The Everyday Awesome Project
The Everyday Awesome Podcast is your mega dose of multivitamins for building your mental muscles, physical body and an empowered life. Your hosts Polly and Sam are on your dream team; lifelong coaches in business, health & fitness and human potential. They are on fire to ignite change in the lives they touch.
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77: The Second Brain: How Your Gut Impacts Your Health P2
Part Two this week on the GUT with Coaches Polly and Sam. This round we are gonna dive into your overall physical health, to top off last week's part one brain-gut connection session. So imagine your gut as a thriving garden, where beneficial bacteria bloom and support every system in your body, like the beauty of having fresh veggies or flowers in our garden. When that garden flourishes, you experience vibrant health; BUT when weeds take over, the effects ripple through your entire being and choke all the good plants.
In this eye-opening episode, we dive deep into the profound connection between your gut microbiome and overall physical health. Building on our previous conversation about the gut-brain axis, we explore how your digestive system functions as your "second brain" and influences everything from immunity to hormone balance. Did you know roughly 75% of your immune cells line the walls of your gut? This explains why gut health correlates directly with autoimmune conditions, skin disorders, and even unexplained weight changes.
We share our personal journeys with gut dysfunction – from autoimmune challenges and thyroid disorders to candida overgrowth and SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth). These experiences taught us firsthand how dramatically gut health impacts every aspect of wellbeing. We explore the estrobiome, the specific gut bacteria responsible for metabolizing hormones, and explain how disruptions here can lead to estrogen dominance affecting both women and men.
The modern diet poses significant challenges to gut health. We identify hidden gut disruptors lurking in seemingly "healthy" foods – from mass-produced bread and breakfast cereals to flavored yogurts and low-fat snacks. Environmental toxins, stress, and certain medications further compromise this delicate ecosystem. Yet we emphasize that healing is possible through mindful nutrition, quality hydration, movement, and stress management.
Your inner garden deserves attention and care. While exterior appearances may seem important, it's what's happening inside that truly determines how you feel and function. As we always say: how your life looks doesn't mean anything – it's how it feels that matters. Take this opportunity to nurture your gut garden and discover a new level of vitality and wellness.
-Coaches Sam & Polly xoxo
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hey superstars.
Speaker 2:Welcome back paula here and sam.
Speaker 1:We're having a dance party we're a little fired up this morning it's a little earlier in the day, or like can't help ourselves, can't help ourselves and we are talking about today some. This is part two, so if you haven't tuned into part one, go catch that. That's the second brain and understanding your second brain. And what was it called Like listening to your intuition.
Speaker 2:The connection between your gut and your health. This is part two. This is part two. Okay, the first one, in case they missed it, was understanding the connection between their gut and their mind, their brain.
Speaker 2:So, this is part two their mind, their brain. So this is part two and basically there could be 12 editions of this. Gut brain, second brain. You know, conversation it's very complex, but you know what we were talking about before the show and getting ready for this is it's also so incredibly simple, right? So we don't want people to get overwhelmed and drowned in all the information that's out there, because it can be. I mean, some people are total nerds like me, and I can listen to it all day long and read all the things and whatever, but many, many people are not interested in that or simply don't have the time or bandwidth. It's totally cool. That's why we're here to provide the nuanced information, the relevant, and to distill it down into simple formats so people can really understand, become aware and embrace the changes that work for them, correct?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think what I would add to that I love it is when I became aware, like you know, you and I are students of health right, we're students of fitness and health and all these things and like the gut was just not on my radar for so many years of my life. And once it became on my radar, I'm like this is so damn important people, or like nobody's talking about it.
Speaker 1:It's so important. You know, you said like we don't want to like raise alarm bells or something. I'm like, yeah, but I want to raise the importance bells like, oh my gosh, so much of your health. Like I I can't remember who said it and I might be misquoting it, but it's like all disease starts in the gut. It's just, it's a systemic problem.
Speaker 1:If you have a disease, it's largely from something that's originating in your gut, the dysbiosis of your gut, right? So when we talk about gut, we're going to use these words in your gut, your microbiome, belly, bugs, whatever word you're talking about, it's your large intestine, small intestine, you know. Some say you know, as we said in the first episode, it goes from your throat to your esophagus, to your anus, right? It's like we're probably mostly talking about the two intestines, right? You know that 30 feet of magic down there that's held together by the thickness the walls of your gut, is the thickness of your hair. So it's a precious little thing. And you know, we can go into this and just start with, like the importance of that on the overall health.
Speaker 1:One of the things I want to, you know, kind of introduce our conversation is you know, because you with autoimmune, with the celiacs, right, like that gut you know started there is how important the gut is playing this bigger role in immunity. You know COVID and diseases and all these things like the, so the foundation. So we said this in the first episode about 75% of the immune cells in your whole body are lining the other wall, the other side of the wall, from your intestine, so it's protecting your body from anything. So, if you think about this, so our skin protects us from the outer world, right, and how things get into us is through what we put into our mouth, right, and then it's going through, it's like inside of our body. But it's this tube that goes, you know, from the outside at our mouth to the other outside on our butt, you know, and that's, that's that's things in our environment going through the body, if you will. So when that's leaky, when that's got little chains in the wall are broken down, the immune system can get dysregulated, right.
Speaker 2:Well, it makes sense. It's on red alert people. Yeah, I started my stuff, you know, even in my late 20s, and then, of course, autoimmune and celiacs and all that jazz, even in my late twenties, and then, of course, autoimmune and celiacs and all that jazz. And then right now I'm resolving and process of resolving and healing SIBO, which is a small intestinal bacterial infection that I got from apparently swimming all those open water swims, training for Ironman last year. So that's fun. So I'm revisiting it again and understanding myself through my own experience, and you have your own experiences.
