The Hormone Reset: A Health & Weight Loss Journey ep2

Welcome to the Balanced Body Podcast, where Sherri Griggs, owner of Balanced Body Health and Wellness in Omaha, talks to us about health, wellness, and balancing hormones.

Okay, welcome to Balanced Body Health and Wellness, a podcast with Sherri Griggs, owner of Balanced Body Health and Wellness in Omaha, Nebraska. How are you doing, Sherri?

I'm doing great, John. How are you doing today?

Wonderfully. It is a great day. We're taking health seriously, uh, one day at a time, and I'm on my own journey for that right now, aren't I?

That's right, you are. And I do believe we're going to be talking about gut health today, is that correct?

Yes, that is, which is, which is going to be great because When we went through some of this initially, I think I understood what you were talking about before, but then you started diving into some things that I just didn't even consider. And so then I had questions.

Okay.

But before we get into my questions, I want to, you know, we should probably lay a foundation. So what's the importance of gut health?

Oh my gosh, there's So much importance to gut health. Your gut, your microbiome, all those little bacteria guys that live in there, they help with neurotransmitters, and neurotransmitters are mood, depression, whether you're happy. They also help with immunity and our immune system. They can be part of our immune system. They help with whether or not our weight is stable, whether we are hungry when we shouldn't be. There's so much, we have a direct connection to our gut health and our skin, finding that people that are having issues with acne or eczema, if you treat their gut, their skin will clear up. So it is such, they call it our second brain, our microbiome, those little guys down there, they are our second brain, and they are so important to our body.

Oh my gosh. That's crazy. And I feel like I knew that this was this important, but like, I guess I could never really imagine what gut health was. And especially when you started talking about like leaky gut. So in essence, it's the microbiome within our gut that is the important bit, or is it even more than that?

Like, is it— It's the microbiome. It's the collection of microbes that live in our gut.

Okay.

And, and like I said, they, they all have jobs that they do. They, they protect us. That's our immune system. They assist with our digestion. They help break down the foods, the nutrients, so that they can get into our body the way we need them. I talked about the neurotransmitters, depression, and mental health. They also protect us from bad bad guys that might get into our, our body when we eat or we get something on our mouth, and they help protect us. Um, so everyone has a different microbiome that's natural to them, but there are some things that we know as far as humans are concerned about the amount of and what microbes we should have in our In our small intestine.

Okay, and so making sure we have— and I'll take this back just to your name— but making sure we have a good balance of what's good for us internally, that's going to help us long-term with a lot of other things.

Correct. Yes, yes. And/or help us or hurt us, I guess. You said help us or hurt us, uh, depending on what's happening in our microbiome.

Okay, and you said that they're like personal to us. I mean, is it— my imagination is so small that I feel like it's just based on where I go and things that I put in my mouth that then helps whatever's growing in there. But is there more to that? Like, are we making our own microbiome?

Well, we have our own microbiome. We have our own set of microbes. Right? But we do know, again, as humans, we need to have a certain number of bacilli, or lactobacilli, and they all have these different names, or Greek names, that I don't even wanna try to pronounce, 'cause I'm sure I will slaughter them, but there are so many different, so many different ones in there, And most of them, what we want them to be, are the good ones, the good ones that our body needs in order to be healthy, the good ones that help us digest, that help us get our nutrients, that help us with our mental health, that help us with our overall health. But then there are some bad guys that can get in there, and we call that opportunistic microbes, and They get in there and something happens and they take over. They overwhelm our microbes that we need that live there. And then we have something that's called SIBO. It's called small intestinal bacteria— small intestine bacterial overgrowth, S-I-B-O. And that is an overgrowth of bad bacteria, I call it. Officially opportunistic, but bad bacteria, bacteria that we don't want to have a lot of in our body.

