Ep. 21 Gut Health 1

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We are a power plant and we are generating power. And so all of this is the type of power you want to generate, how clean your fuel is. Right. So if you're making that decision to put it in, you have to know that again, is it serving you. I'm your host, Brian Bowen, founder of.

Integrative Health Inc. And I'm Amy Christiansen, your co host and creator of Amy Christensen Health and Wellness Coaching.

Join us as we explore the world of health and wellness and all things that make you feel good. From ancient traditions to modern advancements and technologies that give you the tools for a life well lived.

What new paths might you discover on your health and wellness journey? Tune in each week as we deep dive into a variety of concepts and hear from other fun, passionate health, health and wellness experts on their experiences and philosophies.

And remember, stay open minded and integrated. Hello and good morning, Amy. How are you doing this morning?

Good morning. Good morning. I'm doing well, how about you?

I'm doing great. I'm actually typically not drinking coffee while we're doing this, but today just seems like one of these days where I got to get my, my big dad mug out and, and, and have an extra cup of coffee. So I'm enjoying my nice space right now.

Did your kids get you a dad mug for your birthday, dad?

Yes, I do have one mug that says dad. I also have some other mugs that say since this we're going to be talking about gut health today. It actually says says world's best farter.

It's always got to be a fart joke on a mug somehow with a dad.

Yeah. So just to be clear, today's topic we are going to try dive into. It's a big one and so we're gonna have a couple is we're gonna be talking about gut health and nutrition.

So we're just dipping our toes into this one. I think just starting with the pool is really chilly so we're just gonna. Are you a toe dipper or a full on jumper inner?

Well my. I think I'm more of a full on jumper now because I've leaned into my uncomfortableness and I think we've talked about PMRs, our personal morning routines. And. And so I've been doing some more meditative stuff in the shower and part of my shower procedure now, by the way, that takes forever. I'm wasting a lot of water. But at the end, I do do the 4. The cold shower at the end. But I do my four breaths in, hold for four seconds, let it out for four seconds, hold out for four seconds, and I do that four times. So yep, yep. So the great thing is, is like I used to hate the idea of it and now I leaned into that uncomfortableness and it's very invigorating and, you know, good for my immune system and things.

So very good. Yeah, I'm not embracing. I'll go ski and get my cold in that way. Not embracing the cold shower yet. I started reading Tim Ferriss book years ago. Like, I don't even know. It was 2,010 maybe. I was like, nope, not doing that part. So good for you. Good job braving that.

Well, you can do it. You could do it. Well, let's.

I don't want to.

You don't want to. Since it's the morning and you know, some other people's personal morning routines, I'm just going to make everybody uncomfortable here. Have to do with bowel movements. Let's jump into this gut health thing and talk about. Talk about bowel movements.

Now let's go right into the deep. All right. Well, we are going to talk about gut health. And of course gut health is going to involve some things that come out of as a result of our guts working or not working. So. So yeah, we're going to dive into some of that stuff. And you know, a lot of people think of their guts as their intestinal tract or just their stomach. And you know, your gut actually starts with the reaction in the brain. Your gut health is really stimulated by your thought process first. Right. And your eyes, your spelling, obviously, and then your mouth saliva watering, you know, getting ready to eat. But your brain is actually getting ready to eat. Consume the food. Yeah. So it really starts with your brain. If you don't have good brain health or you don't have good mental emotional content around food, that's the first that gut dysbiosis actually begins. You're not buying into it at all. Brian, are you there?

I totally lost you for a second. It says she's still talking, so I'm just gonna let her talk and hopefully it pops back up here. So I was hearing you talk about the brain. I need to update my Internet here. So hopefully this works out. But yeah. So the brain, gut access, and I'll tell you, treating people, one of the common imbalances with people that have disturbances in the digestive tract and irritations and irritabilities. A lot of times, people, the big active component of that is stress. And in Chinese medicine, we call that wood overactin on Earth. It's complicated, so I won't get into it now, but it's amazing how common that is, because I really firmly believe now we know that axis exists. And in Chinese medicine, they looked at it from a different perspective, but they still had a formulation of that as an active component. So it's pretty amazing to see how, again, coming back to stress management, again, we talked about parasympathetic sympathetic nervous system in an earlier podcast. And so parasympathetic is rest and digest. And so how important it is coming from the brain, stress management mindset. Rest really does affect the gut.

