Charis & Alex Gut Ep 1
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I know a lot of people struggle with heartburn. Your first instinct is, " Can I have a Tums?" So they found that most people don't have overactive stomach acid . Most people have underactive stomach acid
Welcome back To the Harness Your Health podcast. I am here today again with Alex, who is a nutrition student, and we are going to be starting our gut series. [00:00:30] So if you haven't listened to the episode that was released last week about the foundational parts of health and your daily rhythms, you should go back and listen to that. These are gonna be shorter episodes but tied together into this one general theme, which is the gut, which is what a lot of people are talking about still.
Hot topic. It's a very hot topic. So I really, my whole practice has been focused on digestion almost since the beginning. That was really [00:01:00] my struggles that I had, and the whole reason that I got into holistic nutrition in the first place was because of my gut issues. It really just became something I wanted to help other people with.
And so I've done a bunch of extra training and different things to really understand this topic and be able to truly, help people. With it. When we're talking about digestion, what we're really gonna talk about today is the digestive process. So most people are familiar that the process starts in your mouth.[00:01:30]
Really, most people say that digestion starts in your brain, but really what we're focusing on is the mechanical and chemical parts of digestion, and then it finishes at the other end when you have a bowel movement.
So that's really the digestive process. And so the way I like to explain digestion to people is that digestion is a step-by-step process. Each step sets up the next step . And so the best way you can think about this is like a north to south process, so north is your mouth and south [00:02:00] is the other end, and then every process in between.
And so you could get totally in the weeds here and, be talking about the early part of the small intestine and the middle part of the small intestine. We're not gonna do that. We're not gonna get too crazy. We're just gonna talk about how functional digestion works, and then how dysfunctional things occur with digestion, and what common things happen, and symptoms that people experience, so that you can [00:02:30] understand what might be going on with your own personal digestion and what you can do about it.
So kind of like the foundational episode, this episode I want you to think about your digestion as a whole because we really wanna get out of this mindset of, "My stomach digestion isn't working. What can I take supplement or medicine-wise to fix my stomach digestion?" That's not gonna really support you.
I think we set that stage pretty well in the last [00:03:00] episode. For sure. Yeah. It's really something that I think we just grow up with this, especially if you grow up in Western culture. It's how our medical system works, and it really doesn't do anything to determine causation and, like, why things are occurring in the body.
And if we can dig a little bit deeper and ask some different questions, we can often figure out why things are happening, and then we can go and fix that problem, and then multiple other things will usually [00:03:30] improve too. And so digestion is just so foundational because obviously I think most people know we have to break down the food that we eat, but most people are thinking about food from a calories perspective, and really I always think about food from a nutrient perspective.
So we need the vitamins, the minerals, the amino acids, and the fatty acids in our food, and those make up every part of our body, like literally our structures of our body, but also are [00:04:00] in every biochemical process in our body. And so for our body to actually function, we need to be pulling those things out of our food.
And so that's why digestion is so important. A lot of people consider it the healing priority of the body and I would agree with that. I think there's definitely some nuance to that, but If you can get your digestion working better, improving, it's gonna literally affect anything else, and your health is gonna be better, and you're gonna feel better [00:04:30] Yeah, that's...
It's so important, and we take it for granted, I think. I think we do, for sure. Until you have a digestive issue- Oh, yeah ... and my situation was, like, I always remember as a child even having issues with my digestion. And so I think that I just thought that was normal, and it was really until it started disrupting my daily life- that I was, like, looking for answers. And it was tricky to figure out what the cause was. [00:05:00] And, to be honest, a lot of times it's the finger is pointed at food, and food is the problem. So if you take all these certain foods out of your diet, that's gonna help you feel better. And while that may be the case, that often doesn't fix the problem.
really the food, I like to explain it as like it's just adding fuel to the fire. And so you really just need to eat in a certain way that works best for your body, and it's very [00:05:30] individual. I really don't subscribe to that everyone should eat in a very specific way. I have guidelines for that and things that I think about when people h- are having digestive difficulty.
But the food part is not gonna fix your digestion completely. ... If you get to the point where you have digestive symptoms, you're gonna need more work than that. Yeah, it's not a blanket statement. Yeah, exactly. It's a common thing to do is look at [00:06:00] elimination diets and remove foods.