And I guess that leads me to a quick question, sort of an aside. This seems like the right time for it, but like, you can blow out your microbiome by taking antibiotics, right? So like, that's where you kind of eradicate it. So once I started learning about all of this from you, I don't know why I went to the extreme, but I immediately wondered, You know, if we have this inside ourselves and then we take antibiotics and then destroy it, does it recreate something similar that we already had from the healthy side? Because that's the type of microbiome that we live with, or does it start a whole new colony of something new?

No, we have our own microbiome, so it's our own microbiome that comes back. Now, some antibiotics are harsher on our microbiome than others. Some people have a little stronger microbiome, and if they take a probiotic when they take that antibiotic, right, they keep helping that microbiome by supporting it, then they're less likely to have an issue. One of the ways they know they have an issue is they get diarrhea. They take this antibiotic and all of a sudden now they have diarrhea. Why is that? Because they have destroyed their normal flora, and now their gut, their intestine isn't working properly. Right.

Okay.

So, and, but there are antibiotics on some of these, some of these results I get, the answer is give an antibiotic because this is a bad, this is an opportunistic bacteria and this guy doesn't belong here. You need to get rid of it. So treatment suggestions sometimes are antibiotics. So I'm looking at One of these on here, and the treatment option. Sometimes it is; it'll say antibiotics, and it'll say exactly which antibiotics that you need to use. Now, this particular person, some of the ones—one of the one I tried to pronounce—desulfovibrio. Pyoder treatment options include lowering the intake of sulfite-rich foods such as some breads, dried fruit, beers, ciders, and wines. It is also suggested to avoid foods high in fat. So to get rid of this opportunistic bacteria, it's all about the diet.

Which I have to say— excuse me for coughing— I Didn't realize that when we start this process before the testing, that a part of this is to eliminate and go on a bit of a cleanse. Is this a part of this gut health journey? Is to like not only get rid of some of these things, but just take away whatever we might be allergic to and then reintroduce it? Is that like is that a part of the gut health thing, or is that just a hormone thing in general?

Nope, nope. So, so the elimination diet that you're talking about, eliminating the most inflammatory foods—

Yeah.

Foods that cause inflammation in our body, that is part of the gut health. Because what will happen is when you stop inflaming your gut, you stop causing inflammation. Think of it like taking sandpaper across Say you had something that was, that was smooth and soft and you took sandpaper across it. Now it's not smooth and soft anymore, right? So every time you— and I'm thinking of something that's already smooth and soft, not like a wood thing, but so every time you eat a food that is inflammatory, you just keep roughing it up and roughing it up, and it never has the chance to smooth itself back over. By taking all of those inflammatory foods out, that allows the gut and the microbiome to start to heal because you're no longer roughing it up.

Hmm.

And then once it's had the opportunity to heal and it's had the opportunity to get stronger, when you reintroduce one of those inflammatory foods, you're going to know it. Your gut will tell you, we don't like this, we don't want you roughing us up anymore.

And I, I also— it was less of an egregious, uh, part of all of this, but like right before I got on with Helen, I had already started cutting out all of the things that I saw in the, in the notebook and in the notes in the little, um, nutrition guide that she gave us, and I didn't really notice that mushrooms were one of those things that we have to eliminate. And right before I got on the call with her, I had made basically a mushroom dish because I bought this like chef's thing of mushrooms. So it had hen of the woods, which were some of the best mushrooms ever, um, with a whole bunch of other ones. So I had like 5— I had 5 different mushrooms all on a plate, and then I threw some like broccoli on it and then a little thing of fish. And that was like my lunch right before I got on with Helen. I was all excited to be like, this is what I've started eating for lunch. How great is that?

Yeah.

And then I was— and then right before the call, I noticed mushrooms, like, minimized completely because it's got some, you know, thing. And I was like, oh my God, I'm about to tell her that I basically took her guide and threw it in the garbage because I ate all of what she said to minimize. And she was totally okay with it. She laughed and she was like, look, if mushrooms are a big part of your diet, Then minimize as best you can. Try to try to wean yourself off a little bit. But if it's something that's like non-negotiable for what you're going to eat, then just you know it might be a part of something that you need. So I liked that. Yeah, yeah.