It really does. And it's interesting, you know. All right, so we. We love. We are just diving right in.

That's right.

We. You had us. You said something that made me think something. And I'm gonna drink more coffee. Go ahead.

I said something. Okay, so a couple things. So before I do want. I mean, I want to get into them but the gut. The but I do not want to get into the butt. I want to get into the gut so we can talk about the but. Oh, my God, I need more coffee, too. So, you know, some other things, there's so many different things that affect gut health. So before we get into the microbiota and some of that stuff, I think it's important some of, like three little things that jump out in a series of. When we talk about, like our QI leaking that, that we talked about in some previous podcasts are prenatal and postnatal qi. But one is sleep dramatically can affect gut health. The other is again, stress and then exercise and movement. So those are three things that show up again for us as far as our energy reserves and all that stuff. And so we are our own power plant, right? And so if you think about our gut and intestinal tract and, you know, all that good stuff is being part of transforming and transporting these nutrients and all this stuff to then convert it into the fuel and the energy that we need. If anything is disrupting that process, clearly the power plant is not going to be as efficient and things are going to be off. So we really need to look at those. These are three things that are free and. And that we have control of so getting good sleep and getting your biorhythms in a good state, stress management and exercise and movement. And then the other things that sometimes, unfortunately, we don't have as much control of is environmental factors, toxins, preservatives, you know, even, unfortunately, some, certain medications can cause imbalances in the gut. So there's a lot of other factors that maybe we don't have as much control of, but certainly some things we do that we need to take a closer look at and do an assessment in our lives.

Sure. Yep. No, that's awesome. And thanks for bringing us back on track there, but.

Oh, you're welcome. I got out of the butt and back to the gut.

That was fun. Gosh, you're bringing up all the fun laughter this morning, which is so good for your immune system.

That's right.

And your gut and probably your butt. Yeah. You know, I keep getting off track because I keep thinking of ridiculous things that we're saying, but we often get into this idea, okay, all these things you can do right now. And we're going to. Yes, there's what you eat right now, what you think right now, what you are doing right now is going to affect your guts, but really your digestive system and your gut microbiome. Right. It was really set in place in the womb and at birth and in your childhood. So when we look at doing things to establish gut health or rebalancing it, sometimes it works really quickly and sometimes it takes a long. A very long time. And I think that's why, like, nutrition and gut health is so individual, like diets and what to eat, what works for somebody, what they. What their body likes to digest. It's different for everybody because everybody's digestive system and their microbiome is different based off of what they were exposed to. Whether they were born through cesarean or vaginally makes a difference on the bacteria system that was introduced into their body as a baby at birth. Where you lived, where you grew up, what type of environment you were in, what kind of how many and what kind of antibiotics you were on as a child, all of that made an impact on the establishment of your bacterial levels and what's in your system. So it's not an easy topic and it's not a one thing fits all.

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And that's why again, everybody has a different diet. You have to really get inquisitive and kind of use yourself. You have to be aware and you have to use yourself as your own guinea pig a little bit to know what is working for your body and start paying attention. So many people just don't pay attention.

Yeah, I think other than you and I.

Sorry.

Yeah, exactly. Right.

Sorry about that. I was gonna say other than you and I. How many people? I mean, I know there's a lot of people out there, but it's probably not super common for people to really talk about their poop.