And there's no question that if you remove sugar from your diet or flour even or processed food that you're gonna feel better. I'm not saying that's not important to do those things or at least see what you're eating in your diet and w- reduce that as much as you can. I'm just saying that just because you take nightshades out of your diet or FODMAP foods or something like that, people are like, "Oh, it's magic.
It's [00:06:30] gonna heal my small intestinal bacterial overgrowth," which we're gonna talk about in a minute, and that's not how it works. And hopefully we'll be able to explain why. So really I wanna start at the top. The important thing to think about, and this is where our nervous system comes in, because our nervous system is intimately connected with our gut. We actually have an entire nervous system that is dedicated to our gut. But if We're zooming out a little bit and thinking about the way that we [00:07:00] are either turned on or slowed down.
Sympathetic state is what everybody calls running from the tiger or on the go go. You're busy, right? Your endorphins and all of that are keeping you going. You have high energy. That is not the optimal state for you to be digesting your food. And unfortunately, in our modern culture, in the way that we lead our lives, that is often how a lot of us eat.
And so this is where digestion, the dysfunction starts in the first [00:07:30] place, is just eating this way. And so the first thing to think about if we're gonna be in a parasympathetic state, which is the opposite and is often called rest and digest, is how do we even do that in the course of our day, like, when we're busy?
And if we have time, we can maybe get into a little bit more of, like, how to do that and some ideas. But it's really the important thing to just think about is if you're eating in front of a computer, in front of the [00:08:00] TV, standing up, walking around, that was my problem in the car, like shoveling it in at work, you are not in a parasympathetic state.
Your food is not gonna digest properly. That's just the bottom line. And so figuring out how to address that is the first step, and I really encourage people to start with one meal. What's the meal that you can make the biggest impact right now? And oftentimes this is dinner, 'cause people are eating with their families.[00:08:30]
And so they tend to sit down at dinner. They tend to have a conversation. They're less distracted. It's a little bit easier to get into this parasympathetic state. But as far as the mouth goes, the most important thing about this is we need saliva. Saliva is partially what helps us to start digesting.
We have enzymes in our saliva that start to break down food. Obviously chewing is a big part of the process, too, and that helps to stimulate saliva. But if you are- feel like [00:09:00] you have a dry mouth or you just don't have very good saliva and you can't chew very well or swallowing is hard, that's probably because you're in a sympathetic state versus a parasympathetic state.
So- So it's almost like your body- knows that. S- Yeah If you listen to your body, it's saying, "I'm not hungry right now." Yeah. And that's a sympathetic state. Exactly. Yeah. So let's say it's just your lunch hour and you need to eat, and you haven't eaten for four or five hours, so it is appropriate for you [00:09:30] to eat.
I think there's certain things you can do to, like you said, adjunct that. Thinking... This is where the brain comes in. Thinking about food, smelling food those types of sensations or using our senses do help us to make saliva, do help us to start the digestive process. But I would say that if this is challenging some of the best things you can do are to take a couple of deep breaths.
Again, it sounds so simple, but really [00:10:00] this is the cue to down regulate your nervous system. So if you just got out of a busy meeting, you're like, "Wow, I need to eat my lunch quick and I have another meeting," take a couple deep breaths, down regulate your nervous system. And if you do this consistently, your body will respond, 'cause it knows what's gonna happen and what's gonna come next.
And then chewing is one of the most important things. If you can't do any of that, just chew your food more than you're chewing it now. So if you look it up on the internet, [00:10:30] most people will say chew your food 20 to 30 times per bite. Most people are chewing their food one to three times per bite.
They're swallowing whole pieces of chicken. They're swallowing whole mouthfuls of things, and so what happens is if your food is in the state that it looks like on your plate in your stomach, the stomach has to do the hard work of breaking down mechanically that food. And that's not really the job of the stomach.
That's the job of the teeth [00:11:00] So we have to focus on chewing. So the best thing to do with chewing is to just figure out how much you are chewing. When you feel that food in your mouth, Can you tell that's a piece of chicken? If you can, then you should probably chew it a little bit more.