Speaker 2:I want you to speak to also about how we discovered for us the, how quickly when we are aware that our gut is not functioning the way it should be, how disrupted we are, how impactful that is and not just ignoring it. So awareness is the number one, right. You with your eating disorder and resolving that over all of the years and hard work it took to rebuild your own health, understanding the gut impacts that that had for you. Mine was autoimmune celiacs and you just spoke to how that works. You know, all my immune system was on red alert and here it is again on red alert, again with this damn, you know, sibo infection and it's pretty impactful on my life. And do you want to speak about your own experience there? Well, I guess.
Speaker 1:I would say I don't know that I've gotten to the full bottom of it. You know, I've been trying to put the pieces together and I don't know that I've found the literature yet. But when I so you know, when I was a teenager 14, 15, whatever started eating disorder, so throwing trash into my body and then throwing it up, right, but trash was getting through my body within five or six years of that, fast forward to about 2021 years old, in college, I get diagnosed with a hyperactive thyroid. Right, it's like well, where did that come from? Well, fast forward, you know, had that treated? So now I have an underactive thyroid that I take medication on for since then. And you know, the more I dive into studying, like I just like where did that come from? Like my mom didn't have a thyroid. Like like I was the only person you know, like that I knew that had this thyroid problem, especially at 20. I mean, I had a goiter.
Speaker 1:Like the doctor yeah, the doctor told my mom, um, it was the largest one they'd ever seen. I was like, oh my gosh. You know I was like we got to do something about this. You know, I'm like where the hell did that come from?
Speaker 1:Well, I think it's all the stuff created all this dysbiosis, all this, you know, I just I had no clue what I was doing to this body and like how it affected things and was I, you know, depressed in the cycle of pain, of like eating disorder and feeling alone and all this stuff, like it was just all tied together. You know, fast forward, knowing what I know now, oh my gosh, alcohol, you know, as a teenager, all this stuff, you know these bad lifestyle habits or a contribution to that, you know. And then we fast forward to where a lot of women see another tipping point in their life where hormones shift and change, whether it's PMS or, you know, menopause and how you know. And I am now, you know I just had a actually just got some blood work recently. So I have been on for since then, since a 20 something, 150 micrograms of levothyroxine, which is a synthroid. It's a fairly high dose, I think, for people who haven't.
Speaker 1:It's a very high dose Okay. Well, fast forward to hey guess what.
Speaker 1:I just went through menopause. I mean, I'm in-menopause now and you know, my process for the last couple of years was just, things didn't feel right. I was sleeping, I was like what's going on? Thyroid was out of balance again. Now I'm on 200. I just had a second follow-up. So I've been working with my doctor for my naturopath for the last year, second follow-up, doing 200. How are we doing? How are we doing? And I'm in the sweet spot, but I'm on 200. I'm like, wow, that's kind of a lot. You know so and I'm a and I'm a great foodie, though, like I, I've been studying the microbiome for since covid a time frame, if you will. I've learned so much and it's just like oh, how do I? You know, how do I take good care of that? I don't have a lot of, um, autoimmune disease. My aunt has it, I think, but you know in my direct family that I know of anyway, um, so how about you?
Speaker 2:do you want to say more on that, or well, I think what we're just trying to say to people and we'll get on with the meat of this, because there's a lot to cover is that that it's all interconnected. Everything is linked to what we are putting into our body happens to be processed by this incredibly complex and yet beautiful system. We're calling the gut because it's a combination of. You know this entire pathway, but how that affected you and how it affected me and how it's affecting really everybody. So nobody is not affected. Every human is affected in some way, shape or form, for the good or the bad talk about this, I think, with metabolism in the brain.
Speaker 1:Right is, how many autoimmune diseases and let's call it, you know, the brain issues that we see in Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and things like that guess what? They're finding out that it's related to the gut, and so, and autoimmunes like Crohn's and what else do we have?
Speaker 1:Lupupus and oh, there's rheumatoid arthritis autoimmunes yeah, all the autoimmune yeah, there's a list out there you can find. So, all of those. So what happens is the gut microbiome and that relationship it has with those 75 of your immune cells, right, if that gets out of whack, and the gut, so the microbiome, when it's healthy and diverse, I just want you to think of like, oh, it's like a pleasant garden to walk into, right, it's diverse, with lots of flowers and vegetation and there's biodiversity and you know.
Speaker 2:And there's flies and bumblebees. It's like a healthy garden.
Speaker 1:It's like oh, you know, that probably doesn't smell great, but it's like, you know, herbaceous. Yeah, it probably doesn't smell great, but it's like, you know it's herbaceous, yeah, and you don't. You know, when we think of monocropping, we think of you know, oh somebody's just growing orange and wheat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, one monocrop it's not healthy and you have all these things that they have to do to keep that crop safe from right. So what nature wants to naturally do is diversify, and so it's eating a diverse array of things and I studied this when I did that test a few years back, like three years ago, with Zoe. Zoecom highly recommend that and it's a test that you can get of your microbiome to see how diverse is your flora, how diverse is your. You know your gut, what is it? Bacteria and parasites and all these things you want, not too much of one and missing some and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:That healthy garden creates a healthy environment for your overall body, right, when, when that's broken down or it's in what they call dysbiosis, it's just think of like gardens got a lot of weeds in it. You garden, the plants are kind of dying. You know you got too many of one dominating. It's like, oh crap, this just took over, right? Well, that leads the trickle down is autoimmune, because the immune system takes information and training, like the gut microbiome actually train the immune cells what's good and what's bad in the body, and so if you get these things like cystic hormone disruptions. The body's fighting against itself. It's misidentifying because there's dysbiosis in the body. So the gut isn't telling the immune system what to do properly, because it's out of whack.
