#297: Your Gut, Liver, and Hormones Are Talking - Are You Listening?

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According to the GI doctor after my colonoscopy, he says drink more water, eat more fiber, take Miralax. And if you look at the ingredients in this, it's PEG-3350, polyethylene glycol, and it is harsh on the microbiome. There's actually been a lot of lawsuits more around the use with children and neuropsychiatric issues.

If you're tired of doing all the right things and still feeling exhausted, stuck in your body and disconnected from God, this podcast is for you. I'm Dr. Tabatha, a triple board certified functional medicine physician, and I help women stop fighting their bodies and start healing them God's way. Let's get into it. Have you had your gallbladder removed? Have you been told you have fatty liver? Have you struggled with estrogen dominance, stubborn weight gain, constipation, bloating, or prediabetes? What if I told you these are not separate problems? What if they're all connected through one hidden system that most women Oh my gosh, and most doctors unfortunately completely overlook or don't understand. I am so excited because today we're uncovering the gut-liver hormone connection and why healing this pathway may be the missing piece to finally feeling like yourself again. Is this not an important conversation, Ashley?

It is, and it's going to be a fun topic to cover today. I'm excited about it.

Yes. Oh my gosh, I always think back to my first cohort when I first created a fasting program. Oh my gosh, this is probably 4 or 5 years at this point. And there were almost 30 women in the first cohort, and at least 7 of them felt terrible one week into the program. And I was getting them into ketosis with a ketogenic diet, and they were all like, vomiting, diarrhea, they were not doing well. And that was a huge learning lesson for me. Ask about the gallbladder. And of course, I immediately got on the call the following Monday after it all started clicking and teaching them like, oh my gosh, if you've had your gallbladder removed, you're not going to tolerate a higher fat diet very easily. You are now no longer storing bile, you can't like produce on demand. And so that was a big learning lesson. And Just a great reminder that women struggle with this in silence. People just assume like this is just my lot in life now, right? And so we do a better job now at prepping women coming into our Fast Faith 40-day program. Like okay, we need to think about your gallbladder and your liver function. But I want to just share this information with women because. You don't have to necessarily have your gallbladder out. You don't have to struggle. There are solutions, and we are bringing an amazing expert on the topic in, and we're going to dive into all of this and how it ties into our hormones, right?

Yeah, exactly. I just keep picturing the little poop diagram that we give our patients and what your poop is just— yeah, that's what— when I was like prepping for this, that's all I could picture in my head.

Well, okay. If you are listening or watching, check out the Bristol stool chart. You need to know where you lie on that chart because that is information. Your body is talking to you when you are pooping. So I cannot wait to introduce you to Liz Roman. She is known as the Poop Queen. I love this name. Welcome, Liz.

Thank you so much. It's, uh, you know, a handle that catches people's attention and Some, you know, say it's taboo, but I always go back and joke that there's children's books, you know, everybody poops. It should be normal. We should welcome it. We should celebrate it because we're detoxing when we're pooping. And that is so crucial to what we'll talk about today and related to liver, gallbladder, metabolic health, right? Gut health, all of it. So thank you for having me on.

Oh my gosh, I can't wait. It's so funny how we have no problem talking about our kids Poop with our girlfriends. But then, like, I get patients who are afraid to even say the word poop to me in appointments. I'm like, girl, this is important information. It's like the first thing I ask. Tell me how it's going.

Well, and women just don't— they don't realize how normal it is to poop every day. For some of them, I mean, I was guilty of this for years. I only pooped once a week, and I really thought that was okay. And now I'm like, crap, I didn't go to— I didn't poop today. I gotta figure this out. Like, I gotta go spend time pooping. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

I love it. And our producer behind the scenes right now, I think he's like—

He's rolling his eyes big time. Like, oh great.

He's like, what did I sign up for today?

He's like, normally they're talking about hormones. Today they're going to talk about poop. This is lovely.

Yes. But we are. We are going to talk to Liz because she went through the Master Restorative Wellness Practitioner program. She is a functional nutritional practitioner. She is co-founder of Fit Mom Functional Health, which is an amazing practice that helps moms, helps children with their gut health. And the gut is the gateway to all of it. So I love your podcast, The Health Revival Show. We'll give a shout out to that at the end for everybody. But let's dive in. And where do women usually come to you? Like, what point are they at? Are they just focused on their hormones and not realizing the gut is involved, or are they coming to you with gut complaints?