Yeah, well. And I think. Yeah, exactly. I think that, you know, it's an uncomfortable conversation for people. But I think that if we know that this inflammation, this low grade inflammation that sets off inside our inside intestinal tract and stuff can cause allergies, skin disorders, arthritis, cardiovascular disease, GI disorders, I mean, the list goes on. We don't need to get into it. But I think there's even more than what we know about how much it affects our health. But we have this broad stroke of even when you go to your primary care physician, are you constipated or do you have diarrhea? Any of those. But I know certainly in Chinese medicine, they really like. We like to. How much poop do you have? Do you feel complete? Is it firm? Is it dark? Is it light brown? Is it runny? Is there undigested food? Is there any mucus? I mean, there's a lot to look at. So I would just say that to start having awareness and get comfortable with even looking at your own fecal matter is important. And basically kind of go through a little checklist. Like if you have bloating, cramping, pain, and if your stools are anything but a nice light brown, firm but moist type stool, then there's something that's off, you know, in your gut. So if you're always having loose stools or digested food or again, any mucus stuff, or if it never feels complete, we always like to look at it. Does it. Is it like little rabbit poop, you know, or like literally the shape of it. So it should be light brown, elongated, moist, not dry. You shouldn't see, you know, any undigested food or dark matter in it. So anything outside of that shows that there's something off within the intestinal tract that could be improved.

Yep. And just keeping in mind, you know, that food, if you eat a lot of certain types of food that have certain coloring, it can affect the color of your poo as well.

That's a good point. Red hot flaming Cheetos. I thought I had intestinal bleeding when I was younger and I was almost crying on the toilet, and I happened to look at my fingers and I saw red Cheeto dust around my fingers and I thought I was bleeding. I called my mom and. And as I'm talking to her, I'm like, oh, never mind, I gotta go.

Nevermind, we're good.

I'm not dying.

Oh, my gosh. Oh, gosh. This is good. Thanks for bringing the humor.

And they were flaming hot Cheetos, by the way, so it was slightly uncomfortable, I bet.

Do you eat those anymore?

No.

Good gut health choices right there.

I grew up in Missouri and, you know, potato chips and I mean, I. I don't know how I don't have, like, every possible autoimmune disease there is on the planet because the stuff that I put in my body and, you know, I. I have to give some empathy and stuff to, you know, my family because, you know, I guess they were doing the best they could with the tools and knowledge that they had at the time. I mean, as, you know, like this whole topic of nutrition and what's good for you and stuff, you is a moving target. And sometimes there's something that's good for you. Like remember soy? Right? Like, it was amazing and da, da, da, da. And now soy's like, you know, out. And so it is a moving target. But I will say I think it is common sense that you should probably not be eating a chocolate Long John filled with Bavarian cream for breakfast and chase it with chocolate milk every morning. Or maybe a pop Tart like I had.

So, you know, I mean, and our bodies are designed to. They'll have some enjoyment. You can, you can do some of the fun things and then not so quote unquote healthy things without your body completely shutting down. But it's the consistency and it's recognizing that those foods, they're so processed and There is, there is zero research that is shows processed foods are good for us in any form or fashion. So it's. But you know, an occasional bit is fine. The thing is the processed foods are often designed to, to create a chemical addiction. And so then you just keep craving them and wanting those. So you have to just be careful with what you're putting into your body. But if it comes in a package or you know, it's heavily processed or you know it's served to you within minutes, it's probably not something you want to do very often. I don't eat fast food and I had for the first time and I don't even, I can't even remember the last time I did a drive through burger. But we went out to see a cover band, a very cool venue a couple weeks ago and you know, as things were, we were just kind of pretending like we were teenagers again. And we went through the In N Out burger which was fantastic. And I got, I don't eat the bread, I can just get the lettuce wrap one and they actually make one. I think it's, it's called something particular. I've never had an In N Out burger and it was quite fantastic for fast food and I mean just a burger in general. But I will tell you that my body did not love that process and it, I mean for over a week I could tell like my body was not happy. No offense to In N Out burger. I'm sure they did a great job, but I'm just not used to eating that type of food. It's process is fast food. There's just a process to it and you have to be aware of that kind of thing, how it affects your body and be paying attention to what you're putting in to your gut.