Speaker 2:Exactly, it thinks everything's a foreign invader because it's leeching through the walls. And I'll just add one piece, even though we're not talking about metabolism today and my favorite subject in the world, which is mitochondria, because I'm a big nerd like that oh my God, is that in the body there are 35 trillion cells, okay, inside the 35, and there's 200 different types of cells. Okay, so 35 trillion cells, 200 different types. It's pretty complex in there. Okay, you can just see how chaos could rain down if things went um, were malfunctioning. There's a hundred thousand trillion mitochondria. So the mitochondria are the energy cell of the body. They sit within all these other cells. This is how we stay alive, and so those little cells within the cells are the energy house. They fuel everything. It's how we even function, and they can become starved and damaged through this exact same process.
Speaker 2:And as men go ahead and then we wonder why we have no energy and our brain isn't working and we become diseased right. Because on a cellular level so just extrapolating on what you're saying the cells are either not getting the proper nourishment and food and energy and fuel that they need and or they're becoming damaged through this process as well. And cell dysregulation, of course, is cancer and every other disease state yeah, I would say the trickle down inflammation is the yeah, the trickle down.
Speaker 1:So when you have this dysbiosis, a dysregulated, a weak garden, things aren't flourishing or whatnot leaky gut leaky gut, leaky gut, and it's sending signals to the immune system, the wrong signals, like it's out of balance, right, and so the system is attacking things that are good and letting things pass that aren't, or, you know, it's just mistaking things, and so the trickle down is like this overall inflammation we talk about, like rheumatoid arthritis, is like inflammation in the joints and those areas that it deposits, right, like it has to go somewhere. And so, you know, think of it like a thermostat. Right, you have a good, healthy garden, like sunshine, the bugs and everything can live in there, and like life flourishes and that gets all out of whack. Then, you know, things die off and you get weeds and whatnot, the overgrowth.
Speaker 1:Well, that can lead to an irregular immune system which creates too much like heat. You know, in ayurveda we say too much heat in the body, right. So inflammation is just so good. Inflammation is you have a scratch on your arm and it goes right to that place, you know, and your, your cells, attack it and take care of it, right, okay, temperature's back to normal, right. But if you have dysregulation, you've got all this that place, you know, and your, your cells, attack it and take care of it, right. Okay, temperature's back to normal, right. But if you have dysregulation, you've got all this over toxins and misregulation, sending inflammation to the body.
Speaker 2:Chronic inflammation.
Speaker 1:Chronic yes, that's a good word for it. The chronic inflammation, chronic heat is like that. The body's too hot, like it needs to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the person standing in the middle of a forest fire. Yeah, we're living in the smoke. Yeah, okay, this can't be good for us people answer is going to create it.
Speaker 1:You know what sorts of diseases will will arise from that, those autoimmune diseases. So, yes, so your body's gut is a systemic inflammation regulator. Like you're having inflammation symptoms and we, you know, know there's lots of trickle down. Like we said, some of these diseases that are implement inflammation, whether it's irregular, autoimmune or things you know and some of this can have to do with like I'll jump, you know to it shows up in your skin, right? So it's not just inside but it'll show up in your skin. Eczema act like. I had acne, adult acne until I was in my 40s. I was like I just have acne. I'm just one of those people, holy cow. Once I got my gut cleaned up, you know, and especially for me, I have noticed that alcohol and my acne direct correlation. Like if I drink now, I'll have a breakout. It's like wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, and of course, for me, that's my first indicator always is if I've gotten gluten or some other allergen, that I have food wise, and in this case I'll get a skin rash and I've had them everywhere and you know, really out of control. And then, like with the SIBO, it was one of the first things. It was like what are these rashes back on my face? And it was similar, yet different than my prior rashes. And going to the skin doctor, they're like just put some steroids on that, cover that up. And I was like no bro, there's something systemic going on within my body.
Speaker 1:It's definitely related to my food, this or that, and I'm not dissing Western medicine, but they were like we got no clue about that and I was like, yeah, people put makeup on eczema.
Speaker 2:Put makeup on eczema, it's like, oh, it's steroid trains, which sends your skin and causes other damage, and I was like, no, I'm going to get down to the root of this. And sure enough, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, one of the things that brought me into the gut world was I had this I forget what call it a rash. It just had like on my back. I just sort of noticed I was scratching a lot kind of like over my, between my shoulder blades. I was like oh, what is that?
Speaker 1:And I asked my partner. I was like you know, could you take a look, like, take a picture of my back, like you know, cause I don't see it. I'm like, what does that look like? And he took a picture of my back and it was just this. It wasn't red, I'm trying to remember. It was like just look like speckles or something. And I was like this doesn't look right. I don't know what it is and it's not like um, let's say, I wasn't losing sleep over it, I wasn't out of work, I wasn't, uh, you know, paralyzed by it, but I was like that's not right and I don't. You and I we don't sit and go well, you have, but now you know better Like we don't go too far down a track. That's like I'll just let that sit on my back for a while, turn into something else. Well, that was a huge indicator that I can't. We got to the root of it.
Speaker 1:Candida in my gut yeah, huge, that I probably had for decades. That I you know that I had no idea, and so we were working on candida for years and years and now it's like that went away pretty quickly. I had some quick wins with that, but it did take a lot of years to get that candida, the yeast production, in my gut.
Speaker 2:And just so people know, you could have a bacterial overgrowth or you could have a fungus Like. So there are, there can be bad bugs, bad juju in the gut system. So we're talking mostly or I think we're going to talk a lot about you know how to create a good environment, a good garden, but you can have predators in there too fungus, bacteria et cetera that cause the overgrowth and then the symptoms start to show up.
Speaker 1:And so there's. I would just say like, do me a favor, if you're listening to this, any symptom that you think like isn't, you know, homeostasis, ie, like whether it's your eye, whether it's something on your skin, something your knuckles, you know, inflammation, whatever. Just look it up in the gut, just see if there's something related together, because I'm probably, you're probably going to find there's something behind this with the gut and that might, you know, just a big clue. Just a big clue, because all it all originates there from what I've seen. So okay, so what else? Let me see if there's anything else.