And this is like, a baby steps exercise, most people have a hard time implementing these things just doing a 180 right out of the gate, and that doesn't really work anyway. And so it's better to just really pick a meal that you wanna focus on. Maybe it [00:11:30] is at work. Maybe you could have some coworkers with you helping you to bring some of these habits in, and make...
You can make it a competition. I made it a competition with my kids when they were younger. Who can finish last, because they're chewing their food more thoroughly. All of these things, you notice a difference right away if you start implementing them. So nowadays everyone is always on the go, and I feel like a lot of people rely on smoothies and protein shakes.
[00:12:00] How does that affect chewing? Do I have to... 'Cause I'm not really turning anything on, right? I'm just swallowing. Does that affect anything going down the line? Maybe should I eat more of the fruit instead of the smoothie? Is that a benefit? Is chewing that important that I should opt for eating the whole fruit versus if I really can only get a smoothie in?
I feel like if for some people, definitely eating whole foods is probably a better idea. But if you [00:12:30] really enjoy your protein shake or your smoothie and it's an important part of your day, it's just in your routine, I would just say just start drinking it slower.
My favorite story about this is I had a client who had three kids, three school drop-off, she had IBS, and she was drinking a smoothie while she was dropping her kids off at school, and her complaint to me was just that, "I can barely make it home because I have to run to the bathroom because I feel like the smoothie just hits my stomach and [00:13:00] I need to go."
And so she was very concerned about that. It was, like, very stressful. And so, you know, I asked her, "How much time does this take you?" It was really very quick. It was like a 30-minute whole process from beginning to end. And so I said, " When is the smoothie usually done?" And she said, "It's done by the first school drop-off."
Yeah. And so I was like, "Okay, just make it last the whole time. Just take small sips. You can warm it up in your mouth a little bit." Sometimes warmer things on your digestion [00:13:30] support your digestion a little bit better,
and mechanically , That breakdown has already occurred. It... But the chemical digestion still needs to happen. And so if there's protein powder or something in there, again, it's broken down a little bit more than if you were to eat that with chicken. And so your body will absorb it a little bit faster.
And so you have that going for you. But it's also you don't want it to hit too quickly, which is what ha- was happening with her. So she literally just slowed it down. She finished it while she was pulling back into her [00:14:00] driveway. No more issues whatsoever. And so it's literally a speed thing.
And I think with so many things, we're just so used to chugging them- ... especially liquid, right? And people do this with protein coffee too, which I don't really subscribe to. But you know, It's like they're just shot gunning their protein coffee. No wonder it hits your stomach, and your stomach's like, ""Whoa.
What's going on?" So- the stomach Is just an empty cavity, right? And so it's just like things are going in there. It's - better for things to come in [00:14:30] slowly and not just be hit super hard. That makes sense. So yeah. So the next step is the stomach, and the stomach is probably one of the most important parts of digestion, although I hate to label it like that.
But it's really what's so overlooked and what so many people have struggle with is their stomach digestion. And so s- a lot of this, before you ever take any kind of a supplement to adjunct to your stomach digestion, you should be starting with the [00:15:00] mouth. And so I never suggest that people take enzymes or stomach acid supplements or anything like that, even bitters, until you are focusing on chewing and eating in a parasympathetic state because there is absolutely no supplement that's gonna compensate for that.
It just doesn't exist. And so it's really not in my best interest or any other professional to tell you that, but a lot of people will try and just get you to take supplements. Now, I will [00:15:30] say sometimes that if your digestion needs a little support and you take some supplements and that you digest a little bit better, that can help you start that process, but you still need to focus on the parasympathetic state.
There's nothing else that will replace. That. I know a lot of people struggle with heartburn. I feel like that's a very common thing? And your first instinct is, " Can I have a Tums?" You know? Mm-hmm.
So they found that most people don't have [00:16:00] overactive stomach acid . Most people have underactive stomach acid, and that's for multiple different things that can be just simply not from eating in a parasympathetic state.
Because when you're in a sympathetic state, your body is not prioritizing digestion, and so it's not, your stomach acid is not gonna be optimized. That's why it's better to get in that parasympathetic state, and then you can cue your body to release stomach acid. There are definitely people who have heartburn, like true heartburn that is more of [00:16:30] a functional thing.