Well, paying attention is such a critical thing and I know when you. We're going to have a great guest on here for next week's podcast that is going to dive into some of this stuff. But most people in the nutrition world that are certified nutritionists and stuff usually have you do some food journaling. A lot of it is like how did you feel before you ate it? How did you feel after you ate it? So you know, learning how to listen to your body and then you know, I still like is it friend or is it foe? And so whether it's something you're putting in your mind or something you're putting in your mouth before you do it. A simple question, it takes two seconds. Well, I like to say is it friend, foe or fun, because you have to have allow yourself 20% of going to an In N Out burger and maybe to those concerts, right? So you have to live and let live. But before you put it in your mouth, is it friend or foe? Like just to recognize that. And then you could put feel in there. Is it friend, foe, how do I feel? But just asking more questions to dive into it. And then if you recognize it's foe, that it's not really something that is going to serve you. Because really, again, coming back to this, we are a power plant and we are generating power. And so all of this is the type of power you want to generate, how clean your fuel is, right? So if you're making that decision to put it in, you have to know that is it again, is it serving you? And so, yes, I'm putting this in my mouth. As far as I know, based off the knowledge today and how I feel, this is serving me well. Based off the knowledge that I know today and how it's going to affect me, this is not serving me well. But I have not max maximize my 20% of fun for the week. So I'm going to allow myself a little wiggle room. Right, but at least you're admitting it. And you have to make a decision because what happens in your gut shows up in your butt. Sorry, I had to say that.

I don't even know it does inside and out. Yeah, yeah.

Oh boy.

And more than that, okay, so even if you just, you don't want to get into like the health of it or anything like that, but why do we care? I mean, other than obviously, you know, weight and aesthetics, which we're so prone to talk about. And like, you know, for my, my nutritional coaching people, I always promote that, you know, if we deal with the health of your body, the weight will follow. Okay, so if you're not going to address that true health all the way through your system, mindset, what you're eating and why and how you're feeling and why you're moving or why you're not moving, if we address those things, the aesthetics part will come. Obviously, if you're going to be in a body competition, that's a whole different process. Right, we get really serious then. But hopefully you're not living in that state all the time either. But you have to look at the gut. Is the gut. Brain access, where does that come from? Is bidirectional communication. And you've often heard like, the gut now is really more commonly called the second brain. And that's because it has 2 million neurons, which by the way, I just found out is the same number of neurons in a cat's brain.

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Welcome Monday night trivia game people.

Oh you're rocking it. But that does tie into like when people feel like it's common to have gut stuff but also like mental fogginess. Right. And kind of cloudy brain we call it in Chinese Medicine, we call it turbid qi rising to the head. So that turbid qi, that turbid fuel that's coming from the gut is rising up and makes the head kind of more mentally cloudy. Foggier thinking. So I just wanted to throw that out since you were talking about that, because that's another kind of aha. That something's not right with your gut. Could be other things, but a possibility of some gut health.

Well, and that's the thing, is it? The whole thing of. Okay, factual. Yes. 70% of your immune system is about your gut. Right. And there's reasons for that. And the things to remember is like, just with, like, the vagus nerve and serotonin, it's. There's some debate about serotonin. But actually, I just read also on a study that says, like, 90% of our serotonin is produced by special cells in your gut, and then 5% is made in the brain because serotonin can't cross that body brain barrier. Right. So the brain actually creates its own bit of serotonin. So the rest of your serotonin is made and used in the gut. Right. So your serotonin is a chemical messenger. It's a neurotransmitter or neuromodulator that helps and affects our mood, and it kind of brings down that happy presence, relaxation, contented, peaceful feeling, which, by the way, is also. You get serotonin from things like carbs. So, tidbit, if you have a hard time settling down at night, carbs are not the devil. And saving carbs for later in the day is often very helpful to help you settle in and sleep well because of the stimulation of serotonin in the gut from the breakdown of the food you just ate. So everything you put in your mouth becomes a chemical reaction in your body. Like you said, the friend or foes you have to think about. What does that mean? And some people won't eat carbs, and they do heavier protein and fats earlier in the day because that is known to be a little bit more dopamine reactive. So it's the precursor to the breakdown of those foods. The amino acids become the precursor to dopamine, like the L tyrosine becomes a precursor to dopamine. So when you eat foods like cheese and sesame seeds and salmon, those things break down and the amino acids get turned into a precursor and then becomes dopamine. So your body is given a little happiness motivation. Hit. Basically, you know, I love talking about dopamine.