Speaker 1:So you know, and it's nutrition, like you said, like if the you've got bad gut, it's not absorbing those nutrients, right, like I see this with my kitty cats poor things they've got. You know. You know irritable bowel syndrome, right, which is crappy gut, right, and you know it's just losing weight, losing weight, right. So you know, if you have irritable bowel system, if you're constipated or irregular bowel movements, if you're not pooping every day at least once a day, please, that is a sign you have some breakdown in your gut period.
Speaker 2:Or if you're pooping all the time, which I've had the extremes, I've had both pendulum. Yeah, so fun. Loading yeah Like diarrhea, diarrhea, diarrhea everything that goes in is coming out Diarrhea. That's also very problematic, so you could be pooping, but if it's not quality pooping, quality pooping, we should send you some pictures of what your poop should look like. Just Google it, it's all there.
Speaker 1:If it's too loose, or if it's too firm, or if it's not happening regularly enough, like I had someone that I heard. Was it you Like 10 days? That was me, that was when I was very sick.
Speaker 2:I didn't poop for 10 days. I was so sick. I mean I was borderline like I should probably should have been hospitalized because of the amount of toxins in my body.
Speaker 1:But yeah, because your body's like people, I was jacked the hell up me, but it's called the estro estro. Well, I should say this before we got on estrobilome and is a specific collection of gut bacteria and their genes that are capable of metabolizing and modulating circulating estrogen in your body. So this is specific, most important for our female listeners. Right? It's like if you have anything that feels like you've got estrogen dominance in your body, look to the gut, just like we'll take it to that and so as these. So what the liver does is it packages up estrogen floating around your body, sends it to your gut, gut. If the gut is all the healthy garden, it's like, ok, we'll take that and we'll send it out the exit or exit hatch, or we'll take him, we'll recirculate what's necessary. You get it into a garden filled with weeds and they're like I'm sorry, where do you need this package to go? Oh, we'll send it back to the body. So like you get this over influx of estrogen so let me just add yeah it's.
Speaker 2:It's men too now, and that's why we're seeing a lot more male breast cancer, prostate cancer for men, etc. So they're getting recirculatory estrogens into their body. They're becoming estrogen dominant, just like a lot of women walking around and same process. Human is human.
Speaker 1:Totally so, yeah. So, forgive me, not just women, but any, all of us for sure. But if you have signs of estrogen dominance, you know, I wonder if that's the man boobs too, because I hear that that's where estrogen can sit on men you know, yeah, and it's a certain type of body fat that they'll see is compounded, and lots of other signals, but it will show up.
Speaker 2:You know, estrogen is in our food, it's in our environment, so males are getting it just as much as we are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the estrobilone bacteria in your body are designed to ensure estrogen is properly eliminated, you know, and sometimes, you know, put it back into circulation, but mostly to eliminate it. So if you're having that check on your gut, talk to your doctor about that, you know, and Western medicine doctor may not even know, but talk to a naturopath or somebody else, you know, keep asking, keep asking.
Speaker 2:And I just add for myself, I went into early menopause because of this. So my gut was totally broken. It wasn't functioning at all with the celiacs, autoimmune, and so I went into early menopause and ended up early hysterectomy, early all the things, and early menopause because of that. So, like, just have awareness, my female friends also, that you know if you're having fertility issues or you're having menstruation issues, hormonal issues. You know if you're having fertility issues or you're having menstruation issues, hormonal issues, you know you want to be aware about doing something about this now, cause I learned all of this like in hindsight right, hindsight's always 20, 20, but I would really love for a lot of people not to have to go through those things.
Speaker 1:I'm just going to list some of them just so that we can get it into the conversation. So people can be like well, I don't know estrogen, if that's estrogen dominance, I'm just gonna. So pms yep, hot flashes, night sweats, unexplained weight gain, especially around the belly, fibroids, endometriosis, mood swings and even increase for certain hormone sensitive cancers, like breast cancer. So those are some of the warning signs you want to look out for some of the huge bummers dude, dude, bummer okay, so let's talk about.
Speaker 1:You know what's caught. What are some of the biggest causes for your, your gut, your garden to get overcrowded with weeds and get all out of whack crappy food?
Speaker 2:dude crapola, come on now. You don't be shoveling shit into the dog pile of already shit. You know like what's a fertilizer looking like. Anyway, go ahead, Sorry.
Speaker 1:Here's what I want to double click on is I think people are blinded by marketing sometimes and they don't even realize that what they think is healthy is not. So I want to double click on. You know they think processed foods like, oh, that's McDonald's or that's you know food. I'm not eating that crap food, I'm eating healthy food. So I'm going to share with you. I just wanted to come up with a list Thank you, ai, for helping me pull this list together succinctly of like hidden.
Speaker 1:So you said processed foods is one, yes, and preservatives. So what I want people to understand and I, when I discovered this, I was like a preservative's job is to keep something from dying, so it preserves it, right, so like it keeps all the bacteria away, so that thing. That doesn't. So if you think about a mush, you know like a mushroom in in in nature, right, it, its job is to like fungus. You know when fungus, if you see fungus on a piece of fruit or something like that, it's actually helping that fruit break down. That's totally natural.
Speaker 1:You're like I wouldn't eat it. Okay, don't eat that, but that's part of the natural fungi in the environment called earth. That's their job, right? You have those in your belly. So if you put something that's designed to prevent breakdown, ie beef jerky or you know long shelf cracker so I'm going to list them what happens is you get these preservatives that are keeping that food from breaking down goes into your gut and it attacks the gut that is trying to do its job, which is trying to break your food down and like recirculate and get the nutrients out of it. It says, nope, y'all got to die, like these preservatives come in and wipe them out. So, things that you may not realize mass-produced bread and I'm not talking about necessarily just white bread, like you know it could be- Delft stable, yeah.
