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Well, hello, and welcome back to the Rewilded Wellness Podcast.
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I'm your host, Lydia Joy.
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Here we are settling further into fall, and I don't know about you guys, but my food has naturally started changing with the season and with what's coming out of my garden currently, as well as what I can get at the farmer's market.
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I've definitely ramped up the soups and stews now that the nights are getting cooler.
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I've brought back in oats and oatmeal and baked oatmeal.
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I tend to eat apples more seasonally, so um I brought those back in along with brown rice and uh made a really good curried lentil soup this week.
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I've been eating my own homegrown potatoes uh baked with the skins.
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And from my garden, I've been eating arugula, turnips, uh, radishes.
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I do have some cabbage coming along, but it isn't quite ready yet.
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So I did buy a beautiful red cabbage at the farmer's market this weekend, as well as some gorgeous purple sprouting broccoli.
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Um, I am trying to grow that too, but it's not quite ready yet.
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Um, more pumpkin seeds have come back.
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I've been slowly increasing garlic again.
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You know, there's just something about soup and stew season that just kind of makes you want to put garlic in everything, right?
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And I literally grew all my garlic.
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I was hoping to grow enough for a whole year.
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Um, we'll see.
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It lasts until my next round of garlic is ready next year.
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Um that was a fun experiment.
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I definitely have some uh learning to do and improvement to do.
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But anyways, as we move further into these cooler months, you know, I'm bringing back in all these different foods, including the roots.
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All the roots, right?
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But not just the ones everyone's familiar with, like carrots and beets and um I don't know, maybe even like turnips.
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I don't know if you guys eat those things.
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But there's others like burdock root, for example, um, dandelion root.
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Um, those are something I bring back in the fall through the winter in a variety of ways.
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One of the main ways I do it is just the dried root goes into my bone broth because I make bone broth every single week consistently.
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Um so that's just a little sampling of what I've been eating lately.
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Um and when I step back and look at it, I realize how many different kinds of plant fibers I'm getting, right?
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And they've just naturally started moving through my kitchen again with the change in the season.
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So I'm sharing all that because today I want to revisit the topic of fiber.
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Uh, I did an episode back in October 2024.
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Excuse me.
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Um, I don't, you know, I don't want to talk just about like whether we're getting enough fiber, right?
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I want to talk about what happens when you know fiber's good for you, right?
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Um, but your gut seems to have a totally different idea once it lands in it, right?
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Um you know, I think most people who care about gut health have heard some version of the message: eat more plants, eat more veggies, get more fiber, feed your microbiome.
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There's definitely more awareness now around things like prebiotic foods and resistant starch than there was even 10 years ago, even a couple years ago.
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Um, and broadly speaking, that's a very good thing because we do need adequate fiber and our microbes need to be fed.
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The problem is that for a lot of people, actually trying to do that does not feel very good in their body.
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For example, you could be someone who, when you eat beans, you're bloated for hours.
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Um, or onions and garlic create a ton of pressure.
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Um, even just increasing vegetables because you're trying to do something good for your body.
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You know, maybe you feel more distended when you do that, or perhaps your bowels slow down instead of being normal and healthy, right?
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And so those are just a couple of experiences, examples of experiences that could make people feel like, well, I'm just not gonna eat those foods, right?
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And unfortunately, this can make our diet get smaller and less diverse, even though maybe there's an intellectual understanding that these foods are supposed to be good for you, right?
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And I know this experience really well because I've been there.
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Oh man, have I been there.
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There was a period around 2014 when my gut was like incredibly irritable.
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I had been carrying like a significant stress load for so many years.
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Um and I was living in a water damaged house and you know, all the things, and my digestion had become extremely reactive.
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And I remember going out to dinner with a group of people one night.
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It was one of those like family, like huge amount of people, uh, shared plates, everyone's passing the food around, like everyone's excited, you know, and it's kind of one of those things where like there's like almost like this pressure for you to also participate to the degree that everyone else is.
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Like, try it, you gotta try this.
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Um, you know what I mean?
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And so there's all kinds of fibers on those plates, let me tell you.
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And so, of course, I did my best to like participate without overdoing it.
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At least I thought.
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Um, but later that night, I had some of the worst bloating and gas pressure I had ever experienced.
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Of course, this was around a stressful period of time, too.