Hi. You know what it'll pop on and pop back off. So you were really rolling with it, though. Yeah, it's pretty mind blowing again, when you start talking and I was listening to you, it makes your head spin a little bit. And then to know that there's 100 trillion microorganisms in your gut, it's pretty freaking mind blowing. So it just reminds me of just how delicate we are and how much is really going on inside the body that we just take for granted. We just really. We don't know what the heck's going on. There's so many important factors and micro levels that it's. I have such an appreciation for the human body and just know that we are very delicate flora and fauna and every little thing has a ripple effect.

It does. And we're pretty. I feel like we're very delicately balanced, but we're pretty. We're so adaptable. Your body's just going to adapt, so what you do can be undone, good or bad, quote unquote. And just asking yourself, like we said, what is this gonna. Is this gonna promote health and wellness? And a good. And that's individual. Like, you can have somebody who could eat protein all day long from meat and their body loves it. Their microbiome, their digestive system is built for that. And then you have another person who. That doesn't work for them at all. And I think that's why there is no one perfect diet for everybody. You really have to get down and pay attention to what is working and start tracking and journaling like you had mentioned and see what's happening with your body and then also checking in with your doctor. And you know, we're going to re emphasize that Brian and I are not giving any medical recommendations or anything like that through our podcast, in particular the next few or when we're talking about gut health and food and diet. I do that for coaching. Brian, I know you do some work with that through Chinese medicine, but this is just a conversation, right?

Speaking of, I just want to jump into the Chinese medicine thing real quick because again, Jillian, when she comes on, is a certified nutritionist and gets into some of that with functional components. But to make a long story short, we have all these diets that we can dive into because it's so many of them, it's crazy. And I was reading some of them and the names, some of these are cracking me up. So I want to talk about that on our next one. But in Chinese medicine, we look at like the energetic properties of food. So it's amazing how like There's a, there's a great book out there and I haven't not talked to this guy, just so you know, but his name's Paul Pitchford and he wrote a book called Healing with Whole Foods. But he's a western and Chinese nutritionist. And so the cool thing is, is he brings in like, you know, oh, broccoli. It's got, here's all the western, you know, properties, here's the vitamins, here's all this, what it's good for and da, da, da, da. And in Chinese medicine, it is its energetic properties are this and here's what it's good for. So it's amazing just to read like five pages on broccoli and all the different aspects it can do. So again, there's just more going on than what we, than what I think we think of even when we look at things, at their energetic properties. Whether you believe in that or not, how it affects us. I firmly do believe in it.

Well, I mean, again, I think that there's so much we can dive into on that. But when you eat, I mean, when you eat a piece of food, it breaks down into certain chemicals and those chemicals have a reaction in the body which creates an energy, you know, so I just, like now we're figuring out, now that western science imaging is caught up with the Chinese medicine for 2,000 years that they've been using, we can prove meridian lines are real. Now they're real even, you know, I think we're going to find that. I think again, we just have to be open to it. Everything doesn't have to be completely supported by, you know, 50 peer review research studies before we start thinking and paying attention to it and investigating it on our own. I think those things are helpful and certainly supportive and good to have. But whether you believe in it or not, the food you put into your body makes a difference to your physiological state as well as your psychological state. There's plenty of research that shows that, you know, there's a study, what was it? There's a study about milkshakes and ghrelin. Right. So ghrelin is your, one of the, one of your hormones that helps you eat and stop eating. So grew in and leptin. So they did a study where they gave these people milkshakes and they told one group that it was super high calorie and they told another group and I'm just kind of dumbing it down a little bit, simplifying it, I should say. And the other group they told us was a low Fat, low calorie, healthy milkshake. And of course they were the same. But the way that those people thought about what they were putting into their body made an effect of what their body's response was. So it's not just the content and the chemical breakdown of the food. It is what you think about that food that makes a difference. And I think we'll find out, we're finding out more and more about that mindset and the way we believe things. Now I will preface that you cannot eat five pizzas and tell yourself that that was good for you and that it would be there. There's a moment where science will take over.