Speaker 1:So if you have a bread that can like hang out on your counter for two weeks, that's probably yeah. Like bread is meant to break down for two weeks, that's probably yeah. Like bread is meant to break down Like natural sourdough. You see it Like it's alive, it's doing its thing and like, after too long, if you leave it, it gets those little green things because that's the natural process. If you're breaking it in, you know a little pantry, for two weeks, three weeks, get rid of it, change. Most breakfast cereals period end of story. Most breakfast cereals. So you know there's hardly any cereals today that can say that.
Speaker 1:Flavored yogurts. I think people are really missing this. But they're like, oh, probiotic. Like you know what, not making it through your gut, not making it through your digestive system, because a lot of those you know things that they sell in marketing speak like yogurts made a comeback. They think probiotic. Guess what? Your stomach enzymes are wiping them out. So not. So if it's not plain and if it's not unsweetened, it probably has lots of sugars, artificial sweeteners and stabilizers. So cereal and granola bars, you know what? Just wipe those off. Store-bought dresses and sauces, be aware, you know if it's gonna live out on a shelf, like, like, if you're, if it, yeah, if it can live on a shelf or live in your fridge for like years. No, don't do it. Low fat or diet snacks dude.
Speaker 2:Are those still a thing? Low fat and diet snacks for reals, dude. I was like an eighties kid and that's what we did Everything's low fat and it was all low fat and diet foods and we were eating it by the boatloads, by the way. Wow, we're all getting fatter and unhygienic, so that's still having a moment.
Speaker 1:Diet Coke. Well, yeah, it's, it's, it's morphed Like we don't, it's just chemical warfare.
Speaker 2:It is.
Speaker 1:You get extra sugar, you get artificial sweeteners and then all these unknown additives, like like, it's just just like a gut bomb. Ok, it's just a gut bomb. Crackers and chips this is a hard one for me, you know. Like I'm a chip girl, like I look at corn chips and I go I love you my corn chips, but I know you got GMO in there and so, and the oils that they're often cooked in are just like just gut bombs, man, little gut bombs. So you got to be selective about your crackers. Just gut bombs, man, little gut bombs. So you got to be selective about your crackers. I think there's some decent ones out there.
Speaker 2:I love Mary's Mary's crackers and not eat them every day. Yeah, Okay. So if you're having a once a week treat moment. We're not.
Speaker 1:You're true.
Speaker 2:Okay, cool, but many people are sustaining themselves with these foods on the daily.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, you know I look at. So how I have shifted my lifestyle habits is um. I spend very little time in the middle of the grocery store, like the aisles.
Speaker 2:Cause there's no refrigeration there, dude.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly, like boxes and packages and cans. Yeah, yeah. And I'm like if it doesn't go into my fridge and like would die in my fridge in a week or pretend you know some of my, yeah, it's like I shouldn't be putting that on my body. So like I have very little food in a pantry, I have a like little tiny pantry and fridge.
Speaker 2:It's one of the many reasons I will not shop at Costco. I have a laundry list of reasons I won't, but that is one of them. And also, this is real. This was a real reprogramming for me and I'm still fine tuning this. But and I get, this is a luxury that I have. So I'm just saying I have a privileged luxury that I work for myself most of the time, unless I'm in production or doing a specific project or event, so I can go to the grocery store every two or three days and buy the things for the next couple of days. But that was a real retraining for me and figuring out can I do that, Can I do it efficiently, and blah, blah, blah, whatever.
Speaker 1:Well, when I learned about Flash Frozen, you know, I was like, oh my gosh, you know. So you know, I used to do a lot with, like, I love blueberries. I think blueberries and raspberries for their antioxidant properties are fantastic, but I would sometimes have trouble eating them fast enough, right, and I was like I don't want to A the cost. So I'm like I'm all about frozen blueberries and raspberries. I get to have it year round and they, you know, they flash freeze it right at the moment. It's like and it's not preservatives.
Speaker 2:It's just frozen, right, so? The nutrients and you know how you know, you know how you know it's a secret. No, no, read the damn package. If it says, freaking well, no ingredients, no berries, then what is the ingredient?
Speaker 1:they don't so at certain percentages, so they don't have to list up all the preservatives. Not why not? No, not all of them, no.
Speaker 2:So how is that possible? Your best?
Speaker 1:judge is if this thing is going to, you can leave it sit on the counter and it will naturally decay in a fair amount of time, like days, you know, a week or something. It's alive and it's not being held together by something else preserving it from falling apart.
Speaker 2:But if you're shopping and you do take a moment to read the ingredients in a package, you will see all kinds of preservatives, additives and one thing I'm highly allergic to emulsifiers. Emulsifiers are thickening agents put in almost everything and for me those are really problematic and I would say for many, many people they don't realize. Emulsifiers that make the thing fluffy or thick or whatever, all basically binding agents.
Speaker 1:Problem children I should add to this like what those are? Cause people, I don't, I don't, you know. I, just like I said, I have my little lifestyle game called like I don't let, I don't eat things that would last yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, but just, I just do that. Like my thermostat is, you know, is this thing going to sit on? You know, like a Twinkie, it could live, outlive me. I'm like that's clearly. Do they still make Twinkies? I know, that's super general, you know. But even Clif bars, dude, like people look at Clif bars and it's like, yeah, I've had this since 19, you know. I'm like, yeah, we're still good, I'm so sure you know. So granola bars, clip bar, you know, like oats in their natural state are okay. But when you process it and you turn into some sort of wonky bar or whatever and you make it with all these other things and then it's got this shelf life for it. But like oats in their natural state, yeah, they can live on, you know. You dry them out and and then you re warm them back up, okay, but cookies.
Speaker 2:You know, for me I'll make a suggestion of um, and you should give some suggestions too for just the general human out there.
