Gut health Q&A with Aicacia Young: protein intake, gut detox protocol, IgG, cycling hormones, trendy supplements

[00:00:00] What they found in this one study was that the body can really only absorb around 20 grams of protein in one sitting. I thought that was so fascinating because you would see like so many bodybuilders be like get 30 to 50 you know per month.

[00:00:13] Yeah, yeah or like in a smoothie. Exactly. My rule of thumb is to try to be between 20 to 30 grams of protein in a sitting. So if you're like I want to go hard. Okay, try 30. See how you do. I personally just stick with 20.

[00:00:28] I'm Jane Z and this is Farm to Future, the podcast all about eating better for the planet. Our Gut Health Queen is here, Aicacia Young. You guys really loved our episode last month

[00:00:42] all about IBS and how to diagnose your symptoms. So we have her back on the pod today for a Q&A. We've got a jam packed episode today. We're going to cover how much protein you should be

[00:00:52] eating in a day, how to figure out what specifically in dairy triggers you. The one magical supplement everyone could benefit from, why you should do a gut detox before getting pregnant and the two

[00:01:03] supplements to take for a proper gut detox. And we also touch on gut health during your menstrual cycle and Aicacia's hot take on some of the trendiest supplements out there like athletic

[00:01:14] greens and seed. So buckle up. It's going to be a good one. If you missed our first episode, go and listen to that one after it's linked in the show notes. Aicacia is a registered dietitian nutritionist and the chief scientific officer of Silver Fern Probiotics where she formulates

[00:01:30] products and protocols for gut health. Welcome to the podcast Aicacia. We've gotten so much awesome feedback and questions and comments after our last episode. I actually had dinner with a couple girlfriends last night and one of them was like, I know Jane's been talking about

[00:01:48] gut health all these years, but I finally got my gut health in check and I poop every day and it feels great. So yes, we love to hear it. Last time we talked about all the fun IBS symptoms

[00:02:02] we covered constipation, diarrhea, bloating, all our favorite things, but we didn't touch on gas and I was like, okay, we can't talk about gut things without talking about farts. So

[00:02:16] give us the low down. If you're like really, really gassy, which I know sometimes when I eat like dairy or certain things, it happens. What is that a sign of? So it could be a couple of different things,

[00:02:28] but on the simplest scale, gas is a byproduct of fermentation. So literally all it means if you're really gassy is that microbes are fermenting something, right? So they're excited about something. They're kind of eating it not really technically, but you can think of it

[00:02:44] like they're eating something. And on the other side, they'll produce gases. Now all of these gases end up getting exchanged. It's kind of a complicated little system in there because it's this whole ecosystem, right? So like some of them will create methane, some of them will create

[00:03:00] oxygen, some of them don't like to be around oxygen, some of them prefer nitrogen gas, you know? And so they're all kind of just like trading like I'll trade you some of this for

[00:03:09] some of that, right? And so some microbes are able to utilize some of those gases, some of them aren't. And so when you end up feeling super gassy on the one hand, I think it's good because that means

[00:03:21] that your gut motility is moving so the gas isn't getting trapped in your intestines. So you're not feeling necessarily super bloated, but your body's able to expel the gas and just get it

[00:03:32] out of the body. So it's not always the worst thing, especially if you are just starting to incorporate fiber into your diet or you're doing some kind of gut reset. It's just kind of like

[00:03:44] dust when you're going to remodel your kitchen, you know? It's like, it's just kind of parley coarse gas is a normal byproduct. Don't freak out too much about it. Now of course, if it's like,

[00:03:56] like you said, ooh, when I eat certain foods, like dairy, that's usually from lactose, not getting broken down by lactase. Super, super common, especially as we age, but also in more Asian populations because lactase is a really finicky enzyme. It's just like,

[00:04:11] oh, I don't feel like working today. You know, it's usually like the first one to go really. So if you notice certain foods are causing it, then it could be perhaps incomplete digestion.

[00:04:24] So that can kind of tip you off. But if you're going in and you're really trying to change a bunch of stuff in the gut microbiome, I really wouldn't panic about the gas. If it is one of

[00:04:33] your symptoms before you're doing, you know, a gut reset and you're like, yeah, I noticed it's like really sulfury smelling. You know, the smell of it can kind of tip you off as to what's going on.

[00:04:44] A very sulfury smelling gas, which reminds you of like a rotten egg smell. That would tell you that there's a lot of hydrogen sulfide being produced. So then that could tip you off that there could be more hydrogen sulfide producers overgrown in your gut.

[00:04:59] Could be, might not be right because it is really complicated system with the whole gas exchange. What is hydrogen sulfide? Like what kind of foods does that come from? So pretty much everything in the gut microbiome is like necessary and has a role in moderation.

[00:05:15] So hydrogen sulfide would be produced usually from more protein consuming more protein tends to be what ends up with gut microbes producing more hydrogen sulfide gas. Now it can be beneficial in certain cases, it can do different functions in the gut microbiome. I can't remember all of them

[00:05:36] off the top of my head, but there are functions of course, it's just that when you have too much then that's when you're like, eh, something's out of balance in the gut. So that's when we

[00:05:46] have to look at, okay, are we consuming too much protein? Are we perhaps not digesting the normal amount of protein that we're consuming? What's causing the microbiome to kind of tip those scales in that way that's kind of producing more of these inflammatory byproducts. If you're

[00:06:04] producing way too much hydrogen sulfide, I would look at that as more of like an inflammatory marker. Fortunately and unfortunately, the gut microbiome prefers carbohydrates, not necessarily refined carbs, but fiber. So most of your microbes are going to prefer that.

[00:06:21] Some of them certainly are going to utilize protein and so of course having a balanced diet is better. But when you start to see it shift to heavier on the protein side, that's when the

[00:06:32] gut microbes tend to produce more inflammatory byproducts as a result. And again, some of those that we'll call inflammatory are okay at really small levels because your body is able to

[00:06:46] just kind of adapt, you know, inter exchange these things. But it's when they start to build up out of control that it's like, okay, things are turning starting to tip in favor of more inflammation,

[00:06:57] which we don't necessarily want every single day. I want to hear your guidelines or tips around like protein intake and also quality. So a lot of my friends have been getting into lifting and working out and getting recommendations to eat more protein. And there's kind of this

[00:07:17] guideline within the fitness world that you should be eating one gram of protein or 0.5 to one gram of protein per pound of body weight, which is a lot to intake. It's kind of hard

[00:07:28] to reach that. And it's also a lot more than what we were recommended growing up. What's your kind of educated opinion on that? So in school, you can look up the RDAs for protein intake and they

[00:07:45] do vary based on exercise intensity and also frequency. So I believe that for the average person who has like a mostly sedentary slash slightly active lifestyle, it's like 0.8 grams per

[00:07:58] kilo. So you have to do a little bit of math to kind of convert I don't know that it comes out to you know, one gram per pound of body weight because that is still a lot. But then of course,