But I would say the use of all of the stomach acid reducing and blocking medications is just so over-prescribed for what is just improper stomach digestion. And so when people start using some of these strategies, and then they're like, "Wow, I feel so much better," and then they decide to stop taking the Nexium that they were taking, or the Tums or whatever they were taking that's over the counter, they're like, [00:17:00] "I don't even need that anymore."
But the other thing I think that's a good indicator is if you were prescribed that medicine by your doctor, you should of course always talk to them about stopping something before you stop it. But if you were prescribed something, or if you're taking something over the counter and it doesn't work for that, then that's not the problem.
So that's what I hear commonly is like, "I was prescribed this," or, "I decided to take this and it didn't do anything for me." And so what happens is if you [00:17:30] don't have proper stomach digestion, your body cannot break down protein. Protein is primarily what's broken down by your stomach acid, but it's also, Breaks down fat, starts the fat digestion process, and all of the food in your stomach.
And so the goal is to have that chemically started before it goes to your small intestine. So there's a trigger in your body to have your body, that food, which is now called chyme, in your stomach into an [00:18:00] optimized state at a certain acidity to get moved into the small intestine. And so once that happens, then the food will move through.
And so if you don't have proper stomach acid, and The food isn't being broken down mechanically and chemically properly in the stomach, it will sit in your stomach and ferment. And fermentation causes gas. And so when people say, "I have bloating," I ask them often, "Does this happen right after you eat?"
'Cause that's what we're just [00:18:30] talking about, stomach acid, low stomach acid, and improper stomach digestion. Or does it happen later? And that's other reasons. And do you feel burping? And so if you feel really full and you're burping after you eat, this is a huge indication that you have low stomach acid- and/or that your stomach just isn't digesting properly. And so let's say you eat a Tums- Mm-hmm ...... because you have low stomach acid and you're just covering up the symptoms. What does that [00:19:00] do for your future stomach acid production? Yeah, it just, reduces your body's ability to make adequate stomach acid.
So whether, there's a lot of different kinds of medications. There's medications that block stomach acid production, and there's medications that reduce stomach acid release. And so it doesn't matter what kind of medication you're talking about, it's all the come back to the same problem basically.
And so really what people need to [00:19:30] know is that you need certain nutrients to make stomach acid. So you need the proper, to be in the proper nervous system state to even optimize digestion. You also need zinc, you need B12, you need B6, folate, like all kinds of different magnesium to make stomach acid.
And so you have to be extracting those nutrients from your food to be able to make stomach acid. So if someone doesn't have enough stomach acid, the first thing I'm thinking about is they probably don't have enough zinc coming in either through their [00:20:00] diet or they're not extracting it. And so, we need zinc to make stomach acid.
And it gives you some clues, and that doesn't mean everyone should go supplement with zinc, right? You should do this with someone that knows what they're doing because taking high doses of zinc is not a great idea. That's fun. As we talk about Yeah ... wrecks your stomach, but it's also not good for other mineral balance.
Minerals should always be taken in combination together. If you wanna know more about that, you should go back and listen to the [00:20:30] mineral episode I did with Desiree a few weeks ago. I think it's interesting how you said- covering up the symptom with a TUM, and I keep bringing that up because I think that is so normal.
The effect that, you know, if I'm having a symptom that I need a TUM for that carries on into my small intestine. Exactly.. So that's the purpose of all of this is that your stomach if your stomach digestion isn't working quite right, then that's gonna carry over to your small intestine.
And so [00:21:00] the small intestine, what a lot of people may not know is if you opened up your small intestine and laid it out flat, it would be like the size of a tennis court. And so it's crazy to think about the surface area, but the point of this is that is where our nutrients are extracted.
So our food needs to be in a state that we can actually pull the single nutrients out, so amino acids, fatty acids, vitamins and minerals, and use them in our body [00:21:30] and then they get shuttled to where they need to go. But that's primarily what happens in the small intestine is absorption. And so if we don't have good stomach digestion, then we're not gonna have good small intestine digestion.