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But it was so bad, so bad, you guys.
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I think I was crying and screaming, like laying in the fetal position on my bed, right?
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It eventually passed, but it was pretty horrific while it was going on.
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And when we have experiences like that, I hope you guys haven't had that experience, but something really uncomfortable, you know, it teaches you, it kind of teaches you like your body becomes afraid of that food, right?
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Um, so you know, I'm very careful, you know, to tell anyone with a reactive gut, here, you need to just eat more fiber, right?
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That advice can feel very ridiculous in that scenario.
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But at the same time, I also don't think the answer is to decide that whatever foods, beans, grains, onions, vegetables, other fiber-rich foods are simply off the table forever, right?
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And that's the conversation that I want to have today.
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Right.
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It's, you know, how do we understand where your gut is right now, why fiber could be landing badly.
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And then how do we actually build more capacity so that you can eat a wider range range of foods instead of like either forcing it or avoiding it forever, right?
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Um, and today's conversation builds on last week's episode about fermentation.
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I talked about how, you know, differently food can behave depending on digestion, your transit time, the actual microbes that are present in your gut, and what is actually reaching your lower gut through the digestive process, right?
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Same idea applies here.
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Fiber doesn't land the same way in everybody's gut.
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And that's where I want to start.
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So we know that there are different kinds of fiber, right?
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And they and they don't all behave the same way in your digestive tract.
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We have all these different fibers, functional fibers, prebiotics that end up becoming a food source for different types of microbes in your gut.
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Just to give you a really quick and dirty picture of what I mean, we have things like resistant starch, right?
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That includes beans, lentils, whole grains, like oats and barley.
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Um, and then there's also foods like rice or potatoes that when you cook them and let them cool, it can increase the amount of resistant starch that's available in that food, right?
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Uh then you have things like uh, well, then you have beta glucans.
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I love talking about beta glucans.
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It's like I'm obsessed, but oats, barley, different mushrooms.
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Um, I talked about the turkey tail a couple years ago on the episode on the podcast in an episode.
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Then you've got things like um pectin, which we you know probably in the skins of apples or citrus, pears, even carrots.
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Then we've got um inulin, uh, which is got, you know, you you've got like the dandelion, the uh, let's see, leeks, um, burdock, different things like that.
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Um, oh, and Jerusalem artichokes, that's one of my favorites.
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Then things like cellulose, that comes in whole grains, vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, even potato skins.
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And there are plenty of others.
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I'm not gonna run through every functional fiber because you don't need to memorize them or anything like that.
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What I want you to understand is that different plant foods provide different food sources for different microbes in your gut.
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So when anyone's talking about eating um a wider variety of plants, that's really what we're trying to get at.
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We're trying to give a larger, like your microbial ecosystem, meaning like what's supposed to be there, like, you know, um a wider variety of food, right?
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Because each each microbe can prefer different food sources.
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And so, you know, that's also how I think about something like maybe you've heard the 30 plants a week recommendation.
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That's what I was taught years ago.
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Um, it's not like some magical dividing line, right?
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It's just a target, it's just a way of helping people think beyond eating a more limited, more narrow plant food diet, right?
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Because that's the modern American diet is very narrow.
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Um, and then the other piece would be like a lot of people are taking, you know, maybe a single prebiotic fiber supplement, perhaps, like a pill or a powder or whatever.
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Or a lot of people think oatmeal, right?
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Like automatically fiber oatmeal, right?
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That's like a whole thing.
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Um, and now we're even loading up the oatmeal.
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You can buy packets or pre-made, and it's got other fibers built into it, or people are chucking all this fiber in their smoothie and stuff like that, right?
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Um so I think the part that gets missed is knowing that fiber is good for you, even knowing that that's what your microbes feed on, and that ideally we want more plant diversity, but it doesn't tell us what your current gut terrain can current, can like comfortably work with right at the moment.
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And that's where this becomes really individual.
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Because let's say someone sits to like two people sit down and eat the same meal that includes lentils.
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Um, you know, it could be completely uneventful for one person, they don't have any issues with it.
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And another person is like totally bloated, distended, full of pressure, miserable for the rest of the day, and constipated the next, right?
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Um now, even within your your own life, that same scenario could change.
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Perhaps once upon a time you could eat all the things beans and grains and onions and never think twice about it.