Speaker 2:Just trying to figure this shit out right is like awareness, which is what we're gracefully trying to present today, and then some basic tools like just a general examination or take inventory of where am I currently shopping, where am I spending my money. So what I do hear a lot from people as a pushback to all of these types of conversations around healthy nutrition and how imperative it is is the expense or the inconvenience, and I would just say as obnoxiously and loudly as I can and if I need to get a bullhorn, I sure the hell will If you're going to invest in one thing with your money and with your time, it is going to be your nutrition, what you are putting in your mouth. You can eliminate many other things that will not have an impact and really are making no difference in your life, maybe even negative impacts and reinvest that time, energy, thought process and some financial resources into this one bucket called nutrition. That was my little moment, sorry, I had to say it.
Speaker 1:It reminds me there was a quote that relates a little bit to what you're talking about. I heard this from the stage one time and I was like that's brilliant, and it was about water and the importance of the quality of your water. Right, and I think people just pass that off. But you know, whatever water, they don't take it. And it's like somebody asked him well, you know, do I really need a water filter? And he's like well, you can either buy a water filter or you can become a water filter. Oh shit.
Speaker 2:I was like oh my God, whoa bro. Hey, say that again, because you just blew my brain, and then I'll tell you about a study I just read. That's how I was. I had to go first.
Speaker 1:It was like blowback that day. He's like you either buy a water filter or you become a water filter.
Speaker 2:O-M-G. Okay, well, first of all, I am prepping for a long backpacking trip and I work part-time at REI. So water filters we talk about water filters all the time and it's very interesting, cool stuff. And then, secondarily, I'm working with an athlete who has Parkinson's, and so I was doing a little bit of homework and research there, and a new study just came out about the 125% increase in human beings diagnosed with Parkinson's who live on or near a golf course and are not filtering their water. So they are drinking the water that is coming out leaching out, if you will, from the surrounding golf courses and all of the chemicals and things put on there, and then they're drinking those without filters. And I mean, I'll put a link to this study in the notes because it blew my mind and also broke my heart simultaneously. But thank you for bringing up water and the impactfulness again of the water going into our gut.
Speaker 1:You are 80% water. People Exactly have that on your like I think. So I have these glass jars, not plastic jars, glass jars. I go to a specific store. I like the pH, high pH, whatever you can get, but just get a reverse osmosis, if nothing else, it's pretty affordable. You know, and I was thinking about it the other day, I was like you know, I have this whole like thing I do. You know I have three jobs yes, you do, darling.
Speaker 1:I've traveled with you in these drugs I just have water jugs and stuff and I was like but you know what I'm worth it I'm, it's important to me. Like what I don't want to be a water filter. Once I heard that I was like I can't back, I can't unhear that, I can't unknow that, and now you can't either. Right, and so the same thing with your food. Like people don't realize the downstream effects of the decisions that they make today, necessarily. So if you, when you and I are not like a hundred percenters, we don't believe in a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:No, come on. We're humaning, just like everybody else here.
Speaker 1:Like do I have crackers? Yeah, Do I have some corn chips from time to time? Yeah, Do I have whatever you know? Yes, Right, so this isn't perfect, but it's like noticing like your body is a. Is it like a water filtering system? Your body is a food digestion system. If you want better results in energy and mitochondria and all these things, skin clear, whatever brain fog you want to outlast your children, you know like you're, what you put in your mouth is going to make a difference down the road. You choose, you choose.
Speaker 2:And one of the reasons I've studied metabolism and, in particular, the energy cells of the body, mitochondria a. As a fitness and health person, you should know these things. It's basic science. But also I needed to understand when I was at my most ill state pre-diagnosis with the autoimmune, and my gut was not working, hence 10 days of diarrhea and or everything in my mouth went right through me.
Speaker 2:I was 50 pounds heavier than I am today, however, completely malnourished, okay, iron deficient. Completely malnourished, I mean dangerously malnourished. But how could that be? I was 50 pounds heavier. It looked like my body was taking a lot of calories and storing a lot of calories. It was utilizing none of them. It's mind blowing. So no wonder I was depressed, anxious. No, I wasn't functioning at all Right and it's because it didn't matter if I was putting good things into my body. They weren't getting through to the cells. And, of course, prior to that, I was putting all kinds of bad things in my body as well and just had no awareness around it. So I mean, prior to that, I was putting all kinds of bad things in my body as well and just had no awareness around it. So I mean, yeah, oh, we can't say enough about how important this is. Can we yeah?
Speaker 1:And this isn't a make wrong session, you know. It's just like we have been educated and informed and it's like we just want people to be aware.
Speaker 2:Thankfully through our suffering.
Speaker 1:What you do is totally up to you. This is not making wrong, it's just something to think about.
Speaker 2:It's an invitation we want people to feel good.
Speaker 1:Dude, Dude, right, Come on. That's the bottom line. So, like, what we're committed to is having people in our life and that you know are in the world, are alive and thriving and you feel good. And hey, if you, you know, I didn't know some of these things, Look, your results showed, you know, my results show. It's like okay, don't make the mistakes that we have, Like learn from this, Like let's do better, right? And so I just want to cover a couple more.
Speaker 1:Artificial sweeteners. Like you talked about emulsifiers, artificial sweeteners. They're breaking down in the biome, Not good. Stress, stress, stress, stress. So got to get that, you know, nervous system back in balance. Got to maintain, you know, say no, that's a good right. Whatever you can do, stress.
Speaker 1:And I, you know, I think, I think I said this when we started fiber, fiber, fiber, like my gosh, and you know what that can look like an apple a day, apple a day. Like it could be that simple, like a piece of and I don't mean like a lot of your fruits, not like your bananas, but if it's got veins in it, like an, like an orange or a grapefruit, like I'm in love with grapefruit lately like grapefruits, oranges, apples. If you think it's like, or you got to like, break it down in the mouth and you bought, got probably got to break it down in the gut. A, it's giving those bacteria something to chew on and work on and it feeds them right. If you feed them artificial sweeteners, it's like I don't even know what that is. I don't know what to do with that. It's like, oh, store that in the fat, Make them more fat Diet Coke. I don't know what these chemicals are here, Put that in the fat. We can't deal with that, right? So fiber, fire, fire and environmental toxins.