[00:08:07] those increase as you are lifting more weights, you know, doing more rigorous exercise. So you can usually find those online just to check and kind of see like, is there a range? But

[00:08:19] I know there was a study probably like five years ago that came out that was looking at how much protein the body can absorb in one sitting, right? Because it's like, well, if you're trying to

[00:08:31] eat 150 grams of protein, how often do you have to be eating, you know, to get that intake? Like every hour. Yeah, because it's like when it comes to calcium, you know, and some of the

[00:08:43] minerals, it's like they do have sort of this upper limit to where after a certain point, they're not going to be absorbed anymore. After all taken at one time, right? Which is why

[00:08:52] you'll see a lot of multivitamins split it into take it twice a day. It's usually because of calcium because you can only absorb about a gram of calcium at a time. So what they found in this one study

[00:09:02] was that the body can really only absorb around 20 grams of protein in one sitting. I thought that was so fascinating because you would see like so many body builders be like get

[00:09:12] 30 to 50, you know, or like in a smoothie. Exactly. I think it totally depends on the person of a situation, you know, where they are in life, if they're recycling female or if they're not,

[00:09:27] you know, all of these things come into play. How well are you digesting your food? And then also because we're talking about protein, then the question is how much stomach acid are you producing? You know, do you have low stomach acid from too much stress or from

[00:09:40] smoking or from taking ibuprofen every day because your muscles are a little sore, you know, or because you've been an athlete your whole life. Like there are all these different factors and if

[00:09:50] you have low stomach acid and you're just going to try to pound the protein, that's usually when I see people feel like they'll tell me that it feels like there's just like brick sitting in their stomach. You know, it's really hard for people to kind of express

[00:10:05] when they're not digesting protein, but they'll sort of know, you know, they're like, when I eat meat or when I eat these things, it just kind of sits there. Now, of course, eating animal protein,

[00:10:15] you know, it is going to be a little bit harder to digest, right? Because you have to chew it really well to break up those fibers. So animal meat is going to be harder to digest than fish,

[00:10:26] for example, right? Because like fish, you stab it with your fork and you can see the muscle fibers fall apart. That means it's going to be easier for your body to digest. Then

[00:10:34] if you're going to consume like a protein powder, especially if it has digested enzymes in it, which a lot of them will add a little bit of protease or some peptidases, those are the enzymes

[00:10:44] that help us break down protein. Then it might be easier for you to digest. It again totally depends on the person depends on the protein that they're using. So my rule of thumb, which people argue with me about because again, there are so many different studies and it's

[00:10:59] really hard to come up with like a one size fits all recommendation for anything, I think in life. But my rule of thumb is to try to be between 20 to 30 grams of protein in a sitting. So if you're

[00:11:12] like, I want to go hard and you're like, I just want to get the max. I'm like, okay, try 30, you know, see how you do because you will see some protein powders that'll have up to 30 grams

[00:11:21] of protein in a serving. I personally just stick with 20 and incorporate it when I can, you know, like adding collagen peptides into your smoothies. That's an easy way to sneak them in,

[00:11:32] you know, especially if you don't tolerate dairy very well, so you can't do the whey or the casein. So there are options. But it is really filling, you know, like that's the pro con of protein is

[00:11:44] that if you're just completely eating protein, like just eating beef sticks all the time, you know, eventually, yeah, okay, I've had it with the protein. I just can't anymore. Yeah, no, for sure. I've never thought about protein types in terms of digestibility. I like always

[00:12:02] think about it in terms of like the quality of the sourcing. So for me, like a high quality grass fed beef is going to be higher on my priority list than like an ultra processed protein powder.

[00:12:14] Right. But then what you just mentioned about like, well, some of these protein powders do add those enzymes to help you digest it, you know, that could be a good thing if you

[00:12:22] don't tolerate like a hunk of steak, for example. Exactly. It really just depends, you know, on the person, on their gut, on their lifestyle, it just depends on so many different factors.

[00:12:34] You had mentioned about aging and as we age, we sort of lose the lactase enzyme. Can you talk a bit more about that? Like how do we lose those enzymes and like what else happens as we age?

[00:12:50] Yeah. So it's just over time as we're aging, you know, if you think about back in the Paleolithic era, like I don't think we were living into our hundreds. So the body function quite as long as it needs to function now, right? So it's just that they've

[00:13:05] noticed sort of a steady decline in overall digestive enzyme production. It's usually around your 30s or 40s and it's not like this stark drop off, you know, and you just stop producing

[00:13:16] it all together. It's just that this is when people will notice I used to be able to tolerate these foods, I ate them all my life. I don't know why all of a sudden, but I'm tolerate them so well.

[00:13:27] It's like, well, when did you notice that? You know, and normally people will notice that in their 30s and 40s. It could be for a variety of different reasons. And there's not a ton of

[00:13:36] research on like, okay, does it happen to everyone? It's not like they do a great job of studying every single population to know if there's any genetics involved. Like what's actually causing

[00:13:47] the decline? Is it due to, you know, all of the oxidative stress in our bodies? Is it due to literal stress that we're going through telling our nervous system to freak out all the time?

[00:13:57] We don't know. We just know that like there is a steady decline in a lot of digestive functions as we age. Does that mean that we should just, if you're having digestive issues,

[00:14:07] you should just chalk it up to old age and let it go? Maybe not necessarily. You know, there could be something else underlying that issue that's been a very slow burn over time and is just now

[00:14:19] peeking out of the surface and trying to get your attention. So I wouldn't necessarily write it off entirely, but at the same time, you know, it's like, I do have plenty of friends that will jump to the opposite conclusion. You know, I'm like, ah, I'm dying. And you're

[00:14:33] like, no, no. There's happy media in between. Yeah, not yet. I have noticed that with myself and a lot of friends who are like, oh, you know, dairy used to be fine and now I can't anymore. Is there anything

[00:14:46] we can do about that? Or do we just have to take lactate? Yeah. So it depends on why you're having an issue with the dairy. So like we talked about with food sensitivities, I guess now would be

[00:14:58] a good time for me to refresh on the food sensitivities versus food intolerances. If you have a food intolerance, it's usually due to a lack of an enzyme. So lactose intolerance is an intolerance because you are not producing enough lactase, which is the enzyme that breaks down lactose,

[00:15:17] which is the sugar that's found in milk. So if that happens, then the lactose, which is a disaccharide, so it needs to be broken up into its little sugar molecules, then if that can't be broken up, then it's going through the body and the body really prefers

[00:15:32] to absorb things in their little tiny building blocks. So think of them like Legos. So if you have two stuck together, then the body might be like, nah, you didn't break it down enough. So then it could pass down into the gut microbiome and the gut microbiome would

[00:15:44] be like, yes, sugar is we can ferment them. And then it might ferment them and create a lot of lactose. And where you're going, what on earth is going on? You might feel bloated, you might just have a lot of flatulence. That would be a lactose intolerance. So

[00:15:59] a couple things that you could do would be to help again repair your gut barriers. Maybe there's just inflammation in your gut from, you know, we live in very stressful societies right now. So everything about our modern lives is really stressful to our systems.