Every step sets up the next step. The other things to think about that happen in the small intestine is hormone signaling. We talked about in the GLP-1 episode how you won't have proper GLP-1 signaling, which happens normally in our bodies if we don't have [00:22:00] good stomach digestion. It's also like a motility issue.
So if your food is sitting for long periods of time in your stomach and not moving through, this sets things up to not be in the right state. And so things move slower through your GI tract. People who are constipated can relate to this. If you have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, this definitely sets up this condition to develop.
But small intestinal bacterial overgrowth is not a root [00:22:30] cause by itself. It's set up by poor digestion and by poor motility, which often comes from poor digestion. So if you just think about it that simply, that's how important it is- ... to chew your food. Yeah, that's... It's crazy that it starts at your mouth and then it can affect your small intestines.
Yeah. We talk about everything is connected. , They might seem so far apart from each other, and I think that's, might be hard to conceptualize. What do you mean my chewing can give me small intestinal bacteria overgrowth? Yeah.
[00:23:00] It's crazy to think about. Yeah. It definitely contributes, and it's... the way I like to help people reconcile this in their brain, 'cause they often have never heard of it this way, is to just try it for yourself. Literally just for the next week or two, focus on chewing.
If you literally tried to be really conscientious about chewing your food a little bit more, taking a little bit more time, 'cause really, what are we talking about? A few minutes, right? It's, at the end of the day, it's not gonna extend your meal to make you late [00:23:30] for work or anything like that.
It's just slowing down on your smoothie. If you literally just did that for a week, you would notice a difference. And people are gonna notice different things, 'cause we're all individuals, but that should be your clue to be like, "This is important," right? And so it's just a really important starting point.
Yeah, being intentional. Yeah. So you know, your small intestine like we mentioned, that's where fat digestion really starts with [00:24:00] the secretion of bile. That doesn't really happen adequately if food isn't coming in the proper state. Protein, if it's not broken down enough doesn't sit well with the small intestine.
This is often where you see IBS and different things, or bloating. If you have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or any kind of just imbalanced bacteria, and the bacteria are fermenting food in the small intestine, that's not what's supposed to happen there. So people can get some bloating and different things.
But [00:24:30] really think about this as a function of your mouth digestion and your parasympathetic state. If you started there, you would be way ahead of most people And then how does the large intestine differ from the small intestine? Yes, the large intestine is quite a bit different. It's really where your body is absorbing water back in to form your stool.
So if you think about your small intestine is in these little layers that go along all inside your abdomen, [00:25:00] and your large intestine starts down on your right lower quadrant of your abdomen. It goes up and over, and then back down the other side. And then the ultimate goal is to have a formed bowel movement.
And so in a lot of episodes I talk about a complete bowel movement that's like a log that sits in the bottom of the toilet. That's what your large intestine looks like, and so that's what you want to see at the end is the goal. And so the large intestine is working to do that.[00:25:30]
The large intestine is where your microbiome is, and if you don't know what your microbiome is, that is just the trillions of bacteria some fungi, some viruses that live in your large intestine. They're really an entire ecosystem, and cohabitate with the rest of your body. They are signaling molecules to your immune system, through your nervous system.
Literally your entire body is connected through your microbiome. It's one of the most greatest bodies of research growing [00:26:00] over the last 10 years. Our lives are gonna be changed greatly in the next 10 or 20 years from the microbiome research and everything we're understanding about it.
But essentially, this is where fiber is fermented, and so those bacteria need fuel too, and so they use the fiber to f- create their own fuel. And to create things like short chain fatty acids, which are really healthy molecules that support our metabolism and the rest of our [00:26:30] digestion. And so we do produce some vitamins in our large intestine.
And then obviously that's where the waste comes in. So if you think about this also from a wh- more of a whole body perspective poop or our bowel movements is like a way we eliminate the things that we don't need in our body, right? So everything is taken out of our food, and it's put into this package basically.
And so the other things that are in there are hormone metabolites. So we often think of estrogen, [00:27:00] sometimes people think about high estrogen, and so our bodies are constantly breaking down hormones and packaging them up and putting them into your stools so that you can get rid of them. We want that to happen, and so if you're constipated or things aren't moving or if you have IBS and it's the opposite problem, then you'd know that those processes likely aren't functioning very well either.
