me. I need my thyroid levels tested.
Cris Toto: It was actually my wife that suggested I go to see her endocrinologist…
Cris Toto: because she had thyroid cancer due to 911. and she was working around the pile for six months and then 20 years later she developed thyroid cancer. and I just felt horrible. She was just noticing that I had no energy and all the other symptoms She said, “Why don’t you just go see him? Let’s get some blood tested and check it out.” and he was one of the really few good doctors I’ve ever been around. Dr. Hugh Milin in New York City. He’s retired now, but we found him from the Thyroid Mom podcast blog, something like that. My wife found him through. But anyway, he finally did a full thyroid panel on me, tested my testosterone levels, all of that.
00:05:00
Cris Toto: And all I had high tpo antibodies. I had low T4. My testosterone levels were that of a 90-year-old man. in men, they noticed kind of a correlation between low tea and hot and a larger incidence of Hashimoto’s. They don’t know if which one causes which. They’re still studying that. But I had both. so that’s how I was lucky enough to get diagnosed finally.
Cris Toto: And that’s how I got diagnosed by going to my wife’s doctor.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, that’s awesome.
AnnaLaura Brown: That’s great. You were finally able to get that diagnosis. So then you got that diagnosis and did you have that immediate light bulb switch on that said, “Hey, I switched my diet first.” Or what was the first thing you did after you got that?
AnnaLaura Brown: Probably breathe a big sigh of relief of, ” I finally know what’s going on. Now what? Yeah.
Cris Toto: That happened two weeks or…
Cris Toto: so later. First, I sat outside his office and it was a gorgeous spring day in April. I remember the birds are tweeting. Everyone’s walking by and I’m sobbing. I’m crying my eyes out. I’m like, “What the heck did I do to myself? I’m 50 years old. am I going to even make it to 60?” So I had a big old pity party. I was crying. I was like moping. I had all the feels. And then after two weeks and starting to get the medication right that he put me right on NDT armor thyroid. So I started getting the T3 that I didn’t have in my body.
Cris Toto: And then everything started spinning in the right direction after that. Then my mind started clearing and I started feeling good. then I’m starting to feel like a normal human being what’s the next steps here? And then through various keep doing the constant blood work and checking levels we raise my hormone levels after six months. So then is when I had the epiphany that medication is not going to take all my symptoms away because my energy levels were good. All my blood work was reading normalized but I was still having mood swings. I was still having vertigo. there were so many symptoms and so little time I forget them all.
Cris Toto: But I still couldn’t take any weight off. And that was the big kind of a moment.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, it’s a good one. Yeah.
Cris Toto: No matter what my blood work looked, I was still 40 pounds overweight. I had started testosterone replacement therapy, which in hindsight I wish I waited on and changed my diet first. But then I changed my diet by reading some books, by changing my lifestyle, eliminating gluten, soy, processed foods, pasta. which kind of hard being Italian. I mean, my moniker is the primal Italian and I stopped eating almost all the good Italian food. and then the hardest part was eliminating dairy.
Cris Toto: That was the one that took me the longest to stop. But once I stopped dairy, like everything like it just a cascade of everything happened. the weight just flew off. the muscle tone came back. I had energy for days. I started working out and building muscle. So, it was a process of steps that I took because I didn’t know any better. And it was kind of like just throw let me throw this dart and let me throw this dart. And then some of them worked, some of them didn’t. And that’s how everything finally fell into place for me.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, it’s true. I mean, a lot of us end up doing that.
AnnaLaura Brown: We just kind of, like you said, throw the darts and try to figure stuff out. And dair it’s so highly inflammatory. It’s like I tell people the joke is, I love cheese, but it doesn’t love me back,
00:10:00
Cris Toto: Exactly.
Cris Toto: So true.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah, it’s really And I think for some people, what a lot of people don’t realize is some people I think even dairy can be worse than gluten sometimes.
Cris Toto: Because they’re both Exactly.
AnnaLaura Brown: depends on something. But yeah. Yeah.
Cris Toto: And both of them are very similar to your molecules. They’re both have a similar shape, which I found that very interesting. Kind of like that’s why a lot of people who have thyroid problems have gluten intolerances and dairy intolerances.
AnnaLaura Brown: And then of course the other issue is the whole chemicals that are, in our food, especially here in the US. the gluten that’s in Europe is not the gluten that’s in the US because of the way it’s processed and chemicalized. And I mean,…
AnnaLaura Brown: you could go down a whole rabbit hole there. But yeah.
Cris Toto: Exactly. Yeah,…
Cris Toto: Could spend a whole podcast just on that. Definitely. before all the injuries I had in the eight major surgeries,…
AnnaLaura Brown: So after that, you got your weight off, you started feeling good, and then you decided that you wanted to help other people do it. how did you transition over into that? What were you doing for a living? Wow.
Cris Toto: I was a massage therapist and personal trainer for 15 years. so I was always into the alternative health space. I worked in New York City in the Hamptons.
AnnaLaura Brown: yeah.
Cris Toto: Then undiagnosed Hashimoto’s and I herniated a disc in my neck that was a chronic condition for 10 years that forced me out of doing massage and personal training. So then I went and got my MBA. I studied to become a physical therapist for a little while. and then I went into real estate after I get my MBA. So I kept bouncing around. And then when I got diagnosed with Hashimoto’s, it was kind of an epiphany if you might want to say. I found my place in the world. I searched for 50 years and then I found And it was like a light bulb kind of going off. You need to help all these other people. you did the work yourself. You can help all these other people.