[00:16:17] And that's going to stress out our and damage our gut barriers. And so then that can also have an effect on enzyme production. We do produce a lot of these enzymes from our pancreas.

[00:16:28] And when there's a lot of inflammation in our gut lining, that can lead to inflammation in other organs. So that can lead to inflammation, the pancreas, which is considered pancreatitis, or it could be causing inflammation in the liver, which is considered hepatitis.

[00:16:41] So it's just, if you can reduce inflammation in your gut, you can kind of seal in, you know, a lot of other issues and just kind of keep those at bay. So that would be one thing to try. Otherwise,

[00:16:53] if it's, if you're like, I know it's lactose and nothing else will fix it, then yeah, that's when you would just want to supplement either with a capsule that contains lactase or drink, like you said, lactate milk, consuming products that already add in the lactase or have taken

[00:17:11] out the lactose so that you don't have any issues with it. Okay, so that's the intolerance. And then what about sensitivity? How do you define that? So then if you have a food sensitivity, this is more

[00:17:23] of an immune response. And the food sensitivities tend to be more delayed immune responses. Food allergies are those like instant throats closing, you know, EpiPen, those are more instant, those are your IgE reactions. So the food sensitivities tend to be the IgG mediated antibody

[00:17:41] immune response. And those tend to occur in reaction to a protein. So for people who have dairy issues, it's usually an issue with casein or whey or sometimes beta-lactoglobulin. That one's not as common, but it's still possible. So one of the things that you can do,

[00:18:00] either take a food sensitivity test if you're like, I know it's dairy, but I want to know specifically what my body's freaking out about. Taking one that has all of those subsets so that

[00:18:09] you can see specifically or you can just kind of test on yourself. There are certain cheeses. So like I remember growing up, I had an issue with casein. The only reason I figured it out was

[00:18:20] because I would eat cheeses or ice cream or things that I would get really stuffy in my nose. And if I went crazy, I would get a full-blown sinus infection. Oh no. And so then I was like,

[00:18:32] oh no. Okay, let me dial this back a little bit and then it would be fine. I would have no allergies. I live in the allergy capital of the world. I would have no allergies. Everything

[00:18:41] would be fine. And then I'd be like, I want to test it again. And I would test it. And I'd be like, okay, that was fine. And then I would go off the deep end the next two or three days.

[00:18:53] And so again, another sinus infection. So I learned my lesson the hard way. But I realized, hey, I can have whey protein powder. And there are certain cheeses that are purely whey cheeses.

[00:19:04] So that's like ricotta and fresh mozzarella. So I can eat those all day long and wouldn't get any issues. So for a long time, I was just like, okay, cool, I like those. And honestly,

[00:19:17] no cheese tastes as good as breathing through both of my nostrils all the time. You know, so I love that. I was like, okay, if I've gone a long time without it, then and I want to eat some cheese, then I'll opt for the ricotta or the mozzarella.

[00:19:36] Otherwise, if it's a food sensitivity, then I figured out early on, hey, if I take some IgG afterwards after having some casein, I don't have the same immune response. It really calms

[00:19:49] the system. It just kind of like, he's like, shh. You know, it's just like suffocating it quietly. So taking some IgG right after a food that typically causes a delayed immune response, don't recommend doing this if you have a legit food allergy because that's going through a different

[00:20:11] antibody, right? So that's going to be life-threatening. Definitely don't try that. Don't mistake what I'm saying. But if you're like, you know, I have a food sensitivity. I don't have a full-blown

[00:20:22] allergy. My throat will not close. My life is not in danger. Then you can test what happens when I take some IgG supplements after eating some of these inflammatory foods that usually trigger me.

[00:20:33] And then you see what happens, right? I like to encourage people to conduct science experiments on themselves because I don't, I can't know how your body is going to respond. Your doctor can't predict exactly how you're going to respond. So the best thing you can do

[00:20:49] is listen to your body, trust yourself and start slow. Try little things, you know? See how, and then notice it, you know, have some awareness of like, what did I eat earlier? How do I feel today? Okay, sounds good. And you just kind of go for it.

[00:21:03] Is it safe to take an IgG if you don't know yet what you're sensitive to and just use it to start testing? Definitely. Yeah. I mean, even if you're like, I don't know what's going on,

[00:21:15] but my gut is unwell, you know, like maybe you've been slapped with IBS, which any syndrome, they don't know the exact cause of. So they're just saying, it just annoys me that with IBS,

[00:21:28] they're like, you have tummy mad syndrome and you're like, yeah, I know. That's what I'm telling you. So if you are just like, I don't even know where to start, but my stomach gets really

[00:21:40] upset kind of intermittently slash all the time and I don't know what's causing it. I don't know if it's food. I don't know if it's something else. I don't know if it's stress. Absolutely. Try some

[00:21:51] IgG because that one really works for so many different people. There's two different sources of it. You can either get it from colostrum. So that's coming from cow's milk. I don't usually recommend that if you suspect a dairy issue because usually it'll contain some lactose and

[00:22:07] some casein in some way, unless there are some companies now that are extracting all of that. Usually they'll just purify the colostrum and it will contain some of the dairy proteins or you

[00:22:17] can get it from serum and they will purify, remove everything else. And it's just the very purified antibodies along with some albumin. So it's really good for immune support. And as long as you're not constipated, I mean pretty much anyone can benefit from that.

[00:22:32] Why is IgG not more popular? I feel like I'm only hearing it from you. I literally don't know. I think, well they call it by different names, right? Like I do get hit

[00:22:41] with a lot of ads for colostrum and colostrum has been out for a while. It's just that it's gotten more of a bad route because again it's usually not as purified. So I would say like

[00:22:52] a decade ago when I was working more in functional medicine space, there were people who were like you know if they had any dairy issue some of them could have a reaction to the colostrum. So it was

[00:23:04] just kind of like when you're seeing really sensitive people who have all kinds of issues you're like I don't want to make it worse potentially by introducing you know more dairy to them. But yeah honestly I don't know why more people aren't talking about it because

[00:23:19] it's been around for a while. Like it used to be this company called Zymogen used to have the exclusive rights on this one ingredient called Immunalin and that is now in a bunch of different

[00:23:33] products on the market now but back then they had the exclusive rights to it. It was in a product called IgG 2000 because it was 2,000 milligrams, two grams of it and that was the thing that

[00:23:45] I would take after consuming dairy and it worked so well. Well then they were supposed to be doing research on the product and they weren't so they lost their exclusivity agreement and they went

[00:23:56] out to other companies and so they changed their formula and I noticed that after it changed it didn't do the same thing for me. So I'm a big big fan of the Immunalin ingredient just because

[00:24:09] it's like way more concentrated, it's super pure, really really high quality and it's also used as a medical food. And so it's like literally a prescription medical food so it's like the purest of pure