Many of the clients that I work with do have a lot of digestive issues. I mean, chronic constipation, or on the flip side, because they've had their gallbladder removed, in most cases they're running to the bathroom with urgent loose stools. And so they're trying to figure out what is normal and how can I enjoy my life. I always talk with my clients about living a life that allows you to be resilient. So if I want to go and travel and have some amazing pasta and gelato and wine in Italy, I want to be able to do that. I want my clients to be able to do that and not feel crummy or be nervous, you know, that they won't make it to the bathroom or on the flip side, again, not go for the entire vacation, you know? And so a lot of what I work with is more of the chronic gut health and gallbladder issues. A really big thing that I've been pushing, and we'll talk about it today, is the importance of bile, gallbladder or not, because I think this is a conversation that many people aren't having even in functional medicine. I mean, we see it more in functional medicine, but certainly not in conventional medicine. If we look at the stats on MASH, right, the fatty liver, and we look at the gallbladder removals, and so many people in my messages every single day say, you're the first person that's mentioned I should be supporting my body after having my gallbladder removed.

Yeah.

And it's a game changer. And it could be something as so simple as A digestive enzyme with some OxPhyl or some TUDCA, or, you know, a separate supplement, whatever that person might need that really can change their quality of life. So majority of the women I work with are more on the chronic gut health issues, uh, side, but we certainly always address hormones. Uh, but hormones, as we say, are a downstream thing, right? And so it's all interlooped, and we'll get into that today in terms of the gut and estrogelome and all of that, that I'm sure you cover a lot on your podcast as well. But when we think about conventional medicine, I think so many women struggle or they don't have the conversations we want them to be having because everyone works in silos, right? And so you go to your OB-GYN for your hormones, if they'll even run your hormones. You go to your GI doctor if they'll even listen to you, or you're able to get in in the next 12 months. You go to your primary care, your liver enzymes are elevating, your insulin's elevating, your A1C's elevating, but they're never looking at it. Yeah. From a preventative perspective, they're only going to look at it from a sick care or a disease perspective. And so, so many people can walk around with so much dysfunction, a lot of which can show up with or without digestive issues. And that's really where I want to just continue to educate people on the importance of bile. Again, we can get into that, but even from a metabolic perspective, our natural GLP-1, right? Our natural motility support, our natural antimicrobial. It's so, so important, yet often very, very overlooked.

Oh my gosh, yes. Like, where do we even start? Because I think this is new information for a lot of women. And for them to realize that what you said, hormones are a downstream issue. So often we have hormone dysregulation or imbalance because of something upstream, a deeper root cause issue. And very often it is the gut or the liver or the gallbladder, and they are all part of the digestive tract. So they all share that microbiome. I would love for you to speak to this a little bit, because I think even in conventional medicine, they don't even think about the fact that the microbiome, it's traveling up the ducts of the gallbladder and the liver, and it's affecting everything. And nobody's talking about this, right?

Yeah, you know, I had an interview. It was a live interview on Instagram with a GI doctor, conventional GI doctor. Lots of respect and love for him, but he said something that I will never forget, and it's actually going into my book that I'm going to be working on. Because when we think about this intimate connection of the gut and the liver through the portal vein, which is a 24/7 conversation, he directly said Verbatim, we don't believe in supporting the liver. And this is coming from a GI doctor, right? And so he's working with all of these patients with recurring SIBO or whatever the infection, the Crohn's, the IBD, the IBS might be, and they're not supporting the liver. And then we want to know why, right? These either aren't resolving or it keeps coming back. And so when we think about this conversation, it's again a 24-hour thing that's happening in terms of communication. So when we think of this, highway. If you are ingesting a food, right, our gut is there to help process it, hopefully absorb the nutrients and good nutrients. But if we have a lot of underlying infections, we have inflammation, or let's say leaky gut, right, this intestinal permeability, when the tight junctions start to break down, we can see things seep into the bloodstream, bacterial toxins or things, endotoxins to our body, LPS, lipopolysaccharides. So when these seep through the gut lining and get into the lumen, they straight to your liver. And, um, this is really, really important because now your liver is not only having to process all the things that you're just living life with right now, right, in our current world, but if you have an underlying infection or you have hormones that are backing up because you're not pooping and you don't have adequate bile flow, now we're really starting to see the dysfunction and the cascade here where detox pathways are burdened. They're overburdened. Blood sugar starts to dysregulate. The liver starts to produce inflammation to protect itself. In turn, bile acids and that bile acid supply starts to diminish. It becomes a little bit more stagnant. I say to people, think layman's terms here, peanut butter instead of fluid. We want those bile acids flowing through our small intestine. Really fun fact, and this is a credit to a mentor of mine, Karan Krishnan. 15 to 17 times. Bile acids filter through that small intestine every time you eat.