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Then perhaps you went through life and had massive amounts of stress and illness and maybe antibiotics and that changed your motility and whatever accumulated in your gut because of all of that.
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Now some of those same foods land completely differently.
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And you are like, WTF, I used to eat this and be fine.
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Now it's like a bomb in my gut, right?
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And it doesn't mean it's a bad food.
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I think we've done this too much, right?
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Um, it means that your terrain has been altered from what it previously was.
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And we have to kind of look at your gut now in a way to see, well, what can it actually receive and work with currently?
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And so when I'm working with somebody who has chronic health challenges, you know, um, digestive symptoms usually come alongside of them, right?
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Maybe they've got disrupted sleep or chronic pain or low energy or whatever else is going on.
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I'm always thinking about several things at once.
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Okay.
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First, how well are you digesting food before it actually reaches your gut?
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How efficiently is everything moving through?
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That's your transit, your motility.
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Um, and what is what's like, what is your microbial community actually look like?
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What's in there?
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Who who are we even feeding?
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Like, um, and then what are they what are they for already fermenting and how much fermentable food, which is another way of saying fibers, um, is already coming in, right?
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Um and just even like kind of being able to see how much that person's current gut pattern, terrain, whatever you want to call it, can actually comfortably handle in the way of fibers right now.
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Um, because when we consume fiber, it doesn't, it doesn't obviously doesn't just disappear.
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We have to break it down and be able to use it.
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So some of it actually reaches our colon, and that's where the microbes are able to use it and ferment it.
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Totally normal process.
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However, how that fermentation is currently working and feels in your body depends enormously on the entire ecosystem it's all happening in, right?
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So if we take motility, if someone has very slow transit, and this can be hard to know entirely because you could be having a bowel movement every day and still have slow transit, okay?
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So that's something I have to address with each person.
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But the problem with this is that the material is hanging out a lot longer in your GI, your colon, your small valve.
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And so if we are increasing or adding too much fermentable fiber, it can feel completely different in someone like that than somebody who has pretty good motility.
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Uh, maybe there is significant gut dysbiosis going on.
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Um so that can play a role.
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Uh, there could be a lack of really important keystone species, organisms, microbes available in your gut currently, as well as things too high that we don't want.
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Right.
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So then that makes the whole functional activity of your microbiome not where we want it to be.
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And almost every person I've worked with over, let's just say the last year, for example, has had pretty significant dysbiosis when I actually look at their microbiome.
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And most of them didn't really know that entirely before we tested.
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Okay.
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And these are people who really care about their health, they're already doing really awesome things.
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Um, and have become very health literate, researched, read, changed diet, yada yada, done a lot of good things.
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And they're still in this position of, okay, I know beans are supposed to be good for me, but oh my gosh, I feel horrible when I eat them.
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Or when they try to increase veggies, suddenly things are going haywire.
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Maybe they're getting bloated, maybe they're suddenly awake at night.
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Um, increasing the fiber can make their bowels worse, right?
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All that is useful information.
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It doesn't automatically mean, great, never that, never eat that food again, right?
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Um, and it also doesn't mean, well, I know fiber is good for me, so I'm just gonna keep pushing through, right?
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You know, it just means that we need to understand why each person's gut, like, oh, I that's what how I frame it for me, but like understanding what's going on in your gut, you know, uh, is helping us to discern why you might be having such a hard time working with these different uh arrays of fibers right now.
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Okay, so again, it could be the motility, it could be upstream digestion, it could be you're just getting way too much all at once.
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Um, and there may be different types that are easier for your current pattern to tolerate than another.
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Um, right.
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So everyone's gonna have their own Goldilocks amount currently that they can tolerate.
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And so to me, eating, like just telling people to eat more fiber by itself isn't enough, right?
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We have to, we have to kind of chunk it down a little bit, know what kinds, you know, how we prepare them, what's actually going on in the person's gut that has to receive these foods.
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Those are the things that I care about and that matter.
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Now, stress can also be a part of this picture, right?
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If you've been through any long period of chronic stress, um, digestive changes do not happen in isolation from the rest of your physiology.
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Stress absolutely affects motility, your digestive secretions, your intestinal function, your barrier, and the whole environment that your microbiome is a part of, right?
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Um, you know, that's definitely been a really big part of my own journey and story, right?