And so it's really something to think about for everybody where like really you should have a bowel movement every [00:27:30] day at the minimum. And your digestion is more on point first thing in the morning. We didn't really talk about that in the foundations episode, but that is a priority really to be thinking about if someone, anyone who has issues with going number two is to work on that to get that process working more smoothly.
And the goal is for that to just, you have the feeling, you go in and go, you have a normal log bowel movement, and then you feel like [00:28:00] it's over. That's- Mm ...... really the goal. And what would you consider normal?
So I would say if, the ideal way to have bowel movements is to have a bowel movement every single day, ideally in the morning.
You want it to be complete, so what that means is that it looks like a log in the toilet. Most people don't look at their poop, but you can turn around and look. , And that it feels like you're done. It doesn't feel like there's more to come out, and that it comes out fairly [00:28:30] quickly. Not urgently, but like you're not sitting there for 20 minutes on the toilet or even 10 minutes.
It's, it happens. Like the process, you get the feeling, you go in, you go, you're done. So ideally that happens at least once a day. It is also normal to go later in the day. Many people, especially people who eat like a lot of fiber and have a lot of vegetables in their diet tend to have bowel movements later in the day, too, and they might just be smaller.
But that's completely normal, too. [00:29:00] Let's say you have a normal bowel movement first thing in the morning and then you eat something later in the day and then you have, I always call that run to the bathroom, where you're like, "Oh, no," and it's like you're gonna have a looser stool, and that happens like one time but that's not the norm, not, probably not a big deal.
You know that might be something that you ate or something that didn't agree with you. Sometimes it's caffeine for people or something. Stress can definitely contribute and exacerbate that. If that's Happening [00:29:30] very infrequently is not a big deal. If that's your norm, then that's definitely not what we want.
That's not the goal. And so what I always do in working with people is what is your norm? 'Cause a lot of times people might know I have looser stools. I don't have log-like stools or whatever, but they don't know when it happens or because they don't really pay attention, right? And that's okay.
And so what we do is just start by tracking that. Like- ... what does it actually look [00:30:00] like? What... When are you going? What does it look like? There's a d- great chart called this Bristol Stool Chart, and so you can put a number that coincides with the picture of what it looks like. Just going through and doing that for a week or two can give you a lot of understanding about what your starting point is.
And then the question, like you mentioned, is always what do I do? What does this mean? It can mean a lot of things. You can have a lot of dysbiosis or overgrowth of bacteria. You could have [00:30:30] overgrowth of fungus. You can have parasite. There's all kinds of things that can be going on, but it doesn't matter what
that is, you still need to focus on your digestion. And this is what I see over and over again, is people do a parasite cleanse, or they try and work on getting rid of their candida. You don't really get rid of it. You lower it to a more appropriate level, which is like a fungus, a normal fungus that lives in your large intestine.
And they don't [00:31:00] address any of the top to bottom, north to south process of their digestion, and they literally just try and go in and kill the candida, kill the parasites, and they're better for a little bit, and then it just comes back because the digestive process is no different. So something set up those things to happen.
The reason that parasites happen is because mostly of inadequate stomach acid. If you don't have enough stomach acid, it's not gonna kill the things. That's how the stomach acid is designed, to kill things that come, [00:31:30] are coming in through our food. Our food is not sterile. So it's a really- important thing to think about is if you're Curious about doing like a parasite cleanse or if a practitioner tells you or someone tells you need to do a - candida cleanse or you need to do like some sort of protocol and go in and do a big kill thing where you're gonna kill and like rebalance all this, like what's going on with your digestion?
If your digestion isn't functioning properly, then those things are just gonna be set up [00:32:00] all over again. It's not gonna fix any of it. It's almost like your stool is like a report card for like- Yes ... how your digestive system is working. Or is it... It's pass and fail, but then if it's fail, then you have to look into it more.
You know, people don't like to look at their poop. I would say most people don't wanna talk to me about this. Yeah. And that's fine. I always remind them "I'm a nurse. The things I've seen- I've seen things ... you wouldn't wanna know."