Hmm.

And so for so many women, maybe they've had their gallbladder, you know, removed because they were having the, the right side pain, or they saw that there were some stones. And it seemingly, you know, today is just such a common surgery. Like, we'll just take it out, but they're never ever told the metabolic effects that will happen, the hormone impact in terms of estrogen dominance, right? Because now we don't have enough bile acids being released in the right concentrate at the right time from the gallbladder to help us sequester toxins, remove metabolized hormones, cholesterol, break down all of these fats, especially if someone's following more of a ketogenic diet, right? They're trying to fix their metabolic health, but yet they're missing this really crucial— I don't— technically it's not a digestive juice, but I will say Yeah. For, in layman's terms, right, someone to kind of think of it that way. Um, but we need it to, to help us and then also signal, uh, our GLP-1 and signaling insulin, uh, from our islet cells in the pancreas. And so all of this, when we think of just like the symphony orchestra here in cascade, like you said before, Dr. Tabatha, it all comes together. Your gallbladder, your liver, and your gut are all part of your digestive system. System. And if we cannot break down, digest, and absorb nutrients, we start to see the systemic breakdown, the overburden of toxins, and then people are wondering why they've got fatigue, joint pain, brain fog, they can't remember things. And sadly, conventional medicine will just chalk it up to either stress, which we have to, of course, acknowledge that in the nervous system. But when you have a woman sitting in front of you, and this was me for many years, saying, doc, I have skin issues, I have brain Brain fog, I can't lose weight, I've been chronically constipated, my periods are horrible, I have acne, and all of these crazy symptoms. I want to lay in bed for a week when my period comes. And they just sweep all of the symptoms under the rug and say, come back in 6 months. You know, and so again, going back to the root cause, if we start to look at this connection and we start to educate women— how do we eat differently? How do we manage our stress differently? How do we hydrate differently? You know, support with a supplement when it's appropriate, we can get rid of a lot of this dysfunction because as we know, you know, in our profession as clinicians, when we look at the bottom of a funnel, we, we cannot get rid of toxicity unless we open the drain, right? And so that's really where for me as the poop queen, I'm talking a lot about pooping 1 to 3 times a day. If you're not pooping, you're not detoxing, but a big part of that signal comes from bile.

Yeah.

To signal modulin, your hormone to help with motility, right? And other things, of course, that we could talk about. But if you talk to a doctor about this in conventional medicine, you don't need your gallbladder. Seemingly everything should just be fine. We'll take it out and all your problems go away. And it's very clear in the research that's not true. Yeah.

And to make matters worse, they go back to that doctor after the cholecystectomy and the doctor, you know, they say, I'm not tolerating fatty foods. I'm having diarrhea or I'm just constipated all And I would love for you to speak to that because we are doing women such a huge disservice telling them to avoid healthy fats. Like, that is not actually the solution, right? And so this slippery slope continues on and these poor women just get stuck in such a vicious cycle.