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There's definitely, I've always wanted to eat a broad, beautiful, healthy diet.
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You know, I'm I've always been kind of a foodie, been doing CSAs for decades, uh, grew up with my, you know, gardening, yada yada.
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Um, but my gut was like, sorry, can't can't eat like this.
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You know what I mean?
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Um, and so there's definitely an important distinction to make because there's a lot of conversation around healing your gut.
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Um how to heal your gut.
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Um, and I think that when we talk about that, people are they kind of tend to think in terms of like getting rid of a pathogen is healing your gut.
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Uh, repairing leaky gut is healing your gut, or maybe just like taking a probiotic or something, it's just one piece of the whole.
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And those things are absolutely part of the story.
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Um, but I'm interested in something much more practical when it comes to understanding how you can function right now, right?
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Like, what can your current gut actually do?
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Can you eat a reasonable variety of foods?
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Without spending the rest of the day uncomfortable or even painfully bloated?
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Right?
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Can you uh bring in a lot of different plant foods into your diet comfortably?
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Are your bowels even moving consistently?
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Can you actually eat like beans and grains and roots and resistant starch without your digestive system completely falling apart?
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And I'm not saying perfectly.
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We don't have it doesn't have to be perfect.
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And I am certainly not going to suggest that a healthy gut means you can even eat unlimited amounts of anything and never have gas or bloating or discomfort ever again.
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I I can still overdo it on fiber myself.
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You know, um, but there's a very big difference between like I ate way more beans than I usually do, and I'm a little gassy, right?
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Versus like, if I even eat a small amount of lentils, I feel terrible for the entire next day.
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Um, and it changes how I have to eat the next day, and I get constipated, and it's just it's like a set, it's like a setback in your body, right?
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And the difference between those two scenarios definitely tells us about your current capacity.
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And that's really what I'm watching over time with each of my clients.
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Um, I'm not trying to get anyone to some ideal fiber target.
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I'm really looking to see can their gut gradually handle more?
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Can we can we see improvements in their digestion overall and improve their motility while we're also supporting the environment of what their microbial, like what their microbiome is showing now?
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And so as those things are, you know, gradually changing and shifting, I'm also kind of watching to see if the diversity in their food world can can expand.
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Um, and that brings me to kind of the third piece is like, well, how do you actually start increasing variety without overwhelming your gut as it is right now?
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And I think this is where the practical part gets much simpler than people make it.
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If your gut is currently reactive in any way, shape, or form, you do not need to go from eating the five comfortable plant foods you already eat all the time to suddenly try to hit 30 in a week.
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You know what I'm saying?
00:24:47.680 --> 00:24:52.559
You start where you're at, and we just find the subtle inroads in.
00:24:52.720 --> 00:25:00.720
Maybe you pick one thing, one new food to try for one week and see what happens.
00:25:00.960 --> 00:25:04.960
You know, like let's see, does it cause any problems?
00:25:05.119 --> 00:25:06.480
Can you seem to tolerate it?
00:25:06.640 --> 00:25:09.039
Does it change how your bowels are moving?
00:25:10.640 --> 00:25:19.599
One of the easiest ways that this can become way harder is if you try to stack a whole bunch of new things all at once, right?
00:25:19.680 --> 00:25:24.480
Like you decide, I'm gonna improve my microbiome, I'm gonna eat more functional fiber.
00:25:24.799 --> 00:25:50.000
So suddenly your breakfast now has like oats, chia seeds, cilia, like all these things plus fruit, and you know, then your lunch has like 10 vegetables plus lentils, and dinner has like five different fermentable fibers, onions, garlic, broccoli, um, you know, brown rice, right?
00:25:50.880 --> 00:26:10.640
And then you're painfully bloated by eight o'clock, or maybe you're constipated the next day, or maybe you're awake all night and you have no idea what thing caused the problem, you know, or or whether any one of them would have uh caused a problem all on its own.
00:26:10.720 --> 00:26:12.160
You know what I mean?
00:26:12.640 --> 00:26:19.839
So I usually want to make the experiment a lot simpler and quieter than that, right?
00:26:20.079 --> 00:26:23.519
So let's say you already tolerate oats really well.
00:26:23.680 --> 00:26:26.640
You you can eat oatmeal and you're fine.
00:26:26.880 --> 00:26:29.440
Okay, great, cool, we keep that.