Speaker 1:I just want to say a little bit about this. We talked about the water coming into your body and you're turning it and you're filtering it. People, what you put on your skin, right, or you're near like you know what it, what kind of dish soaps are using, what kind of clothing you know laundry soaps are using, perfumes, creams, eye creams, shampoos, like just take a look, just look over in that direction. Right, If it's got SLS, sodium lauryl sulfate, like SLSs, like choose again, put it back, choose it again. But looking at that and you can pretty much, you know there's a couple that I've looked into recently.
Speaker 1:I'm like, oh my God, I didn't know that was as bad as it is. They sell it like it's good at Target and I was like, oh yeah, not so good. So take a deep, and if you can go to a health food store and you say, give me some beauty products, give me some shampoos, they're probably going to send you in the right direction. All right, Lack of sleep. And then movement and sweat. Movement and sweat like important for lymphatic system, like digestion, right scattered everywhere and they are there to pick up the garbage, yeah. And then they get into the gut and it's got to get in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. And lymphatic system doesn't work, that whole system does not work without muscle contraction, which means movement.
Speaker 1:Yeah, If you're relying on a cup of coffee a day to be your stool softener, you're you're.
Speaker 1:That's the lazy man's way out, even though I'm a big fan. But if that's what you're relying on and saying like got to have that morning coffee or I'm not regular, right, then that's lazy. You know you can do better. You can do better. Apple a day, like I tell you that, you know, and when I did Ayurveda cleanses, one of the cleanses was like six apples a day. I'm like I'm having six apples a day. I don't understand this and like, oh, it's like a massive fiber push and feed those belly bugs and get things back into balance. So, yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So ways to detect. You know we talked about some of the outer symptoms, the autoimmune and stuff. But I just want to give you, you know, a couple of things to know if your microbiome is damaged, you know like some early warning signs and some whatever.
Speaker 1:So persistent bloating, not just like, oh, you know, ate some beans last night or had whatever gas. Abdominal pain, irritable bowel, irregular bowel movements, constipation Like we talked about IBS. Hello, like hello. Bowel movements. Constipation like we talked about IBS. Hello like hello. Emotional mental shifts. So if you get increased anxiety, like stabilize, you know like it's growing right, not just you had an anxious moment. Depression, brain fog, mood swings and mood swings are directly linked to neurotransmitter production and inflammation. Guys, you know. So if you're like I, like I don't know, I'm so emotional. It's like skin issues we talked about acne, eczema, psoriasis, unexplained rashes in all the parts, fatigue and low energy. It's probably a sign. It was mitochondria that we were talking about, right, so poor nutrient absorption, inflammation and that's downstream impacts on your metabolism. Frequent illness You're the person that gets sick in your family, or, oh, the kids brought something home, okay, well, you know, if you had a strong immune system, thank you very much. Microbiome, the healthy garden wouldn't let that.
Speaker 2:Well, if your immune system wasn't exhausted from every day, you know, just being the deluge of the battle for the immune system, it could be there when it is really required, at the most important moments where you're experiencing or exposed to illness, disease, et cetera. It could be there on the ready. Instead, it's freaking exhausted. Yeah, it's like oh, I got.
Speaker 1:Oh, I got nothing, Let them in. We don't have any more. So food seven. Some of these can be food sensitivities and intolerances. It might be pointing to an, you know, an out of whack and then unexpected weight changes, so difficulty losing weight or sudden weight gain, Just like you said. We're just pointing to something to go look for yourself, like, hey, the gut is. You know it impacts all the other systems, so take a damn look.
Speaker 2:You should see my Buddha belly with this SIBO I have. Oh my God, I'm like I'm four months pregnant. What in the hell is this Buddha belly?
Speaker 1:Has it gone down? How are you doing with it Is?
Speaker 2:it Well now in the last couple of weeks as I've been slowly working on healing it. But that's really sucks and that's not a visual thing. I'm not a supermodel. I don't need to be walking around naked and showing off my belly. But it doesn't feel good and I know a lot of people can relate to that. You know this doesn't feel good when my jeans don't fit and I feel like I'm walking around and I'm not comfortable in my own skin, totally.
Speaker 1:You know. One thing that I want to kind of highlight is I don't know if you've heard of, like, what is it when you transfers? Poop transfers, what's that, what's that? Yeah, so I forget what it. There's a, there's a name, name for it anyway. But so your microbiome is given to you by your mother inside of the womb and it's largely installed like started when you go through the vaginal canal if you go through the vaginal canal. I know and if not, then your microbiome is I know my poor baby was a c-section baby.
Speaker 2:I'm'm sorry.
Speaker 1:It's malleable, you can influence it, right. So one of the things you're going through is like, don't necessarily expect night and day changes, right, like, yeah, if you had constipation, you can start introducing things or move that through, but if you have something that you've let go, like that candida that I had on my back- Take a minute.
Speaker 2:It took years. It took years. And I'm laughing because I'm sorry. It's just how it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So just know, like, hey, you can bring it back from the edge, right, like I don't know where that candida would have. Like who knows what was what was next? You know it looks like candida and a skin rash. Maybe I start losing my eyesight. Know where's this gonna go? Right, right, exactly, yeah. So lifestyle habits for gut harmony. So reducing the stress, people getting the movement, sleep sleep is super important for those little babies.
Speaker 2:My favorite thing to do after exercising is sleeping I love sleep, isn't it? Fascinating how many people are like I don't need it, it's overrated. Blah, blah. I'm like. Have you lost your freaking mind?
Speaker 1:Dude, I don't know those people Bring it the hell on.
Speaker 2:I can't wait to go to bed. Every night I'm like why is the sun going down? I have to go to bed. I'm sleepy.