Yeah. So when we think about, you know, different fat-soluble vitamins, A, D, E, K, even other antioxidants, Think of an avocado, for example, right? So many good healthy fats there to help with inflammation. We've got fiber to help us bind to toxins, to feed different bacteria in the gut, to help keep a diverse intake. We need a diverse intake of different fats. I'm never against one thing. Of course, we could talk about seed oils and canola oil, but there is some thought to hormesis as well. And the devil's in the dose with a lot of this stuff. And rather than saying, hey, let's add a little bit of ox bile or bile salts or maybe some TUDCA, and let's see, how do you do then with your meals breaking down those good healthy fats so you can absorb them? We need them to build our hormones, right? Our brain is primarily fat. Like, we need these different nutrients. God didn't design all of these amazing nutrients for us not to be able to consume them. That's my belief across the board with many other things in terms of various fiber-rich foods that I know some people will say Oh, the lectins or the whatever, you know, we need to avoid. I don't believe that. I believe that if God created this, there's a way for us to digest it. And we know that our ancestors did just that and ate over 100 grams of fiber a day, and they had very healthy microbiomes, a lot less disease than we see now. And I think really what triggers me most with these women who've had their gallbladders removed and they're running to the bathroom and their doctors are saying, well, just avoid, you know, healthy fats, is that we also start to see they become not only nutrient deficient, right? And so immune function is not fully supported. Our energy's not fully supported. Our brain is not fully supported, but most importantly, they start to develop metabolic disease. And we know that that is at an all-time high. We just go, you know, anywhere and look around, but you could also do a simple Google search or ask chat, and it's gonna show you the stats that are just crazy. And for so many women, we have 2 to 3 times greater risk than men to develop gallstones. But also, when you look at the research after having the gallbladder removed, they're at a much greater risk of becoming insulin resistant. So, kind of what I see when I speak with women, if they've had gallbladder issues, whether or not they still have the gallbladder intact and they just haven't addressed the dysfunction of bile flow, we're seeing estrogen dominance, we're seeing insulin resistance, Chronic fatigue, and, you know, again, weight loss resistance. A lot of times that can show up with other symptoms as well, but I would say those are really the primary things. And then of course, from a gut perspective, I start avoiding foods. I, I start limiting my diet because I think that is the thing that's causing me bloating. But in fact, one of the biggest things that bile does, again, as it circulates through the small intestine, is acts as our natural antimicrobial. Wow. So I will say to people when they come to me after multiple rounds of SIBO, you know, treatments, whether or not it was herbal or antibiotics, I say SIBO is a bile issue. If you only go after it with killing, you know, again, herbs or antibiotics, and you don't address the reason why it's allowed to proliferate in that small intestine, you will relapse. This will come back. And so it's helping that person in front of me with their symptoms, Right? To correlate. Okay, when did all this start? Oh, I was you know going through menopause, and I didn't realize because estrogen and bile also have a relationship here. Just how much things shifted. I thought it was just menopause, right? Where all of a sudden, and I say this to women: Yes, menopause can be a rocky road for some. But again, God didn't design you to all of a sudden at age forty-two. Not be able to tolerate all these foods that you were able to tolerate before, and to not be able to get out of bed and do you know many of them are actually eating healthy and doing the right things. But when we see that that toxicity is burdening the liver and bile flow slows down and we're insufficient, it just makes this situation so much worse. And again, it can be a simple fix. It's not always a simple fix, but it can be, and it helps women say ah. This isn't just a calories in, calories out thing. I've fasted, right? I've done keto. I've been disciplined. I've gone to the gym. I've got my steps in. I drank my water. Why am I not losing weight? And then we start to put the pieces together for them in that, you know, way to say, okay, here's your timeline. Here's what happened. Oh, and at the same time, you weren't pooping every day, or you started having diarrhea and all these food, you know, intolerances. And so We want to help them understand that it's not their fault, that they can restore this function, but that we will need to support this longer-term, especially as we're going through that perimenopause phase and even postmenopause, because estrogen dominance will also slug up bile. And, I'm not sure if you guys have talked about that on the show, but that's one thing that I always share to women too, especially if they have things like PMOS.

Yeah.

You've got to be in there supporting that liver and supporting bile flow.

Yeah, absolutely. It's such a vicious cycle to have that estrogen dominance picture of fibroids, endometriosis, polycystic, all the things. And yeah, you aren't pooping, evacuating regularly. Your bile is slowing down. Real quick, I just want to interrupt this conversation for something super important. Even though we need to take care of ourselves spiritually, emotionally, and physically, we do have to take care of ourselves at a cellular level. And that is why I have my Fast to Face supplement line. So let's just take a minute to hear about something that might be the game changer that you need in this season. I love to recommend our 3-2-1 Liver Detox. Quarterly or every season if you live where there's seasons. Like, you should be doing this 2 to 4 times a year just to support those liver detox pathways so that your body can get rid of the ongoing toxic burden. It's like a bucket that continues to fill up and you gotta pour it out and clean it out so that it can fill up again, because that's just the world we live in.

Yeah, we have a really great guide. So when you purchase the kit, you also get an email with a really great guide because we talk a little bit about like food and some lifestyle changes And I love how Orthomolecular has structured the way that you're supposed to take it because—

Yes.

Say your phase 2 liver pathway is really congested. If you start opening phase 1, you're just gonna get a backup of more toxins because like you have to open the other pathway first. So it's really important that you're pooping first and then you have your second dose. Phase 2, working, and then your first phase. That's why we call it 3-2-1. You, you need to work backwards on opening these pathways. And that's why some women feel like garbage when they take liver cleanses or liver detoxes, because it's only working on phase 1. Can you speak to that a little bit?