00:26:29.759 --> 00:26:34.880
Um, and you've tried cooked apples alongside of that, and that's fine.
00:26:35.119 --> 00:26:41.279
Um, and you can eat uh potatoes with the skin on just fine.
00:26:41.519 --> 00:26:44.240
You can eat a small portion of brown rice, right?
00:26:46.400 --> 00:26:51.359
Then perhaps you're like, okay, well, I want to bring in beans.
00:26:51.440 --> 00:26:56.799
Like beans, by the way, are like phenomenal because they are pretty much in every category.
00:26:57.200 --> 00:27:03.920
Um, so a lot of people want to try to bring in beans, but they're scared because they make them uncomfortable.
00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:05.279
You don't have to eat a lot.
00:27:05.519 --> 00:27:08.240
You can microdose this.
00:27:08.400 --> 00:27:14.240
You can eat even a one tablespoon for crying out loud if you're super sensitive.
00:27:14.559 --> 00:27:16.160
Um, you know what I mean?
00:27:16.400 --> 00:27:24.559
And just start there, you know, and slowly build up and space out the time between the servings, right?
00:27:24.640 --> 00:27:32.400
Because then you're giving your gut some time to like take in this food and see what it does.
00:27:32.559 --> 00:27:38.480
You can check how you feel afterwards, you can witness what happened later in the day.
00:27:38.799 --> 00:27:41.680
What did your bowels do the next day?
00:27:42.240 --> 00:27:49.119
Then could you eat the same amount a few days later without it becoming a whole digestive event?
00:27:49.359 --> 00:27:49.680
Right?
00:27:49.839 --> 00:27:52.400
That is very useful information.
00:27:52.720 --> 00:28:05.359
And if it does go well, maybe eventually the serving can get larger, or you can try a different legume or bean, or you can start to bring in a different fiber somewhere else.
00:28:05.599 --> 00:28:07.119
Do you see what I'm saying?
00:28:07.440 --> 00:28:11.839
This is what I mean when I say micro-dosing fiber.
00:28:12.079 --> 00:28:27.119
You pick one that you're not used to eating, that you maybe have tried to eat and it didn't go so well, and you chunk it way down to a small amount, and you let your body be reintroduced to it in a smaller, safer fashion.
00:28:27.359 --> 00:28:27.680
Okay.
00:28:28.640 --> 00:28:45.680
I'm not saying everyone needs to do it this micro, um, but small exposures can give you like a much safer way to learn what your gut can work with, and then you're not overwhelming it, right?
00:28:45.839 --> 00:28:54.079
You know, imagine like too much, and then you feel terrible, and then now you're just like kind of traumatized by that food.
00:28:54.160 --> 00:28:55.359
We don't want that.
00:28:56.079 --> 00:29:01.519
Now, another thing is like preparation absolutely can matter.
00:29:01.839 --> 00:29:16.960
Um, I want to say, usually in people with gut dysbiosis and more chronic patterns, the cooked veggies are gonna be way easier than large piles of raw vegetables, right?
00:29:17.039 --> 00:29:21.839
Like we all are thinking, oh, raw salads, salad is so healthy for you.
00:29:22.160 --> 00:29:28.079
It could be, but it also could be hard on your system.
00:29:28.400 --> 00:29:39.599
So I'm not saying don't eat salads ever, but being mindful of the difference between how cooked vegetables and raw vegetables feel in your body, pretty darn useful information.
00:29:40.160 --> 00:29:48.319
Because then you can eat them in the pre prepared why can't I speak in the right preparation for yourself, right?
00:29:49.119 --> 00:29:58.559
Um, I know eating a salad at lunch is convenient for people who have busy lifestyles, but it's not all that convenient when your gut's like, hey, this feels like crap.
00:29:58.720 --> 00:30:00.079
You know what I'm saying?
00:30:00.640 --> 00:30:07.599
Um making sure you're cooking beans really, really well, genuinely soft.
00:30:08.160 --> 00:30:20.799
Um, sometimes even pairing them with something that helps motility, like ginger, um, can certainly help you out, versus like if you cook it and it's still al dente.
00:30:21.039 --> 00:30:22.319
Do you know what I'm saying?
00:30:22.640 --> 00:30:27.759
Um so, and and and there's different types of fibers, right?