[00:24:22] they're using in the hospital setting and so it's just a slightly lower concentration to use it in the dietary supplement space. Nice and that's the one that Silver Fern offers right? Yes yes

[00:24:33] so Silver Fern has the product called cleanse and so that cleanse product uses the Immunalin ingredient and it's just Immunalin by itself in capsules. And you can open up the capsules put them in water,

[00:24:44] it doesn't dissolve really well in water so if you have one of those little frothers I would use that or mix it in with like your electrolytes or something like that otherwise people just

[00:24:54] like to take I mean you would take four capsules a day would be about the maintenance dose you could go up higher than that if your gut is feeling really toxic or if you have like really

[00:25:05] really bad diarrhea and you're like oh gosh I just traveled you know maybe went to Mexico and you drank a bunch of water and you came back and you've got the runs and it's miserable

[00:25:15] that's when I would double up on the IgG. And then also if you have autoimmune issues you can double triple like you can go up pretty high on that because again if your body doesn't use

[00:25:27] it you just you just poop it out so it's really hard to overdose on which is why it's so useful. So whatever there are few instances where like for religious purposes people can't take it because

[00:25:38] they're not allowed to consume you know animal products or products that were purified from serum so for those cases it's like okay we'll try to use different binders like some clays or some charcoals for the toxin binding capacity but it's really really hard to replace the IgG

[00:25:56] because it does so many different things. Is IgG safe for pregnancy? Yes, yes cool which is a great segue for us to talk about pregnancy. Yes totally there's so much different information out there

[00:26:10] about what's safe what's not I saw on your Instagram you had a video about detox you shouldn't do during pregnancy or like during this phase how do you think about gut health during the

[00:26:20] prenatal and pregnancy era? Yes great question so when people talk about detox again that's like a big umbrella term right and so usually people are talking about doing some kind of like juice cleanse or something but technically on a daily basis our livers are detoxifying our bodies right

[00:26:39] which is great that's fine um but when we talk about doing a gut detox which is like I want to clean out the bad stuff like maybe you've done a stool test and you're like oh no I have this overgrowth

[00:26:51] of clubciela or I know I have this candida overgrowth and so I want to address it. Doing anything that's going to have a kill action in the gut I would constitute as a detox a gut detox and so that's

[00:27:04] not something that I really recommend doing when someone is pregnant so whenever people are like hey like how can I best prepare um usually my questions are you know do you have any gut issues

[00:27:16] right now any symptoms have you had to take antibiotics in the last year have you had any other infections recently that you know of that kind of thing that would kind of tell me has the

[00:27:29] gut microbiome recently been disturbed if it has then I'm like ooh you should go ahead and do a gut detox before you start like really really trying of course it takes time right to actually

[00:27:42] conceive um but the sooner that you can do the gut detox when you are actively thinking about getting pregnant the better because once you are pregnant it's just really not a good time to try to

[00:27:56] do a gut detox because the byproduct of that is that it's going to release a bunch of toxins into the gut a if your gut lining is not so great maybe it's a little bit damaged all of those toxins

[00:28:11] are able to go into the system into the liver they're going to overwhelm the liver the liver's got a lot going on already and when you are creating another being inside of you it's not

[00:28:22] really the time to be like hey let's remodel this side of the house you know because it's going to create all this dust you know all this damage and it's just kind of

[00:28:32] canceling each other out in a way so that's not to say that you know there are never going to be instances where someone can safely do a gut detox because again it's really common for women to get

[00:28:45] the type B strep when they're pregnant and so it's like well you know you've got to do something at some point so there are still times where you may need to take something it's just not recommended

[00:28:57] if you can avoid it so I highly recommend doing the gut detoxes before getting pregnant that way you're able to reset the system and rebuild and then have that foundation laid so that when your

[00:29:11] body is pregnant and during pregnancy our bodies do have more inflammation it's just that we're able to tolerate it better so it's like if you were to compare the biomarkers of a healthy pregnant

[00:29:22] woman to a non-pregnant healthy woman you would think oh my gosh the pregnant woman if you didn't know she was pregnant you would be like she's got some metabolic disorders going on you know like

[00:29:34] she's super inflamed like we're worried but if you're if you know that she's pregnant then you're like okay this makes sense given her situation so I just caution it's like it's

[00:29:46] better to go ahead and clean it all out now because if you wait if you're like oh I'm thinking about it and I have the choice we don't all have the privilege of choice you know with timing and all of this

[00:29:57] so if you do have that option do the gut detox first because if you wait then during pregnancy really don't recommend doing it but then after that hopefully you're able to breastfeed

[00:30:09] still really don't want to do a gut detox because those toxins that are being released in your gut could end up potentially in your breast milk we don't want that so as long as you are

[00:30:20] sharing space with your baby and sharing fluids we really don't want to do any gut detox if we don't have to so at that point you're looking at you know a couple of years down the road and so

[00:30:34] if your gut is in shambles and you're going to go through you know pregnancy is a stressful period for your body so if you're going to go through all of that then it is more likely that

[00:30:44] you're going to have issues arise from that so it's just better if you can control it to do the gut detox first what are the types of toxins that get released when you do a detox so it's usually

[00:30:58] things like lipopolysaccharide which is an endotoxin that's found in the majority of your gram negative bacteria it's just kind of in their cell walls so it's just the fact that they're

[00:31:09] being liced open so they just break open and then just parts of their outer cell membrane are just kind of floating around and they look just like a fatty acid so if you have damage to your gut

[00:31:20] barrier your mucosal barrier isn't very strong and protecting your gut lining if it comes into contact with your gut lining your gut's like oh you're a fatty acid come on in and then

[00:31:31] lipopolysaccharide again has to go through the liver but then if there's too much of it your liver and your body is kind of constantly playing this like hot potato game with toxins because if

[00:31:42] it can't get it out it's like well let's redistribute it let's move it here okay no too much okay like you know it's constantly working hard to offload these toxins that's one of the most common but

[00:31:53] otherwise a lot of the different pathogens create their own specific toxins right so like if you have an overgrowth of C. diff there are C. diff toxins if you were to have an overgrowth of like E.