There's a specific way and process in which your liver will, in a healthy manner, take toxins and immobilize them out of the body. And our science team put We put the 3-2-1 detox together in a manner where we want to mobilize and— so there are 3 phases, 1, 2, 3. The 2nd and 3rd phases, you want to get those rolling first because once you get those rolling, then the toxins will be able to more concretely kind of move through it. So the science behind it is we give the specific raw materials that will upregulate phase 2 and 3 first. So now we're rocking and rolling. And Now, some folks, they just may need to do 2 and 3 a little bit longer before they start the phase 1 product. That's okay. That's fine. I mean, your body is going to be different, unique to you. So it's not easy to do, but that's what— when you come out on the other side of a challenge, it's like you're a different person. And so it's so much more than really just an actual detox. It is that, but you will be a different person at the end of it. You should feel better. You should feel lighter.

Your skin is going to look better.

It's brighter.

The puffiness, like, take before and after pictures because you're going to be mind-blown about the puffiness, like, in your face.

Yeah.

That's when usually I can tell that I need to do one, when I start to feel that kind of poofy, tight skin.

Where do you love to begin? I'm guessing as a nutritionist, you love to begin with food and tackle that piece. But, you know, we have a 3-2-1 Liver Detox Kit, and the first stage is like, you have to work backwards. You have to be pooping Before you can even ask phase 2 of the liver to start, you know, clearing, and then phase 1. So I would love to hear from a nutritionist perspective how you tackle this.

Yeah, so food first, right? When we're going in, I want to make sure, are you adequately hydrated with the right vitamins and minerals? That's super important. Vile is 95% water. The second thing is, are you eating enough diverse Uh, you know, in your food, diversity in your food in terms of colors. Where's your fibers coming from? Are you like many people getting 10 to 12 grams of fiber a day, or are we able to walk you up? I would never tell a constipated person to just start taking a bunch of fiber. It will make things worse, but we can use different types, uh, in our diets, right? We can go after fruits that have, uh, pectins as well. Very, very good for inflammation, gut lining.

Yeah.

Um, but when I think about, you know, just a woman starting her day, this is really how you're gonna set your day up. Number one, and I think Ashley mentioned this earlier, I need to spend some time pooping. So I will tell them, wake up in the morning, have something warm, whether that's tea. I'm a big fan of lemon water with a pinch of salt. That lemon and the bitterness there is gonna help wake up digestion, also support the liver and bile. Give yourself some time to relax. Go to the bathroom. If you wake up to your alarm and it's like a fire drill, you're running out the door. Most people go on lockdown in terms of their digestion, right? And then they wonder why they didn't poop and they're bloated and you know they don't feel super great the rest of the day. And so I think that morning time is a really great place to focus for the individual who says, "I don't even know where to begin." Start with that. I've been showing. I just had one this morning, but ginger lemon pineapple—it's from the Suja brand. Costco carries it. I'll drink like a half a cup of that. We've been in the process of moving, so I haven't kept fresh lemons around everywhere we've been. But those things can also be you know alternatives. But you still get then that prokinetic from the ginger. The pineapple's got some enzymes in it, and so how can we support our digestion? Right at the beginning of the day, and then give yourself some time to sit on the toilet, get your knees above your hips, open up you know your bowels a little bit, and breathe. This is really important. Many women will sit there like I need to go, I need to go, so they start pushing, right? They start hunkering down like a bear. That's going to impact your pelvic floor. No bueno, right? If you've had children, I hope you've had a pelvic floor you know evaluation, or if you have been chronically constipated, very important to get. Pelvic floor evaluations, make sure that we don't have any prolapse, right, or rectoceles. Some of those things require surgery, but you can simply start with your pooping hygiene and then that morning time, you know, for yourself to relax and then drink something a little bit warm that can start to stimulate things. From there, throughout the day, what I want to see, depending upon the phase that you're in, right, so if you are fasting, lemon water and pinch of sea salt should be Yeah. We use that in a lot of our autophagy phases, but we can start to look at other things too. If I'm fat fasting someone, I might use, you know, Bulletproof Coffee, MCT oil, olive oil shots. Those things can be helpful to kind of lubricate the colon. A little fun fact, MCT oil doesn't require bile, so it's a lot gentler for most people, but I do love the antioxidants. Of polyphenols in olive oil, as long as it's a good one. And then with your meals, I would say start your meal with something a bit bitter. So that could be arugula, it could be dandelion beets. Those things can be very helpful. Again, if you've not been eating a great quality diet, maybe you're coming from a more processed standard American diet, then I want you to be intentional with slowly working up your fiber. And you can do that from Vegetables. We're gonna get more from fruits though. So I love pears, apples, again, anything with the skin there that's gonna give us some pectins for the gut lining and whatnot as well. And then depending upon the person, if they can tolerate like fermented foods, pre and probiotic-rich foods, very, very important for producing postbiotics and butyrate, short-chain fatty acids. And even I say to people, if they are in like phases we go through, deep fasting and autophagy phases, I'll have them supplementing with Tributrin X so that they're getting that butyrate support still for natural GLP-1 so that we don't lose our ability to tolerate various fibers or carbohydrates, but also for inflammation and gut lining support. So mostly we want to go in from a dietary and a lifestyle perspective. And then if someone, you know, has not had or has had, excuse me, their gallbladder removed, I'm typically always bringing in some bile salts and some TUDCA, working on our primary and secondary bile acids. And most women that, you know, have even just followed online and added that in after gallbladder removal are starting to see more normal bowels, and they can bring back some of the diversity with their diet because they're not reactive to everything. And then we also see on their labs Okay, no as many deficiencies, right? Um, we're, we're seeing that you're actually absorbing the nutrients now because you've got the capacity to do so with your stomach acid, your pancreatic enzymes, and of course bile.