00:30:27.839 --> 00:30:37.119
You could tolerate oats, but you might not tolerate burdock root, like I'm just talking about, or or Jerusalem artichokes or something.
00:30:37.359 --> 00:30:41.279
Um, so we're not trying to win at fiber, you guys.
00:30:41.359 --> 00:30:54.240
There's no there's no like gold star, but we're just what my goal is is to help each person learn the current boundaries of their own digestive system as it is currently, right?
00:30:54.480 --> 00:30:56.720
To see, okay, how did that go?
00:30:57.039 --> 00:30:58.480
Can I expand?
00:30:58.880 --> 00:31:06.480
Um, and absolutely going to be times where adding more fiber is not the first move.
00:31:06.960 --> 00:31:08.960
Um, absolutely not.
00:31:09.119 --> 00:31:17.759
It might even be pulling it down a little bit to bring some relief while we clean things up a bit.
00:31:18.079 --> 00:31:22.559
And then once there's some stability, bring it back in slowly.
00:31:22.640 --> 00:31:57.200
Because if someone's significantly constipated and their motility is really lagging, uh, or there's any type of like reactivity in the GI, and you're having a lot of pressure, uh, gas, bloating, um, terrible sleep, you know, getting those fermentable fibers in and having too many could certainly make you feel worse at that time while the gut is, you know, in this kind of dysbiotic disarray.
00:31:57.519 --> 00:32:01.440
Um, and that's where, you know, the other work we do matters, right?
00:32:01.519 --> 00:32:03.039
We have to be cleaning all that up.
00:32:03.200 --> 00:32:18.480
We have to be improving motility and, you know, helping digestion to be more efficient so that we're creating a better environment in the gut in the first place and addressing what we actually see going on in there.
00:32:18.720 --> 00:32:19.119
Right.
00:32:19.359 --> 00:32:27.599
So while we're doing all of that, we can keep what is already tolerable, you know, coming in, right?
00:32:27.680 --> 00:32:29.839
We're not going to take absolutely everything out.
00:32:29.920 --> 00:32:31.839
If you already tolerate it, great.
00:32:32.000 --> 00:32:40.240
Um, because I don't want to narrow people's diet more than we have to, you know, just to quiet a temporary symptom.
00:32:40.480 --> 00:32:41.359
You know what I mean?
00:32:41.440 --> 00:32:46.240
Like the last thing I want is for people five years later to still be eating a restricted diet.
00:32:46.400 --> 00:32:47.200
Do you see what I'm saying?
00:32:47.279 --> 00:32:48.640
Or even a year later.
00:32:48.880 --> 00:32:59.920
There are periods where that restriction, if you will, or elimination, if you will, is can be useful, but it really should only be temporary.
00:33:00.480 --> 00:33:10.640
Um, because I always, always want there to be some sense of direction towards more capacity and better gut resiliency.
00:33:11.279 --> 00:33:14.400
You know, I've watched this happen with clients over and over.
00:33:14.640 --> 00:33:20.160
You know, somebody starts out saying something like, oh, beans totally destroy me, right?
00:33:20.559 --> 00:33:27.920
And then a couple months later, they're eating, you know, a serving of beans a couple of times a week, saying, like, I can't believe it.
00:33:28.160 --> 00:33:30.000
I can't believe I can eat beans now.
00:33:30.160 --> 00:33:33.599
Like it's, and I have no problems at all, right?
00:33:34.079 --> 00:33:44.880
And, you know, that might sound like a really small thing, you know, in the grand scheme, but it really isn't because it's telling us that something has definitely shifted and changed.
00:33:45.039 --> 00:33:57.759
And it's giving that person another food that they can eat that actually is, you know, fuel for the microbes, which do a lot for us, right?
00:33:58.000 --> 00:34:05.839
So, and then it also tells us that it's possible that you could probably bring in another food at some point.
00:34:06.000 --> 00:34:14.159
And as long as you do it, you know, um in a way that's like not too fast, too much, you know what I mean?
00:34:14.400 --> 00:34:24.639
And do the microdose path that I just told you, um, that's great because you can increase your diversity without it hurting you.
00:34:24.960 --> 00:34:39.519
And that can translate over to like, now you're going out to eat and the plates are being passed, and you're not like in massive pain spending the rest of the evening regretting that.