Yeah. And so it's not like I never look at it as gross. If someone wants to tell me about their situation [00:32:30] I never look at it that way. It doesn't come across that way to me. And so- ... it's literally just like something that's happening. It would be like if you threw up and you're like, "I had corn and whatever in my throw up," it's the same thing. Yeah, it's kinda gross, but like- ... I don't think about it that way. It's just information. So it is like a report card. I always almost wish it would be like a vital sign, yeah. Because people, I just remember taking care of cancer patients, and they would come in, and they would feel terrible, and their [00:33:00] vitals are fine.
We've run their labs. Their labs look okay. And so like- ... why are they feeling so bad, it's like you have to keep digging and digging, and I would be the one, way before I was a nutrition professional, I would ask them like, " Are you going number two? Are you going number one?"
"Are you peeing and pooping?" And then, I feel like almost always it's some issue with that because it really does affect how you feel. There are so many people who are just deal with horrible constipation and IBS type of, [00:33:30] syndromes. So if you take nothing else from this episode, take away that your mouth is the most important place to start and your stomach.
Those two things. The other thing I would say about not popping the Tums is maybe think about if you feel that after you're done eating- You can reflect back on how fast you ate, right? But there's nothing you can do about it at that point. The other thing you could do is just go for a slow walk or something, 'cause sometimes that [00:34:00] can keep things moving, and instead of your food in your stomach just coming to a halt or going slowly through your small intestine, it will help to move things along a little bit.
And then maybe after 20 minutes you're not gonna feel like you really need that. ... You don't wanna do strenuous exercise, 'cause you're not gonna feel very good doing that. But sometimes- ... just a little bit of movement helps. And that kind of connects to, last week's episode about not eating three hours or two hours [00:34:30] before bed because, if, from the heartburn I have experienced is if you eat right before bed that...
and then you lay down, that makes it even worse. So it's like a vicious cycle that you get in and you have to pull yourself out of. Yeah. And that's 100% something that's worked for me is not eating past 7:00 PM. I'm going to bed at 10:00.
It's like a routine, and once I found that routine of- eating at night, it just, it does a world of a difference. And then it sets me up for the next day too- Yeah ... ' cause then I have regular bowel movements. Yep. [00:35:00] And then you're like, "Wow, this is great," when you're intentional. Yeah. It's all connected.
Yeah, it's all connected. Like, when you're intentional about, chewing and what you put what you're eating and it's crazy how simple it could be. Yeah. Yeah. It really is. And it's... I think I released a recent episode with a client about a client's story, and it's really about awareness.
And so if this is all foreign to you, you're like, "I haven't ever thought about any of this," maybe go listen to that episode because I [00:35:30] think that... And I operated this way too. I just wasn't even really aware. When I was trying to figure out what was going on with my digestion and I was at the doctor and they're asking me all these questions, I was like, "I don't know."
I don't pay attention to this stuff," and so it really just the awareness piece is so important. And one of the most important things you can do for your health is just to start paying attention. And if you can't keep track of everything in your head, just write it down or make some notes, yeah. Listen to your body 'cause it does talk. You just have to listen. [00:36:00] Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I feel like that's a good place to stop. Did you have any other thing you wanted to add, Alex, I think I'm excited for the microbiome episode. Yeah.
I think that's a very hot topic right now. And I think f- like fiber too is everyone... You hear everyone say, "Eat fiber. Eat fiber," and- Yeah ... no one tells me why. Yeah. Like, why do you want me to eat fiber? Yeah. We'll definitely- Yeah ... dive in deep to that. In the first, we're gonna talk about your intestinal permeability or your gut [00:36:30] barrier integrity.
So that's the next episode, and so we're gonna talk about why that is really an important thing to think about too when you're thinking about your gut. That's really where a lot of your immune system resides is in that gut barrier mucosal layer, and a lot of people just have leaky gut and a broken down barrier just by life and circumstances.
Yeah. The wear and tear of life. Yes, exactly.
Thank you so much for being here, Alex, and thank you to the listener for being here as always.
the [00:37:00] information shared on this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be considered medical advice. I am not a medical doctor, and this content is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Please consult with a qualified healthcare professional before making any decisions related to your health, especially if you have a medical condition or are taking medications