Cris Toto: and if you just do the searching in Facebook or on Reddit or any of the social media platforms or just even contacting all my friends and there’s so many people with thyroid autoimmune diseases, Hashimoto’s like I heard story after story like my friend told me I’m so glad you’re a coach now one of my friends committed suicide because they had Hashimoto’s Exactly.
AnnaLaura Brown: Whoa.
Cris Toto: Yeah, that’s what I say. I’m like, “All right, I’m in it to win it.” I got certified through Mark Sison’s Primal Health Coach Institute and then I used all the training and the anatomy and the physiologies I had been studying for years to my benefit. I keep reading and I keep studying from people that know a little bit more me than me and I pass it down to my clients now. And I started in 2023,…
AnnaLaura Brown: like your neck injury and stuff or things like that or what did you go through on that
Cris Toto: three were my right knee. I was stupid and played club football in college and blew out my ACL. and then that needed work. Two of them were for my neck, one of them was for my a triple hernia. deviated septum from getting punched in the face. And I can’t even remember the others, but yeah, the shoulder and the knee were probably related to chronic arthritis due to Hashimoto’s and just eating a poor diet. I think I avoided those.
Cris Toto: Definitely could have been.
AnnaLaura Brown: Then of course a lot of people experienced the whole stress and trauma thing that can bring down your thyroid stuff like that. So maybe having all those surgeries played a role in you getting the autoimmune and the thyroid issues too to some degree.
Cris Toto: Yeah, especially the neck surgery because that’s kind of like but it was like when I look back at it I was having thyroid symptoms and the chronic pain. and then just also symptoms of low tea. So, it’s kind of like a whole combination of just hitting me. And living in New York City, frankly, isn’t the healthiest environment to live in. There’s a lot of toxins. You’re always walking around with car fumes going or if you’re on the subway that doesn’t smell too great either.
00:15:00
Cris Toto: You’re eating a lot of restaurant food. You’re cramp in a cramped buildings. Even if we had very nice apartments, they’re still no bigger than,00200 square ft. so there’s not a lot of parkland and space besides Central Park to be in nature. So there’s a whole combination of stuff that led me to where I was. We moved to New Jersey before I was diagnosed,…
AnnaLaura Brown: Are you still liking the New York City area too?
Cris Toto: before my wife was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. We finally got sick of paying the rents. They raised our rent from 4,500 to $6,000 in our apartment.
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah.
Cris Toto: And my wife did the figuring out. She’s a financial analyst on Wall Street and we had paid a million dollars in rent.
Cris Toto: So, we’re going to go buy a house in Jersey and that’s Yeah,…
AnnaLaura Brown: Yeah. Yeah.
AnnaLaura Brown: It’s nice. So, you’re probably in an area now where you have a lot more outdoor space. You’re able to go get grounded, benefit from the nature, and it’s just Yeah,…
Cris Toto: exactly. We have a gorgeous house with views to die for. We have now three dogs. We had one. We go I hike with them daily. So I’m out in nature all the time. It’s a much more zen kind of living.
AnnaLaura Brown: and that definitely helps your healing as well too. So, tell us a little bit about how does somebody get in contact with you if they want to reach out and learn more about you and how they can work with you?
Cris Toto: The best place is to reach me on Instagram that’s my main social media presence. Also, I have a website the primalion.com where they can go and check out what I offer. They can listen to my story. They can get my free guide there as well. or they could book a call and we could talk about how they might be helped by my Primal Path and my Hashimoto Solution coaching program.
Cris Toto: And then I guess in the show notes we’ll put a link to my …
AnnaLaura Brown: We’ll put the links To Instagram and your website and…
Cris Toto: that and…
AnnaLaura Brown: anything else.
Cris Toto: then I Yeah.
AnnaLaura Brown: Link to Awesome.
Cris Toto: And I have a free master class that I’ll put a link to there where they can go and figure out how they can kind of help their own Hashimoto’s and figure out it gives a step kind of guide to start them on their healing journey.
AnnaLaura Brown: So if you could go back in time to let’s say maybe 2018 2019 few years before you got your diagnosis and tell yourself something that you wish you’d known then that what would you tell yourself.
Cris Toto: health and your own health. And then two is Stop eating the standard American diet. Eat more plants and Don’t eat processed foods. How about that? Start there. Don’t eat Drink better water. listen to people…
AnnaLaura Brown: Awesome. That’s good.
Cris Toto: who are smarter than study. Those are the basic things I would tell myself.
AnnaLaura Brown: That’s great advice. thanks so much, Christopher, for coming on the podcast. Like I said, we’ll include everyone’s link so people can connect with you. They can learn more about you. They can do a call if they feel like that’s something that they want to learn more from you. And everybody else, thanks for listening to this episode of Autoimmune Rehab. If you found it helpful, feel free to please give us a review, and share with anybody else that could benefit. Especially if you have any men in your life that you feel like might have thyroid Hashimoto’s issues. Let them listen to another man because sometimes, you can listen to all the women in the world, but sometimes actually hearing from a man who’s been there might actually help them actually get a diagnosis and get some help.
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