[00:32:06] coli you know like they'll have their own specific toxin and there are so many of them so it's hard to name all of them off the top of my head but the majority is going to be LPS which is just

[00:32:18] causing inflammation really wherever it ends up accumulating or the individual pathogens and their toxins. What's your go-to kind of regimen for a detox and maybe like what are the tools you would typically recommend like for example fasting or a juice cleanse or probiotics like what do you kind

[00:32:37] of include in that detox phase? Yes so that's a very good question it totally depends on the person and what their symptoms are so if we assume that someone's coming to me and they're

[00:32:50] constipated then first things first I'm going to use a bile stimulator to help to stimulate the bowel movements but also to get things flowing because bile is one of the ways that the liver

[00:33:02] can get rid of toxins and so if we're able to get that fluid moving and get the bowels moving properly then I can go ahead and start with the gut detox but if we assume that someone

[00:33:13] doesn't have any constipation and maybe they're actually on the other side where they're like I actually have more diarrhea then I can jump right in and what I used to use in the past was

[00:33:22] it would kind of depend on the stool test and I would need to know like are they dealing with more of a yeast or are they dealing with a bacterial overgrowth or is it a parasite and so it would

[00:33:32] kind of vary depending on which gut infection they had but now we have this product called nanoscrub it's like the universal antimicrobial and so I use that for everything and so what

[00:33:45] it is is a very special form of nano silver and there are a ton of colloidal silvers on the market and so it gets really confusing honestly trying to differentiate and understand like wait what's the difference you know because they'll end up using scientific terms colloquially

[00:34:01] which gets confusing because you're like wait that's though that's not the same thing and so there's a ton of ionic silvers on the market that are called colloidal silvers

[00:34:12] and they kind of give silver a bad rap because they end up when they enter the body they're just the single ion floating around and if you think about you know just a lone ion it's kind of like having

[00:34:23] a little live wire at least for silver and so it can kind of be caustic and cause a little bit of inflammation wherever it goes but the point of it is to be able to steal an electron from

[00:34:35] pathogens so if you have an overgrowth they would be able to go in and steal the electrons and when they steal enough electrons from that pathogen well all of a sudden their

[00:34:43] outer cell membrane just like almost evaporates right they just like melts away so they die and so that's why nano silver and silver in general has been used for so many years as an anti-microbial an antibacterial option the problem is that with a lot of those colloidal silvers

[00:35:03] because you're only getting that one ion it's really just like I can kill I can steal one electron one at a time and so if that's it then you have to use a really really high dose for it to be effective

[00:35:16] because what if you had an overgrowth of clubzela and candida and a parasite you know like what if you have all of these things going on in your gut you're gonna have to take a lot of silver

[00:35:27] in order to clear that all out that's why it ends up causing issues with it depositing in fat tissues and this is why if you've ever heard of the like pop a smurf guy there's like you know all

[00:35:40] this fear about people turning blue from colloidal silver it's because they're consuming ionic silver at insanely high doses because that's the dose that it requires in order to be effective so we've actually partnered with a manufacturer that makes this special nano silver it's just

[00:35:56] silver and water but they run the frequency of UV light through it and it creates this little silver oxide coating and so there's thousands of little nano silvers surrounding each little silver core and so when you take that it's like oh you're actually getting thousands per

[00:36:13] and you're able to really kill off a lot of microbes a lot faster using extremely low doses that are so low that they're below the EPA's recommended limits and so your body can just

[00:36:26] safely take it in and then pee or poop it out no problem and they've actually got human studies measuring this clearance to show yeah within 72 hours 48 to 72 hours it is clearing the system

[00:36:39] it's not getting deposited so we use that we love it we have seen when we attested it because you know we're skeptical about everything we tested it on people who had tried other protocols maybe a parasite protocol from another company or you know a candida cleanse from someone

[00:36:55] else and they just kind of weren't feeling a difference and so we reached out to some of those people who are like hey do you want to test this for us like we're looking for real world

[00:37:05] you know feedback on this and all of them came back to us and were like oh my gosh I'm seeing parasites in my stool oh my gosh I feel so much better um they'll feel worse for the first

[00:37:17] couple days because a lot of those people didn't listen when we were like start slow and build the dose they're like I just want to get it out exactly which I totally understand you know it's

[00:37:26] like you want to feel that something's working and so some of us prefer to like just go off the deep end and then suffer for a few days but at least we have proof that something's actually happening

[00:37:37] in our bodies those were those people and so they jumped off the deep end and they had all the die-off symptoms and were like all right well it's it's doing something you know and they

[00:37:46] would come back to us they would show us their stool tests they're like yep it's gone like all right this is it that so that's why we went with the nanoscrub um so it's just a liquid that you

[00:37:56] drink you can swish it around in your mouth if you have any issues going on in your oral microbiome and then swallow it or you can just pop it in and swallow it and then yeah you can kind of play

[00:38:06] with the dosing I usually will then add in the cleanse whenever it's time for them to start the nanoscrub um because I think of them like being cleaners household cleaners so I think of

[00:38:16] nanoscrub as being like your multipurpose spray you know that you're gonna like spray on the counter tops and I think of the cleanse as being like the sponge you could do it with either one alone but it

[00:38:28] just might be a mess you know like you could just spray stuff and then leave it and then wait and it's like yeah you that might address it it'll just be wet you know and then

[00:38:40] dry it's drinky you could also just elbow grease with a sponge and get it out it would just take a really long time and a lot of effort but using them together is like so so so efficient

[00:38:50] it's like such a sweet spot so that's usually what I recommend that people do if they can tolerate either those two things so that's my like perfect gut detox because it addresses all of the

[00:39:02] microbes regardless of what you have going on and then you only have to do it for like three to six months um depending on the severity of your overgrowth and then after

[00:39:13] that you're done and you can either just keep it on hand for like if there's a cold going around you know or if you're traveling and just want to make sure that you're not getting some food poisoning

[00:39:24] or whatever but yeah after that you're good and then you can just maintain and at that point that's when I would move people on to introducing probiotics and then after that introducing prebiotics because then the idea is once you clean it all out now we're going to re-establish

[00:39:40] you know the healthy gut flora and then we're going to feed them what they like so they're nice and happy and the microbiome stays diverse and rich and just really multifunctional so it can keep

[00:39:51] you healthy okay three to six months as the kind of detox period yeah so is like a three-day cleanse not a thing I mean it depends on what you're going for right like there are so many different

[00:40:05] ways to cleanse the body it totally just depends on what you're doing like certainly if you were doing a juice cleanse right or even like a fasting cleanse that's still going to do something for

[00:40:17] your body right even just not having food like let's just say we're fasting which even I mean juice kind of is a fast because you're just drinking it's getting absorbed you're not getting a

[00:40:28] whole lot anything like that is at least going to help rest your digestive system of course you don't want to do it for too long because then you end up in starvation mode but doing a shorter

[00:40:39] fast or doing something like an intermittent fast that can be helpful just to kind of help regenerate usually what it's helping to regenerate is your mucosal lining as long as the body has all the

[00:40:49] building blocks to do so and then that can also sometimes help some of your good probiotics in the gut that can only feed on your mucosal barrier they kind of have a little symbiotic

[00:41:01] relationship and so they really only get to feed when you're not feeding right so like when you're rested and they're like oh okay there's not because it's like when you eat a meal it's kind of like a

[00:41:12] hurricane going through your digestive tract every time they get all work yeah so they're like oh my gosh and so whenever there is peace then they're like okay time for me to feed you know so

[00:41:24] there are still gonna be you're still gonna find benefits from doing different things it just depends on what outcome you're looking for so it's not to say like oh no you'll never benefit at all

[00:41:36] from doing a three-day cleanse it's like sometimes our brains need a reset sometimes our bowels need a reset like if your gut instinct is like I just want to try it you know try it see