Yeah. Oh my gosh, that is really helpful information. And I want to highlight something that you talked about. I'm so glad you mentioned this. We have to actually make time to poop. I I have so many women who come to me and their life is so full, there's no time to go to the bathroom. I remember those days of when my kids were little, you couldn't even close the door 'cause God forbid they were alone for more than 3 minutes, right? You've got toddlers running around. I have teachers and they're just like, like you said, the alarm goes off, the chaos starts, they're out the door and they wonder why they haven't pooped all week, right? Are you feeling this, Ashley?

Yeah, I am. In fact, I was actually just thinking about how now I do go every single morning, and I have— there has been some mornings where I've been taking my son to school and I feel like I've got to move my poop schedule because I'm like, crap, you cannot happen right now. So I'm like, I had to like try to adjust it a little bit. But yeah, you do. You have to give yourself time, but we don't as women, and that's what's really sad is we just don't allow that time.

I know, and men, they act like It's their quality time. Yeah, they make sure they have that. It's like so different, it's crazy.

It is.

Well, and I— shows, doing puzzles, you know, they're in there for 45 minutes, and it always happens when you need to leave.

Like, oh, absolutely.

Between my husband or— I have 2 sons, but one's just a year and a half. So between my husband and my 7-year-old, one of them's like, oh wait, I have to go poop, and then it'll be 20 minutes later. I'm I'm like, why did that take so long? So that's a good point too, to say if you've been there for more than 5 minutes and you're not going, okay, get up and move on with your day. But some people need to spend some time kind of retraining their bowels. And so even just going and sitting on the toilet, to Ashley's point, first thing in the morning— colon cleansing time is between 5 and 7 in Chinese medicine. So when you get back on that circadian rhythm, you'll start to notice that you're in and out Like, we don't need to be there.

Right.

And we shouldn't have to be wiping a ton. We also shouldn't have to be using Poo-Pourri and all these crazy things that they spray around. I mean, I remember my mom would like carry stuff in her purse, you know, because bowels smelled and she didn't want anybody to know. But you really shouldn't have super foul-smelling bowel movements. Um, and so I just wanted to touch on that quickly 'cause I think so many people also overlook those things about our bowel movements. And then back to your point about the Bristol stool chart, I always I would say number 4 is what we're going for. So look up her Bristol stool, look up her liver, uh, 3-2-1 protocol, because that's gonna be of utmost importance to supporting getting back on track with those daily, hopefully daily, 1 to 3 times a day, fully eliminating. Um, and if you go to your conventional doctor, good luck. They're gonna tell you as long as you're pooping once every 4th day, you're fine. And I would just say, I wanna take the garbage out every day. I don't want this sitting in my body and brewing, right? And then Uh, becoming estrogen dominant, which we see so many women struggle with.

That's why it smells foul, because it has sat in there too long and it's fermenting. You know, your trash stinks when it's been sitting there too long and you have to take it out. And that is how you're going to have poops that don't smell up the whole room, that you're not wiping 50 times. I also want to highlight Another thing you said, like, we need to relax. We need to relax our pelvic floor muscles, our breathing, focus on that vagal tone, parasympathetic state of rest and digest and poop, as opposed to pushing and straining and forcing the issue because you really are making it worse.