You know we want you to do the best that you can do, but I mean that's just it—the best that you can do. Nobody's perfect. None of us are perfect, and so. You know, you just do the best you can do.

Yeah. Oh, which I like that part. No, mushrooms is a part of the plan to minimize. So it was on, on the—

They're a nightshade.

Are they a nightshade?

I think so. Aren't they?

Isn't that horrible? Well, that was just it. It was— it's because it's not necessarily on— it's not necessarily on like the main things to avoid.

Mm-hmm.

But it is on here, and I don't know exactly where it said it. Oh, it's on the Wellness Rx Tips page. And so it says— and it's, it's very— it's not black and white, it's blue and white. It says mushrooms from the fungi family and may cross-react with Candida and digest.

Oh yes, with yeast.

So it wasn't really on the breakout, even though I think I did eventually find it in there. It's like kind of, you know, mushrooms. Um, And then that was the other thing. It was like, it's, it's kind of in layers. So it's like avoid, minimize, encourage. And I liked how when we were going through the list of all those, it's like this can change for yours. Again, it goes back into your philosophy of not everybody but your body, of, you know, what is it that you are used to and how do you normally do this and what's going to be the easiest way for you to stick with it? And if something's somewhat non-negotiable, What are the other things you can eliminate that are really going to be more harmful? Like mushrooms is a minor thing, whereas like the corn and the, uh, well, you probably have it memorized now, but like the other thing— I've, I've only memorized the corn because that's the one for some reason I'm like latching on to.

Because you like corn so much, right? Yeah. So yeah, your corn, your soy, your gluten, your dairy, right? Eggs. Yeah.

Oh, and that was the one that she said, she's like, trust me, at 30 days you're gonna want an egg. So, and, and then I think this is where you were going with that question, is like, how do you reintroduce? So after 30 days, you're just like really hungry for something. You're like, this is what I need to reintroduce now to see if I like it. And she said that, so she started with eggs. She's like, you're gonna want eggs, so just know that you're gonna want eggs and have them at the ready. But then for 2 meals for 2 days in a row, you're going to have eggs, whether it's eggs for breakfast, eggs for lunch, eggs for dinner, whatever, you know, 2 times, 2 meals, eggs, 2 days in a row. And then 2 days in a row paired differently. Oh, I didn't hear that part.

So I do— I recommend people do that just to try it in different ways. But yeah, you don't want to have that, and you don't want to have 2 different things on a day because then you don't know which, which one you reacted with, right?

No, too true. Um, but then, but then the important bit too was that for the next 2 days after, no eggs. And then that's when you're going to be able to feel, I guess, if you don't like it. And it could be a whole slew of different things. My question was, is like, what are the most common ways that people are— that roughing up after you've kind of healed after 30 days? What are the biggest ones? You had said like cramps, but are there other ones that stand out?

There can be diarrhea, you know, cramping, stomach pains, diarrhea. Um, uh, the gal also came in with, uh, she woke up with red bags under her eyes.

Oh.

So when she ate that half a bun, the red bags under her eyes and the really bad stomach cramps. So her body told her. So it could be a rash. If you are someone that has an autoimmune, say you have psoriasis or something, your psoriasis could, could act out or act up. You could find your face breaks out. I mean, your body will tell you. Okay, if it doesn't like it, so it won't keep it a secret. No, no, but it may not happen immediately, right? So that's why she's saying for a couple of days and then wait, because it may not happen immediately. And let's say you had eggs today and you didn't wait, and then tomorrow you had gluten, and then tomorrow night you had a reaction. You don't know if it was the eggs from the day before or the gluten you ate that day.

Oh man, and talking about a good combination for eggs and gluten, having like a soft-boiled egg on top of some ramen. That sounds awesome.