00:34:39.679 --> 00:34:40.719
Or do you see what I'm saying?
00:34:40.880 --> 00:34:44.159
So over time, those things really add up.
00:34:45.519 --> 00:34:47.199
Now, I want to share something.
00:34:47.360 --> 00:34:57.840
One of my current clients who's been going through minerals and microbes recently actually wrote to me because I do think it captures what this process can actually look like over time.
00:34:58.559 --> 00:35:09.920
Um, Amy came to me, she was already eating a really good quality real food diet, had a lot of knowledge around nutrition, foundational health.
00:35:10.159 --> 00:35:21.679
Um, so she definitely had been, you know, implementing and practicing some really good things, but she was still dealing with digestive issues along with other symptoms.
00:35:21.920 --> 00:35:34.239
And she recently wrote a little something like to me that said, Over our time together, my digestion has improved in ways that have remained consistent.
00:35:34.480 --> 00:35:41.280
Um, that's hard for you guys to have context because you know, you don't know how the like extreme it was to what it is.
00:35:41.519 --> 00:35:54.480
But when someone has volatile GI issues can say, I have some consistent stuff now, that that shows us they have become more resilient and have more capacity.
00:35:54.960 --> 00:36:13.199
So even though she said she was still experiencing certain symptoms, she definitely felt a lot more stability and also have this ability to understand and respond to the symptoms she currently still has in a much better fashion.
00:36:13.760 --> 00:36:21.360
And um, for her, one of the things that was incredibly helpful uh about our work together was the weekly check-ins.
00:36:21.599 --> 00:36:31.599
And that's where we were able to figure out, you know, by looking at what she's eating and all the things, um, you know, how like what do we need to try now?
00:36:31.760 --> 00:36:37.599
Or maybe what do we need to pull back, or maybe we just need to stay the course, right?
00:36:37.920 --> 00:36:43.519
Um, and we're constantly able to just iterate, pivot, you know what I'm saying?
00:36:43.599 --> 00:36:48.079
And it's not just this all or nothing, you know, approach.
00:36:48.320 --> 00:37:02.480
And I think that last part is really important because when we're trying to really improve our gut function, increase resiliency, we have to remember it's not always about keeping adding more things.
00:37:02.800 --> 00:37:03.519
Do you see?
00:37:03.679 --> 00:37:10.320
I think a lot of people think that's, you know, because there's so much information out there and there's so many things you're supposed to be doing, that's what people think.
00:37:10.480 --> 00:37:13.280
They think, okay, I gotta keep adding stuff.
00:37:13.679 --> 00:37:15.039
Sometimes we do.
00:37:15.840 --> 00:37:25.039
And sometimes we have to kind of pull back on something or a food or whatever it may be, we have to kind of pull back temporarily.
00:37:25.119 --> 00:37:28.960
And maybe we have to subtract something, do you see?
00:37:29.440 --> 00:37:35.039
Um, or change the amount or type of fiber foods.
00:37:35.360 --> 00:37:51.039
Um, or even just one at one period of time, maybe we're really needing to pay attention to motility and digestion before we're asking their gut to handle more fermentation from increasing fibers.
00:37:51.760 --> 00:38:02.079
Um, and sometimes we need to just stop changing anything at all long enough to actually see what their body is doing inside the life they're also living.
00:38:02.239 --> 00:38:05.280
And that discernment is a big part of the work that I do.
00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:17.519
So when you think about your own gut, I don't want you leaving this episode wondering whether you hit some perfect number of grams of fiber, right?
00:38:17.679 --> 00:38:23.599
Because the goal is not to force your gut to meet some kind of number before it's ready.
00:38:24.159 --> 00:38:28.719
Um, you know, and it doesn't mean that fiber intake or plant diversity doesn't matter.
00:38:28.880 --> 00:38:30.159
They totally do.
00:38:30.480 --> 00:38:40.239
The ultimate question is like, how can you move toward greater capacity where like from where your gut is right now?
00:38:40.480 --> 00:38:44.000
Can you eat more foods than you could six months ago?
00:38:44.800 --> 00:38:56.880
Are you like gradually bringing more kinds of plant foods into your diet, or are you still like rotating through a very small group of foods because everything else feels risky for you?
00:38:57.519 --> 00:39:08.880
Or maybe, you know, are there foods that you eliminated years ago that might be worth thoughtfully revisiting now to see if you can tolerate them?
