Let's Talk GUT HEALTH
EVERYTHING in health stems back to or is ROOTED in gut. Did you catch that? The health of your digestive system has an effect on every other system in the body. If you are having digestive woes... or virtually any other symptom, the place to start your search for healing is in your gut.
Do you experience any of these?
The Intersection of Food and Physiology
Every function in your body utilizes cells that are fueled by the food you eat. If you don't give your cells the right fuel, they don't function at their optimal level and your systems become compromised... leaving you vulnerable.
But, it's not just your digestive system. Your immune system, your hormones, your brain and neurological function, your metabolism... all systems require specific micronutrients that are absorbed through your digestive system and delivered to the cells that support them.
How you feel is directly related to how and what you eat, when you eat and how you process what you eat.
The Problem
The standard American diet is full of chemical laden processed foods, highly toxic oils, hormone filled dairy products and copious amounts of refined sugar. In fact, the average American consumes 152 pounds of sugar a year, that's about 3 pounds a week! All of these things wreak havoc on our natural mechanisms to turn nutrients to energy and eliminate waste. Adding insult to injury, social norms have us consuming them every few hours giving very little time for our system to rest and digest.
Our body has a very specific process to extract nutrients from our food to fuel our cells. We also have trillions of bacteria making up our microbiome that have to maintain a delicate balance to keep us healthy. Both of these are heavily influenced by what we consume, when we consume it, our sleep patterns, our exercise habits and other lifestyle choices.
When these things get out of whack, we find ourselves in a state of constant inflammation, chronically stressed hormones and neurotransmitters, insulin resistance, high blood pressure... the list goes on. Over time, this constant calling on our immune system to clean up the "mess", often leads to our cells confusion over who "the bad guy" is resulting in an autoimmune condition or a number of other chronic illnesses.
The Solution
When we make a conscious effort to clear the biggest inflammatory culprits from our diet and lifestyle, we begin the journey to gut health. Sometimes this includes removing things like inflammatory foods, high histamine foods or hard to digest proteins. For some it may be adding things like meditation, good sleep habits, or a change to an exercise program. It will always be unique to you and what affects your body and for some individuals, this is enough to get you back to feeling your best!
Other times, we need to take measures to do deeper repair to the damage to our gut lining or address deficiencies that the body is experiencing. The body cannot thrive, let alone heal, when it is functioning in a deficient state. This may mean looking at macros, hormones, neurotransmitters, specific white blood cells, secretions, or even microbes. Again, we are all unique.
I do not treat individual diseases. I take into consideration your signs, symptoms and diagnoses and work to address the underlying causes of them so that we can alter the terrain in which they exist.
Is a hormone imbalance causing your food cravings resulting in the stubborn 10 pounds you can't seem to loose? Are your cosmetics and cleaning products contributing to your PMS? Is a blood sugar imbalance causing you to be excessively exhausted? Is an under active thyroid gland causing your brain fog, weight gain or hair loss?
You have likely heard of the "root cause" of a health issue. What you may not know is that more often than not, there are many root causes. I am here to teach you how to figure out and address "What's going on in there?" so that you can not only take ownership of your health concerns, but also have the tools you need to maintain your health and course-correct if or when new concerns arise.