Yeah. I wanna say this. So I share this all the time in our community, but about a year ago, I just felt really called to stop taking my phone into the bathroom. So I haven't been taking my phone to the bathroom for about a year. And I use it as kind of like time to spend with God. But I will tell you that I do feel more relaxed. I usually go in there sometimes and you're on 100. I mean, it's just what we do. And then you have to leave your phone out there. It gives your brain a chance to just relax. And then your body relaxes. And then you can do your business. And I don't spend 45 minutes like my husband. But I do enjoy that just quiet time. And so I've oddly habit stacked praying with going to the bathroom.

But it just allows my body to relax because I am such a Yeah, and what I see, you know, a lot is when you're not straining, when you're actually relaxing and allowing that evacuation to passively happen, you evacuate more completely. When you're pushing and straining, you're only pushing out what's in the sigmoid colon, or if even that, usually just in the rectum. And so then they're feeling like they have to go again, and it's just like all day long, it's a big struggle. Do you have any more tips for people who struggle with constipation? to add to this amazing topic?

You know, I, I do talk a lot about look before you flush because there's a lot. To me, poop is your daily report card. Yes, your period can be our monthly report card. And so, you know, if you're looking, you're seeing, of course we want to be thoughtful of looking for blood, right? Uh, that's going to be an alarm that needs to be sound and you need to get that investigated. But even different things like pale-colored stool, If you have hard pebbly stools that are kind of even floating, or you're having to strain to go, a lot of that's going to point to liver gallbladder issues and a lack of bile, right? So those pale-colored stools are pretty big alarm that hey, we need to address liver and bile flow here. Now, of course, if you had things like beets, right, or you ate you know let's say corn or sesame seeds, we would see that in your stools. Outside of that, I don't want to see food particles because that tells us that your digestive system is not breaking things down and absorbing appropriately. And so if I see undigested food particles, you know, then we're thinking more pancreatic stomach acid. So there is information in your bowels. Look before you flush. A lot of people don't do that, and I think that that's important to pay attention to. Again, we know the rates of colon cancer have skyrocketed. Especially among the younger generation. I have a very close friend of mine who is a nurse practitioner and works in oncology for— not oncology, excuse me, cancer patients for colon cancer. And the stories she tells me are just heartbreaking because these are people my age or younger. And so we want to use that information. And if you are seeing things or having abdominal pain, right, you need to be seen. Don't ignore that. You know, we've had a few well-known individuals pass away in the past few years, and the only thing that was their indicator is that hey, things kind of shifted. With that said, for women, pay attention to with your menstrual cycle, right? So we know some tend to get a little bit more constipated in the later half of their cycle when progesterone is rising, and then they may get more of the looser stools when they're getting onto their cycle and bleeding now. So you can pay attention to that. Don't freak out over every little thing. But your poop can give you clues.

So good. I love that so much. Yeah, the more that you can start to understand your body, then you can actually get unstuck and figure things out. But if you continue to just go to conventional medicine and get the standard, you know, answer of take more Miralax, like, that's not going to do So if you've had a colonoscopy and been told to take Miralax or proton pump inhibitors like Nexium, that is not actually fixing the root cause of the issue. So I am so excited for this conversation because I know that women got some golden nuggets today. That was really, really good.

So, well, and Miralax is toxic. I always talk about this in terms of Miratox. There's actually a lot of studies, there's a lot of lawsuits It's not approved for people under 17, definitely not under 2. And it is— I went through this. I don't know if you have ever had to use it, but when I was chronically constipated, that's exactly what my constipation issue was according to the GI doctor after my colonoscopy. He says, drink more water, eat more fiber, take Miralax. And if you look at the ingredients in this, it's PEG-3350, polyethylene glycol, and it is harsh on the microbiome. There's actually been a lot of lawsuits more around the use with children and neuropsychiatric issues.

Mm-hmm.