There I was actually thinking if I have a milkshake, I'm just going to think of it's like a Cobb salad. Just picture like eating a Cobb salad. But.

And I don't know, you know, who knows what the connection is. That's perfect. And maybe there's something to do there with your parasympathetic system and certain chemical reactions happening. When you believe in yoga's like calm, low anxiety about something. But just know that when you slow down you have like a happy process about what you're eating and how you're ingesting it and you, you truly believe that something, this process is good for you. And in fact it is in some respects then it, it's just going to have more impact for you. Yeah, on the good side. But I, you know, think that we can't always like there's a big thing and I'm, I am big on this. So there's things like slowing down and looking at your food and prepping your food helps start your digestive system so that you have better acid levels in your system before you even sit down to eat, breathing before you eat, chewing your food slowly and actually enjoying a meal. There's a lot of psychology around eating well that affects our guts and our ability to then have the correct chemical reactions and up level uptake.

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Drive of amino acids and whatnot. So it's, it's a delicate balance, but we don't have to freak out about it either. I feel like there's a huge portion. I, I don't have any anxieties around food. I'm really happy to eat them all. But a lot of people have serious anxiety around food. So when they think like, okay, Brian, when you and I start talking about, you know, a big, you know, I'm sorry, for the vegans out there, big juicy steak and potato, I mean, we, our minds are. I get excited. I'm assuming you get excited about that too, but your brain is already looking forward to that process. And there's a different type of reactions in the body between the. We won't go into the brain part, but you're excited about it. Well, other people are building up anxiety about it and they're already shutting their brain down and their body reaction and the acids in their bodies changing because they have anxiousness around that food. So again, everybody's a little.

Which I do believe stress is. Yeah, I do believe stress can be a much more detrimental effect than eating that steak. Like if you were to weigh them out. And that's. So there's a couple things to think about. So if you look up acid, alkaline. You were talking about acid. So our body likes to be. You need a balanced ph, but it's nice to be a little more alkaline. If you look at certain philosophies and understanding about the body tends to want to be a little more alkaline. But if you start to even look up, your food is this alkaline or acidic, that's a kind of a fun thing to do, a way to learn. And then also that ties in with Chinese medicine. If you look up yin foods and yang foods. So yangs are like this warming, you know, hotter, invigorating type food. Yin is this cooling, nurturing, you know, type food. So for instance, women going through menopause need to eat more yin foods and, and avoid more yang foods. And so, you know, if you think about like wine, red wine, or steak, that's going to be more yang. If you think about, you know, cucumber, mango, that's going to be more yin. So even just thinking about balance, and so that also translates the yin yang to more acidic, alkaline, you know that the alkaline foods tend to be a little bit more yin forming where the yang foods tend to be a little bit more acidic. So just looking at your plate and understanding the balance of that, you know, because if you're eating, like, pasta, for instance, so if you're having pasta with marinara sauce, both of those very young, right? Because the flour that it takes to make that pasta has. It's more of a yang. It's doesn't have any really nutritional base. And then you add the marinara on top, which is acidic, so that's yang. So now you have yang on yang. And then guess what? People end up sometimes with acid reflux and, you know, things like that because it's too much yang rising. So just another way to kind of another thing to think about.

I always want to just do, like, the. Like, Tai Chi. When you're talking about Chinese medicine. I just feel like I have to come up, get up and do body work while. Or body movement while you're talking about it.

Do it. Well, can you come and rub my shoulders instead? Because I could use a massage right now. My kids put me through a very strenuous weekend.

Please tell us someday. I don't know if you're ready to tell yet that someday we have to talk about what you're saying, because it cracks me up.