[00:41:49] how did you feel maybe you feel great maybe you won't but do understand that when you're doing a full gut detox usually you're gonna feel a little bit worse for a few days before you feel

[00:42:00] better and so that's another thing where it's like if people are going to do it completely by themselves you know without any kind of guidance whatsoever I just try to warn people because otherwise

[00:42:10] you know intuitively you would go this made me feel bad this is bad yeah like you can't fault you can't fault people for that logic um but it's just understand that some things in the body

[00:42:22] when you're going to completely overhaul them they're gonna get a little bit worse as you're clearing out the gunk and then they'll start to get better so have a little patience don't give up on it

[00:42:33] but again listen to your body I love that advice of like you know if you want to just try it because you're right like we're all so different and even our doctors can't tell us what's gonna

[00:42:44] happen I want to get your hot take on some of the influencer loved products out there so I'm sure everybody's heard of athletic greens at this point or AG1 some of my friends are into

[00:42:57] this alternative called bloom which is also like a superfood green juice type thing what are your thoughts on those types of products like do we need so-called superfoods and supergreens in our

[00:43:09] diet on a regular basis I think it depends on the person and their lifestyle so if you're someone who's already cooking your own meals you're getting a variety of different fruits and

[00:43:21] vegetables you're on top of it you're just like flowing right if that's you then you probably don't need it but if you're a person who is working nine to five go go go your breakfast is like an

[00:43:35] iced coffee you know and like you're grabbing food from somewhere fast on the way home and you know everything's go go go in that case it's like yeah it's not going to hurt you to have a bunch

[00:43:49] of vegetables honestly you know especially if you're getting something that has like broccoli sprouts in it broccoli sprouts cabbage a lot of those sulfurous vegetables are really really helpful for liver detoxification so you will be helping your liver out but yeah I'm like listen if you're

[00:44:08] a person who's like I hate vegetables go ahead and get one of those you know if you're dying to get one of this go ahead and get it because at that point you're really going for more of the phyto nutrients

[00:44:20] rather than anything else in it when you look at some of those labels and they list like 100 different things and then off to the side they're like 100 milligrams okay so they might be fairy dusting a bunch of different things in there just for marketing purposes or they could

[00:44:42] really want you to just get this nice variety I think that's great but when you look at some of the different herbs like that they're marketing about if they're like oh we use like ashwagandha

[00:44:53] and it's like okay how much ashwagandha are you using and if it's in a proprietary blend which honestly the supplement industry gets such a bad rap because people are like if they put

[00:45:04] it in a proprietary blend then it's a scam no if they put it in a proprietary blend is protecting their formula because there are a lot of copycats out here in America so it's preventing people from

[00:45:17] just going what do they have oh I'll just copy it and sell it for less and steal all their you know what I mean so just because it says proprietary formula does not mean it's a scam

[00:45:28] that's also a way to protect their intellectual property but look at the amount and also consider what the suggested and effective dose would be of whatever herb it is you know so it's like

[00:45:41] for mushrooms you'll see mushrooms marketed so much in a lot of different things a lot of mushrooms have an effective dose of like two to six grams which is a lot so unless you're consuming something

[00:45:53] that's like a mushroom coffee you know and it's got like multiple grams of a bunch of different mushrooms and it blended together then most likely it's probably not giving you the studied benefits

[00:46:06] that most people associate with those mushrooms with those herbs so it's just like take a look at the label see if it's really going to do that but again all that aside if you like it and it makes

[00:46:18] you feel good keep doing it you know like if it's not making you worse those are two great products they have a lot of stuff in them but if you're missing greens in your diet for sure get some

[00:46:30] athletic greens if you love how it tastes and also keep in mind that a lot of these drink mixes they're making people drink more water and so it's like if you want to be hydrated

[00:46:43] which like all of my friends joke because i'm like i'm pretty sure my thirst mechanism is just gone right we're working on it but i actively have to be like a huge drink water and so even though like

[00:46:54] everyone makes one of those daily cups i'm like i actually need this gigantic thing to stare at me and judge me so i'm like oh yeah i need to drink you yeah and then you know exactly how much

[00:47:04] water you're drinking too exactly exactly i can go oh yeah i drink that so again if it's making you drink more water and you're feeling good and it's accessible and affordable for you great

[00:47:15] do it if you're like oh i have gut problems and i'm really looking for an answer and this is the only thing that's within my budget and i hope this is an easy button that's

[00:47:27] going to fix it i don't think that's going to be the case however everyone's different so you know it's literally impossible for me to say like this will work for everyone or this won't

[00:47:38] work for anyone so again it really just depends on the person in their lifestyle i tried a g1 one time and i did not like the taste reminds me of bubblegum after taste like when i drink it i'm

[00:47:50] like okay fine and then afterwards i'm like i feel like i just chewed a bunch of double bubble like i feel like a child like it's really there's something about it that does not taste like fresh

[00:48:00] fruits and vegetables you know yeah exactly exactly but it's so hard to have a flavored product because everyone's taste buds are different so i feel for them do you guys have any flavored products we do right now it's pretty much just the reflux powder and i need to

[00:48:17] double check if it's come out yet but we're launching a mango flavor that's going to taste really good so i'm really excited for that one to come out but yeah it's just funny because

[00:48:27] there's so many iterations and then you know flavoring is also kind of this like crazy voodoo science that reminds me of like taxes you know it's like well it doesn't make sense you know

[00:48:38] there's like the front of your um profile the back the back of your tongue and it's like these two things have to complement each other you don't just add a flavor oftentimes when they're playing with flavors

[00:48:50] it's so fascinating like if you ever want to look into it you should find someone who is a flavor chemist and interview them because it is literally so fascinating but it's like people think oh i want

[00:49:01] it to be lemon flavored add some lemon powder that might work for lemon um but when you get into some of the other fruits it's so weird that like just having that extract does not necessarily

[00:49:14] touch your tongue and tell your brain this is a strawberry so sometimes it's a combination of other fruits and other extracts that then go aha yes that is a strawberry sometimes it doesn't

[00:49:28] even involve strawberry which is the wildest thing to me it's just so fascinating people will get so up in arms about flavors and like oh if it says natural flavor they're hiding bad ingredients

[00:49:40] maybe some people are but most people are not most people are literally going to these flavor companies and being like help me help this taste good you know please make this taste delicious because it doesn't taste good and then you get into the sweeteners and people are like

[00:49:58] i hate stevia i hate monk fruit just use one or none or you can't please anyone in this world but it's so fascinating because if you just have stevia or you just have monk fruit they hit different

[00:50:10] parts of your palate so if you have both they complement each other fascinating and like the whole thing is so fascinating to me it'll feel imbalanced if you just have one so it's just

[00:50:23] a hard place to be when you're trying to flavor something i was just at a bachelorette the other weekend and we did a perfume making workshop and that reminds me so much of it they had this whole

[00:50:36] wall of all these little bottles of different sequences and some of them were essential oils and some of them were artificial i ended up making one that was all essential oils but that was actually more difficult to do because the essential oils are so much more distilled and