So where they're seeing behavioral issues after. My experience with it was more so that it would just hit me at the wrong time, right? And then I'd be running to the bathroom, but I'd also be cramping and having a lot of pain. And so please, I have a free constipation cure guide. There are so many natural alternatives that are also gentler and that can help your body instead of— I don't wanna say harm because it's a strong word, but I don't wanna be putting that chemical into my body and I certainly would not be putting into my children's body. So if you wanna learn more about that, I've got some different reels. I've pulled the lawsuits and the research and the stats and stuff around that, especially with children. And I do have a children's guide as well called Happy Tummies. And there I mainly speak to parents about 7 Fs and the first one is fun. Because we need to train our kids to poop and we need to celebrate it and we can't stress about it. Because a lot of times us mamas, oh my gosh, he's constipated, I gotta sit Johnny on the toilet. And, you know, we make this big deal and that child's nervous system starts to lock down and withhold even more.

Mm-hmm.

So I just would say a couple of those things there on the MiraLAX because yeah, that's all that they give you and it's very, very frustrating. Or Or, you know, now it can be motility prescriptions or extremely, extremely expensive constipation prescriptions that are like $500 a month. And in my experience, they don't work for most people, number one. But number two, like you said, it doesn't address the root cause. And so that's really where we want to do some further investigation as to what's driving this. If you are somebody who is more chronically constipated than—

Yeah. Oh my gosh, this is so near and dear to my heart. My daughter was given Miralax as at two years old by the pediatrician, or maybe three at the oldest, and she was on it until she was seven when I started studying functional medicine and realized she just doesn't tolerate dairy, and that's why she's constipated. But I can tell you she. She had anger rages. Like, she really had the neurocognitive effects. It made her a very angry little girl. And it breaks my heart to think back to those years of all the struggling, you know, with her nervous system, not wanting to sit on the toilet and then having accidents. And like, I could just cry thinking about all of it. So I'm really glad that we touched on this because I know there's a mom right now or a grandma right now listening and they have a daughter struggling with this and it's unnecessary. There is a reason for the constipation. Let's figure that out and stop with the Band-Aid, quote unquote, medicine. It's just toxic. It's terrible. So thank you for being such an amazing resource.

What's the name of that guide again? It's just called Happy Tummies. So we've got it on our website. I can send you— I'll send you after this a link. It's normally $3. You can just give it to your For me, we're just really wanting to get it into the hands of parents because, you know, you didn't know what you didn't know then. I didn't know what I didn't know then. And girl, I was a doctor.

Hello? Isn't that heartbreaking? I don't even want to say my husband was a gastroenterologist. Like, let that sit for a second. And we gave our daughter Miralax for 4 years.

Yeah, but that was his training most likely, right?

Absolutely.

Like, I know that's many of the pediatricians that I saw when my, you know, 7-year-old was young before we switched. There was a lot of things that I did for him that I wish, you know, I knew then now, but we can only do our best with the information provided to us. And so within that guide, I have referenced— there's a group, um, it's actually called Parents Against Miralax. I've referenced some of their work As well. And it's really just giving parents tools. And a lot of it's around food. A lot of it's around, you know, the habits that we can put into place to help with, you know, retraining the bowel and not withholding and to again bring back lightheartedness and fun to it. I know sometimes as adults, right, when we're changing the baby's diaper or your child goes to the bathroom and you walk in after, you're like, You know, oh my God, gross, it smells. But I've really tried hard in our home. I heard a GI doctor once actually talk about this, and it kind of struck me because when we talk about it in such a taboo or negative way, no wonder people are more like ashamed of it, you know, to raise their hand and say, hey, you know, I haven't pooped in 4 days, what should I be doing? Um, and so I just want to, you know, help people understand that it's okay. Okay. To acknowledge that things are off because we don't want you to be miserable and we certainly don't want it to go on long-term to where then we start to see other impacts in the body with inflammation, toxicity, infections that are proliferating because that takes a lot more work to undo than simply supporting. And that's the main thing in both of my guides is how do we support you? Various ideas in there, again, food-wise, lifestyle-wise, and then also there are some supplement recommendations. as well. And I'm sure you guys have some things that you have in your line too.

Absolutely. Thank you. We'll have all of that in the show notes. So good. I just appreciate all of your wisdom. Thanks, Liz.

Thank you so much.

Ladies, here is your scripture to meditate on this week, Proverbs 24:3. This hits real close to home this week. By wisdom a house is built, And through understanding, it is established. So your house, your vessel, your temple—God designed it with innate, incredible intelligence. Ladies, learn how it works. Understand what it's trying to say to you. That is priceless. That is how you're going to have longevity and endure with grace and with just vibrancy, right?

That's right.

So good. I love you, ladies. Go be Christ's hands to serve. I'll see you next week.

Bye, ladies.

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