00:39:09.199 --> 00:39:09.840
Right.
00:39:10.239 --> 00:39:25.920
Um and then when something actually causes you discomfort, can you use that response as information instead of immediately deciding that some food is bad for you or bad for you forever?
00:39:26.079 --> 00:39:29.360
It's like I think that can happen.
00:39:29.599 --> 00:39:31.920
Um, and I have all these questions that I ask.
00:39:32.000 --> 00:39:38.159
Like the main, main thing is is your digestive system becoming more capable over time?
00:39:38.320 --> 00:39:40.000
That's what I care about the most.
00:39:40.480 --> 00:39:51.840
Not whether you never get bloated ever again or tolerate every single food under the sun or hit some number of fibers or plants per week, right?
00:39:52.000 --> 00:39:56.000
Like it's really all about is your gut becoming more resilient?
00:39:56.239 --> 00:39:58.079
Can it handle more variety?
00:39:58.320 --> 00:40:00.800
Can you eat with more flexibility?
00:40:01.199 --> 00:40:12.159
Can you actually travel and go out to dinner and eat seasonally and try a new food without your entire digestive system feeling like it's this constant project?
00:40:12.320 --> 00:40:13.599
You know what I'm saying?
00:40:13.840 --> 00:40:22.719
So that's what I mean when I talk about rebuilding capacity or resiliency in your gut, really also in your body, right?
00:40:23.199 --> 00:40:35.039
Um, where, you know, a wider range of real foods can start belonging in your life again without having to like constantly calculate, overthink, or worry about it, right?
00:40:36.159 --> 00:40:39.840
And this lets your life expand too.
00:40:40.079 --> 00:40:44.480
You know, it's not just your diet is getting better, your life is.
00:40:45.119 --> 00:40:52.719
And this is really just one of the pieces of the larger work that I do inside minerals and microbes with my clients.
00:40:53.039 --> 00:41:19.199
If you're somebody that's like dealing with chronic overlapping health issues and digestion is a part of that picture for you, whether it's bloating or distension or pressure, even inconsistent bowels, food reactions, feeling like your diet just keeps getting narrower, or like your gut can't even handle the foods you know you should be able to eat.
00:41:19.519 --> 00:41:24.639
Um, I personally don't think the answer is simply another list of foods to add or avoid.
00:41:24.880 --> 00:41:29.440
I want to understand why your gut is responding the way that it is.
00:41:29.840 --> 00:41:56.960
And so inside this um minerals and microbes that I do with clients, I use uh the hair tissue mineral analysis, the biome effects, microbiome testing, along with ongoing one-on-one support to really look at these things: the digestion, motility, your microbial patterns, your food tolerance, how your body's actually responding as we make the changes over time.
00:41:57.519 --> 00:41:57.760
Right.
00:41:57.920 --> 00:42:18.800
Because knowing that fiber is good for you is one thing, but figuring out which foods your gut can work with right now and uh what may be getting in the way of greater tolerance and like even how we can gradually build more capacity without making you feel worse is something else entirely.
00:42:19.039 --> 00:42:22.960
And that is a big part of the work that I help people do.
00:42:23.519 --> 00:42:33.360
So if you've already tried a lot and you still feel like the pieces of your health aren't fully coming together, you can learn more about minerals and microbes in the show notes.
00:42:33.440 --> 00:42:34.800
There's a link there for you.
00:42:35.199 --> 00:42:36.719
Read it through, check it out.
00:42:36.880 --> 00:42:39.599
If you have any questions at all, you're welcome to email me.
00:42:39.760 --> 00:42:46.480
I'm always happy to make sure you feel total clarity before embarking on this journey with me.
00:42:46.719 --> 00:42:49.199
So, all right, guys, that's all for today.
00:42:49.360 --> 00:42:52.960
I hope you found something useful in this episode.
00:42:53.280 --> 00:43:01.199
You can um DM me directly through the link in the first link in the show notes and share any takeaways you have.
00:43:01.280 --> 00:43:07.280
Uh, if you know someone who would benefit from this conversation, please feel free to share the episode with them.
00:43:07.440 --> 00:43:08.800
I appreciate you.
00:43:09.039 --> 00:43:12.159
Until next time, stay wild and stay well.