[00:50:54] pungent and just strong than the the artificial ones i wonder if that's the case with flavors too where it's like if you just get a pure distilled strawberry flavor it's just like too strong

[00:51:06] to actually smell like strawberry yeah it probably is because it's probably just hitting like one part of your palate it's so it's just so interesting because it's like you don't think about all of the chemistry that's going on especially in your brain when you like bite into

[00:51:21] a strawberry what i've never thought about that but it's hitting all the different parts of your palate and it's like what is going on here sometimes you can get away with just adding like lemon powder

[00:51:31] but yeah it's usually like lemon yeah so it's really hard to to make it palatable for people yeah that's like a whole like culinary science i guess yeah it really is it's a whole different

[00:51:45] branch of science it's really cool though while we're talking about other products i know last time you had talked to us about probiotics and why spore based probiotics are basically the best

[00:51:58] you'd mentioned encapsulated ones and for a while i had been taking the ones from seed seed.com they're the ones that are green on the outside and they have the probiotic pill on the inside

[00:52:10] my friend chris also asked me to ask you about seed but have you done much research into them and if so what are your thoughts yeah a little bit i like that they've done research on their

[00:52:21] finished formulas because that's really hard to come by but i think it just kind of depends on the person because unfortunately you can have all the science in the world that's like this helps

[00:52:33] and then i've just seen way too many times like you base it off the science and then when you go into the real world and you're like here a person a real person with all these other

[00:52:42] factors going on take this it will help based on this research study it doesn't always translate so i again have people just base it on their experience we do have some people who love it we have plenty

[00:52:54] of people who have tried it and they're like it makes me bloated don't love it i don't feel anything from it because they're using a lot of different really specific lactobipidostrains i think it

[00:53:05] does end up getting into a lot of these like genetic variations right and like this very specific blueprint of your microbiome and what's going on i think it can help a lot of people

[00:53:16] and then at the same time like anything it's not a one-size-fits-all what was your feedback from it what was your experience like yeah so i the first time i tried it i like tried their dosage

[00:53:28] which i think is like two pills in the morning that didn't work out for me and then i figured out what did work was one pill at night right before bed and then i had amazing poops and that

[00:53:41] lasted for a little bit but i feel like it kind of stopped working for me or maybe my lifestyle changed and other things happened but i kind of hit this plateau where it just like didn't do

[00:53:54] very much for me anymore so i've taken breaks and just taken it on and off over the last few years like when i've needed it i'm not married to it it's not like the most amazing probiotic

[00:54:05] i've taken but for a period of time it worked really well for me yeah yeah and that's usually what people find with those lactobipidopropbiotics is like it works for a little bit and then it stops and so

[00:54:18] then in like functional medicine space people will be like rotate your probiotics and i'm like but if they stop working if they stop working like two to three months like what are you okay so to me

[00:54:31] i'm like there's no research out there saying like you really need to rotate your probiotics does it interesting kind of make sense i guess maybe if that works for people great if they love it keep

[00:54:42] keep doing it like who am i to say that what's working for you isn't working for you i think that seed has like really sexy marketing and he's like really good packaging i really love what

[00:54:53] they're doing i kind of have a feeling that they're following in the footsteps of a line probiotic i think they're trying to get to the point where they can be considered drugs so that they can be prescribed

[00:55:02] by doctors because that's where the money is at if people can use insurance to pay for you then they will so i kind of think that they've done their big studies because their studies have been

[00:55:13] on diseased populations and it's usually hard to study disease populations with a dietary supplement in the us so that's kind of where my brain is going and they just have so many celebrities backing

[00:55:25] them i think they've got big plans to kind of go that direction so i think if people like it you know certainly try it and see what you feel but i wasn't like wow but again there are so many

[00:55:38] products on the market and we all have slightly different microbiomes so you might as well try and see unfortunately that's just kind of the way the way it goes yeah if they do end up being

[00:55:51] the one that can be prescribed that were you are you kind of like control about it really i just think that just in looking at kind of their business model that's where i'm like

[00:56:01] interesting that they've put because it costs a lot of money to do trials like what they've done it costs usually a quarter of a million to a half a million dollars and they've got two

[00:56:15] so i'm just kind of thinking why would their investors want to throw down before they even launched you know if they're just trying to market to consumers there's plenty of research on the benefits of lactobacillus and bifidobacteria it just kind of looks like that to me we'll see

[00:56:34] maybe they're just like just want to provide evidence and we're going to use all of our influence and our beautiful marketing to sell the product but no it wouldn't really worry me either way i just

[00:56:45] think that that might be the the way they're going because right now the only the only one that i'm aware of is a line where doctors are prescribing a line and then insurance is paying for

[00:56:56] it so okay i think the great option for people because i think it's annoying i think our healthcare system is annoying and that unless you're actively dying they're not going to do anything

[00:57:05] about it you know like i signed up for a new health insurance a couple years ago and it was like a three-year term but for the first six months you weren't allowed to get any preventative work done

[00:57:16] what how does that make any sense wait so should i die in the first six months you know i mean like okay for okay you know it was just really confusing and of course i forgot about that and

[00:57:29] then had to pay it all out of pocket oh no so it's like there's no point in having the insurance anyway exactly because it's like then some of your doctors like harass you to follow up which is like yeah

[00:57:40] right i know it's yeah but then you're like like adulting just requires too much energy that's my conclusion is what i have drawn from my adult life and like it is far too draining we do

[00:57:52] not get compensated enough to be adults right in this society no i agree the amount of time i went without having a pcp i was just like you know what i'll just deal with it myself it's fine it's fine

[00:58:08] fine yeah it's yeah silly it's like and then we wonder why this country is in the state that it's in you know it's like well you all want to talk about mental health you can't even take

[00:58:17] care of anyone's physical health so i know yeah i mean if we can't pay for it we're not gonna go see anyone exactly so yeah i honestly think it's great anything that can be approved by insurance that

[00:58:30] helps your gut health i'm like i think that's so important i just want to touch on hormone health i just learned about this book called fast like a girl by dr mindy pelts and she talks about keto

[00:58:42] or fasting intermittent fasting half the month and then what she calls hormone feasting or healthy carbs the other half of the month from your perspective what are some important things to keep in mind when it comes to feeding our hormones okay so when you think about hormones

[00:58:59] what most people forget about is their liver so your liver is responsible for converting a lot of those hormones and then getting rid of them so the liver will essentially go through

[00:59:12] it's you know changing the shape of them so that it can get rid of them either through your kidneys and you pee them out or putting them into vial and then you're able to poop them out right so then

[00:59:22] that has to go through a gi tract so if your liver is super overwhelmed with a bunch of toxins environmental toxins dietary toxins what have you then the last thing that's going to

[00:59:33] worry about is converting your own hormones that's just the last thing it's going to do because it has to prioritize everything external over everything internal so if you see a lot of the functional medicine doctors who are hormone specialists they will usually tell you to clean