Well, I'll just. I'll dip my toe in that real quick. Just put it this way. Don't let your kids get on United States Post Office website and find out that they deliver stuff for free, because you could end up with 12,000 boxes at your house. We'll go into the story later, but anyhow, so I know we're gonna have to jump off here soon. We're gonna have Jillian. But I do want to, if we can. This gets overwhelming, too, but I think it's important to make a segue that we can dive into a little bit more with her around, like probiotics. And, I mean, you have all the different lactobacillus and, you know, all the different probiotics. So there is so much out there also around what we eat and getting good beneficial. There's probiotics and prebiotics, and if you start looking these up, it is mind blowing, and you. You start looking at some of the benefits, and it's like, I need to take that. I need to take that. I need to take that. And again, so it's important to. You know, Amy and I were talking about this earlier. I'm like, oh, I got. I got to go to the store and buy that. Oh, I got to go that. Oh, that helps that. But there are different types, and we need to understand a little bit more about where we can get these naturally occurring in our foods and how our gut actually produces some of the different bifobacterias and lactobacilluses and streptococcus stuff.

We're going to get into them and to recognize that when possible, I mean, most of these things we can get from our food. It's always best to try to feed yourself with your food first. If you're on a supplement or a medication that you've been on for a consistent period of time, it's a good idea to take a step back and talk with your doctor about maybe switching up or easing out of it or what are some other options. I love our medical community, but sometimes their perspective and their job is to just stop the process or the pain and not always getting to the root cause of it. Things like GERD a lot of times can be resolved with more food approaches and balancing out the gut health from a more natural process. It just takes a little time and awareness, which not everybody is wanting to do. So you can, though, you can back off of some of these things that there are many, many people who can get them off, but not everybody. Again, I'm not making any pushes for you. You always talk to your doctor not trying to get you change your medications, but in particular supplements. Our bodies are okay. And actually supplement sometimes do better. If we can take breaks from what we're taking and putting into our body and then so switching up your food and investigating something new, but something simple like if you can, if you like fermented food, eat more fermented foods every day. If you don't like fermented foods and taking a supplement or probiotic is awesome. There's a couple of different ways of going about what you might be taking and looking at how it's truly effective. There's a lot of debate and warranted concern about what's really being put out. Is it real, is it effectual, actually affecting us? So we have to do a little bit of research into that so we can talk about that. Increasing fermented foods and increasing your fiber, two basic, easy things that you can start to do right now, today to improve your gut health.

I love it. I want to leave some people with this thought too. And this goes into everything we do that I cannot ever talk about enough, is the compounding effect. Just remember, everything we do, everything we put in our body might seem okay, but if it's a little here and a little bit there and a little bit there, it's the compounding effect that can sometimes catch up with us. So if we're really, you know, if a lot of stuff comes back to inflammation and the inflammatory process, you know, we have to think about again, is it friend or foe? What's the compounding effect going to be like as far as how it's going to affect my inflammation levels and how this is going to affect my health. So something to think about.

And as a takeaway, maybe we could just point out that gut health is important. If you're dealing with a dysbiosis and issues on a long term basis, there's a problem, please talk to your doctor. And it is. If you're, if you're dealing with a constant situation, whether it's constant constipation or diarrhea or big fluctuations between those two, or if you're dealing with constant gas and bloating and discomfort, clearly if you have like overproduction of mucus or blood in your stool, those are all very telling signs that you need to just get in and check with your doctor. And if you feel like you have to go to the bathroom all the time, but you can't eliminate, then for bowel movements, that's another really significant sign to go in and get checked. There's a lot of cues to what's happening in our body. So just be careful, be cautious and be aware of what's happening with your body.

And talk to your dog, pay attention to your poo. Sorry. End it on that note right there. Everybody, stay tuned. We're gonna have Jillian on, on the next podcast. We're gonna dive into some more specifics around bacteria and the diets and stuff like that out there. So she is going to be our expert. Is an amazing human being, individual and a wealth of knowledge. So we will introduce her next week. So join us and share this with all of your friends and family and loved ones. As always, thank you for listening so much. And Amy, thank you for joining me this morning. It's always a pleasure.

Thank you, Brian. I hope you have a really productive poopy day.

Thank you. You too. Oh, hey, my Siri just jumped out of my watch and said sorry, she's unable to add that to her list.

You tell Siri she is not in charge today.

She clearly has some issues with her. She's, she's, she's shy. She doesn't like talking about this. She's embarrassed.

Oh, my goodness. Right. Well, Ryan, as always, it's a blast. And I'll talk to you very soon, everybody. Have a great day.

Bye.

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