Speaker 1:Of course we get up early, but still of course we get it currently, but still, oh good, oh good, yeah. So sleep, movement, sweat, um, hydration, like, keep that area, water that garden, water it with great water, water that. And then be mindful of medication uses. So we won't go too much into this. But just know that when you do those antibiotics, it just, they say, for two years, it like wipes it out down there, so you're actually more susceptible to more things as your gut is wiped out. It's like we just we just. It's sort of like at the end of the harvesting season they just go clear the, you know, scrub all the vegetation, that top soil off, start again. That's not, that's not really the best way to do. That's why doctors are. So I think they're starting to understand. Don't be throwing antibiotics at the gut like it. It needs to heal and be regenerated, and it can. It's like you can turn a dying garden around a garden farm. You know, if you do the right things, don't just wipe it all out and then start again.
Speaker 1:No bueno, no bueno yeah all right and you know I just maybe just cover a couple things. So, like I said, fiber is really key for me. You know I I have, um, a love-hate relationship with, like pickled foods or you know, like. So one of the things I found, though, recently is, um, I realized when I get those little set pre-made salads or you go to the salad bar or something like that, they have the red onions that have been pickled. I hadn't realized I actually really enjoy this. So I started buying those and I have a jar of pickles. I haven't bought a jar of pickles in a while. I was like because, like sauerkraut, like it'll sit there and I'm like, oh, sauerkraut got to get around to enjoying that.
Speaker 2:So I love pickles. I love pickled beets. Yes, yeah, I'm not really. I tried kombucha, but unfortunately I tried it when I was having the SIBO and I was actually feeding the SIBO. I found out that was fascinating. You do have to have a healthy gut when you're putting these things in it. Like I currently don't have a healthy gut, I was literally feeding the bacteria this thing and having an adverse reaction, so awareness.
Speaker 1:I was growing kombucha because my friend was and she taught me kombucha making. So I was like, oh sweet, I'll do that. I think same thing with my kombucha making was feeding the candida and I stopped. I was like maybe I should be doing this. You know, I was like it's a nice idea. Let's just like overeating sourdough would probably not have been good for me, you know. So.
Speaker 2:I'm on an antihistamine diet right now. You can just Google that if you want to see what that is and that's specifically because every food was becoming an allergic reaction within my body inflammation, autoimmune, all the things and so an antihistamine diet is taking foods that have a lot of histamine in them and cause that kind of reaction and eliminating them temporarily, not forever, so my body can calm the hell down. Jackson Brown, turn the fire down a little bit, turn down the heat. Mama, this garden's trying to grow and it's all like kombucha. I was like, oh, I was kind of enjoying that. But it's fine, you can bring it back.
Speaker 1:You can bring it back.
Speaker 2:Or will I, or won't I, who knows. But it's just a learning curve, right, and I'll find out later.
Speaker 1:Yeah yeah, and everybody's bodies and everybody's, we're all different. Your microbiome is a very unique fingerprint for you too, right, and you can adjust it, you know. So if it's like, like you, what is it bacteria, that you have too many bacteria, or virus, small intestinal bacteria, bacteria, so overgrowth of bacteria, right, so you can do things to bring it back into balance, you know, bring that pendulum back. So just don't expect miracle cures, don't. I'll just pop a pill and, like we'll take care of that, you know, I'll get my constipation under control, it's like temporarily. But what are you doing lifestyle wise to have those regular movements? Treat, you know, take care of yourself, you know so good, good, well, I think we've have we covered it, have we helped open the book of? Like people looking at their gut is like a happy place. It's a happy garden down there, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, we've given given plenty of positive and awareness. You know negative symptomatic, you know things for people to work on. Both have it be awareness see what's not working and then get busy doing what can work for you.
Speaker 1:So what's our one thing? What do we want to summarize and have them think about, be aware of, yeah, think about be aware of.
Speaker 2:I mean, my biggest thing, that I want to beat the drum again and you might have a different thing is that the gut is the second brain.
Speaker 2:Okay, this is part two in this series. The first part was on how your brain, mind, thoughts, emotions are impacted by what's going on in your gut, and this is, and FYI, the entire health of your physical body, not your mental body. Yes, part A physical body part B is also impacted. Yeah, so, if you think about it, really, I can't think of anything more important Because, as far as I'm concerned, everybody deserves to be mentally and physically well to reach their greatest, highest potential, right. But if one or both of these things are not working because the gut is dysfunctional in whatever way, I want to just clearly empower them that they have every choice and option to do it differently and the impacts will come. The positive flow or trickle down effect, it will happen. I'm confident. I'm confident.
Speaker 1:And I think you know the one thing I would say we put there's so much outer emphasis on the body as like a symbol of some sort of health, like six pack abs or you know, whatever. You know, and I'm like if we all took, if we had our inner garden on display and we could see, you know, if it's like, how's your garden today? Do you have butterflies fluttering around and little caterpillars growing and climbing on all your things? Like, or is it like God that stank? What's going on up in your gut? Right, if we took more of a look of our gut as our garden and how are we doing on the inner gardening instead of these fake things that people tell us are measures of health or fitness. Six-pack abs or look in this and a certain body weight fail, yeah, that like. I know too many people that are emaciated, trying to look a certain way for a picture or something like that. There's no aliveness, there's no vitality, there's no, you know, just a a brightness in their eyes right and pepping their stuff.
Speaker 2:They're spending a ton of money on that external appearance as, as a way to you know, get exterior external validation, either from themselves in the mirror or from those around them. However, of their worth, the worth lies within your own physical being. You can't see it.
Speaker 1:Exactly, you know it. So like yeah, like you're, you're a farmer now you're an inner gardener and tender, like all those little bugs and bellies and things you know. Take good care of that space, It'll take care of you. Right, Pull the weeds.
Speaker 2:All right, my dear.
Speaker 1:What's our final memento? To leave them with, as we always do?
Speaker 2:Well, I'll just reverse it for a change. How your life looks don't mean nothing. It's how it feels.
Speaker 1:Yes, and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.