[00:59:50] up the gut first and it's also really important to look at the liver and so the connection between the liver and the gut is then that if something gets tagged by the liver and it's

[01:00:00] like think of it like a Marie Kondo putting like sticky notes on things being like get rid of you get rid of you get rid of you get rid of you get rid of you you know like your trash I'll keep

[01:00:07] you um all the things are going through vial right vial is created in the liver and then stored in the gallbladder and then released into the small intestine and so vial is also what helps like

[01:00:18] lubricate the intestines so when people have really dry stools usually they're not producing enough vial as well as their you know colon is not retaining enough water um so anyways the vial goes through well when it gets into the large intestine you have this little network of microbes

[01:00:35] in the gut microbiome called the endobolome they used to call it the estroblome referencing mostly estrogen but now they know that it's more than just estrogen so you have this little network of microbes this also is really beneficial for helping to clear out different like xenobiotics

[01:00:51] what they would call them so like different weird like chemicals and things you know in our foods or in medications clear them out but if they are out of control then they're kind of

[01:01:01] act as little hoarders so they'll be like taking off the sticky notes that are tagged trash and they're like no but they're so cute let's keep them and so your liver has already basically like

[01:01:11] done roll call and it's like okay you're staying you're leaving i'll convert you to something else and then all of a sudden those things that it was trying to get rid of get reabsorbed back

[01:01:20] into circulation and then all of a sudden your body's like wait now it's off because we just we just did this you know like we just did a head count and now our head count is different and so it's

[01:01:31] constantly doing this so there is this gut and liver connection to hormones that most people are overlooking and so if you can really take care of your liver and if you can really take care of your gut microbiome generally you'll see those hormone issues either settle out or

[01:01:51] instead of having like five things you know be all out of lack usually you can narrow it down to like what is actually going on because it is this complex system right where it's this network and

[01:02:03] it's like okay well has it all gone haywire you know or is it something upstream that is causing you know these different hormones to be low or high and then it's also messing with everything

[01:02:16] else because your body is very intelligent and it has all these feedback loops the endobolome is really important to address within the gut microbiome and usually by doing just kind of a gut cleanup that can be really helpful but again addressing the liver making sure your

[01:02:30] gut motility is working properly that can be really helpful too i love what she was saying about doing like intermittent fasting for half of the month because it is true that like as you

[01:02:41] are going through your cycle if you are a cycling female annoyingly right like if it took a lot of energy to be an adult it takes a lot of energy to be a female adult um because we have to deal

[01:02:52] with cycle and so essentially what she's saying is that for half of your cycle you are more tolerant of carbohydrates so you tend to be more insulin sensitive pretty much like right after

[01:03:06] your period up until about ovulation or maybe a little bit past it and then the weeks leading up to your period and onto your period that's when you tend to be a little bit more insulin

[01:03:18] resistant just kind of find nature and so then it can also help to also cycle your exercise along with it and so they'll say you know the week before your period and the week of your

[01:03:29] period maybe do more gentle restorative workouts maybe you do yoga maybe you do qigong maybe just go on a walk or like really like swim and then reserve your like hit workouts you know

[01:03:42] there's just normally what we think of as a workout where it's like it's just so funny how when we exercise we're like if i don't go all the way to exhaustion then i didn't do enough

[01:03:53] i know it's like i didn't work hard enough it's just so funny how like when we think of exercise we think of completion and so they say like after your period that's when your body is just going

[01:04:07] to be more tolerant of those things the reason for that is that leading up to your period your estrogen in your progesterone drop so they will generally plummet to about their lowest point they'll stay low throughout your period because again during that time it is an inflammatory time

[01:04:25] because we're tearing down the wall of the uterus so we can rebuild again you know and hopefully create new life who knows and so that time is when the progesterone and estrogen will drop

[01:04:38] those tend to be anti-inflammatory so then of course along with that timing of those drops that's also when people will notice their digestion kind of goes out you know and so if you have

[01:04:48] IVS your symptoms might flare up more the week before and the week of your period you may have more bloating you may have more gas you may have looser stools you may all of a sudden be like why

[01:04:59] am i not digesting this i had this two weeks ago or i have this all the time but these couple of weeks all of a sudden i can't digest it that's very common usually it's because of the

[01:05:10] prostaglandins which are the inflammatory markers that get released as we're tearing down the uterine lining that's usually responsible for the nausea of the cramping you know a lot of those unpleasant symptoms however you can sometimes help get around that by like i'll sometimes just take

[01:05:29] my digestive enzymes that week or i will add you know a bile stimulator to kind of like help my gut motility because some people notice that gut motility slows down during those times

[01:05:41] other people find that it speeds up right so it's going to be a little bit different for each person but those are again all very common things and so your gut is cycling through every month this

[01:05:52] time where it's like i'm strong i'm great and then it'll go i'm a little bit more permeable i'm a little bit more inflamed i'm great i can digest everything wonderfully oh please give me

[01:06:03] cooked food and you know that's another thing is like uh cooking our food makes it a lot easier to digest right so you think of like the warmer the food the easier it is to digest the colder the

[01:06:14] foods the harder it is to digest and so like eating salads and like fresh fruits and vegetables like fruits are probably easier to digest but like the vegetables have so much fiber in them like

[01:06:24] okay but if it's going to be harder for you to digest just come on little you don't have to cook everything out of them you know you don't have to like cook them to death to where they

[01:06:31] lose all of their nutrients but it's like just make it a little bit easier on yourself yeah week before your period in the week of your period just understand that it's

[01:06:41] normal totally normal for digestion to just kind of not be the main focus for that period of time yeah yeah because your body's got so much going on already it's got a lot on its hands yeah

[01:06:55] yeah i just had on a traditional chinese medicine doctor and we were talking about warming foods for fertility women's health and digestion too and it kind of makes a lot of sense just

[01:07:06] mechanically like if your tummy area is cold it's kind of going to be hard to perform those things that it needs to you totally and if you think about it like when you're warm

[01:07:18] you tend to have more circulation right so the more blood can flow to an area so the more blood it's flowing to your gi tract the more it's able to function properly when it's cold like

[01:07:30] when you're in ice bath you're like rigid yeah there's not as much circulation going on so that's a lot of the reasoning behind like don't drink ice water right for me or like don't have a smoothie

[01:07:44] all the time like try to heat up some stuff of course it's like you have to make it work with your lifestyle but yeah all of those things i think would help might be great cool well thank you

[01:07:54] so much this has been really jam packed and i'm impressed at how much content we got through you are amazing and thank you so much again for being here answering all of my and my friends

[01:08:06] questions about our favorite topic which is food i love it i know people are always like tmi but like don't worry i'm like i i've heard it all it looks like what was the consistency what color

[01:08:20] no like let's get into it yeah like it's all information i need to know yeah i love it well thank you yeah thank you so much and that's a wrap thank you so much for tuning in remember to nourish your body and i'll talk to you next time