Oh my gosh.

Um, okay. Well, so my I had another question about sort of the food and. And everything. The nutrition is obviously a big part of this, but like, are the foods that we're eating on this cleanse— because there are more vegetables, like colorful vegetables and, and things of that nature— I'm assuming that those promote good microbiome health or help clean or something. So what, what is the role in which like being more vegetable-based or whatever, right? Hopefully. So is that a right question?

Yeah, that's a good question. Um, well, it's number one, you're getting out processed foods. You're getting out foods that come in boxes. You're getting out stuff that somebody has cooked and frozen, okay? And not— I mean, frozen vegetables are very good, but like frozen meals, okay? Because they're processed, and processed foods tend to have toxins in them, some sort of toxin. to— or preservative, right?

Mm-hmm.

And so those are the toxins that we wanna clear out of your body. So by not taking those toxins in for that month and drinking your shake and your supplement that helps your body clear it out, helps support your liver and clear those toxins out, eating vegetables is good for you. It's fiber. A lot of the microbiomes, depending on the type of vegetables, it can be a resistant starch, which helps. It's a prebiotic, it's called. So some of it can actually be very helpful for that microbiome, but it's also healthy, right?

Mm-hmm.

It's also fiber and nutrients. And so lots of vegetables and, you know, clean meats. We were talking about the beef, you know, making sure your beef is grass-fed and grass-finished. Finished that they didn't finish it, meaning they didn't fatten the cow up with a bunch of corn before they took it to the butcher, is important because that corn, the cows eating the corn, you still get some of the inflammatory process from your meat then.

Yeah, it's the it's the old. Um, oh my gosh, I just spaced on the word as soon as I was gonna say it. Um, because the corn has those changing things in them, right? Why am I spacing on this?

I don't know.

Because isn't corn— isn't one of the biggest problems with corn that it's, it's got, um, it's Modified, that's the word I'm thinking.

Oh, GMOs, genetically modified organisms. Um, you know, that's interesting you say that because I remember reading, um, and I don't remember what book it was I was reading, but they talked about our Mexican population that back before the white man came around and we did some of the things we've done, that that the Mexican people were not overweight. They didn't have a high incidence of diabetes and heart disease. And now with all of our genetically modified corn, and they continue to eat the same diets they've eaten, they're fat, they're overweight, they have diabetes, they have heart disease, but yet they're eating the same diets that their ancestors ate. But they're not because things have been modified, right?

Yeah.

When you think about it, the way that you're being asked to eat for this 30 days is the way my grandparents ate. I mean, they got the eggs from the chickens in the barn, they slaughtered their cow, and they ate the vegetables they grew. And that's how they ate. They didn't open up a box and cook the pasta and throw the powdered cheese in it and call it a meal.

Yeah.

You know, there wasn't— there weren't boxed foods. And the meat was all grown on the farm, and that's how they ate. So it's kind of how we're asking you to eat. It's a little more difficult now because, you know, your vegetables aren't necessarily pesticide-free, and your meats, we don't know. We know that they are People that watch this, they they watch the cattle farms and make sure the cows are being treated properly and not getting antibiotics they shouldn't get and not getting steroids they shouldn't get. But I had somebody tell me once that the state of Nebraska, which is very very high in cattle ranching, only has two inspect. Whoa. And the reason I was told this is because I'm very fond of animals and I like to foster animals. And puppy mills, which are these horrible places where they keep dogs in cages and breed puppies and sell them, um, fall under the Department of Agriculture, which is why they get away with what they get away with, because there aren't enough inspectors in Nebraska and they're busy inspecting the cattle ranches and the chickens and then the pigs, and they don't have time to go look and see what people are doing to dogs.

Oh my gosh, that is— 2?

2. I don't know if that's true, but it's what I was told.

And how— what I can believe that, honestly, just because a lot of times when it comes to— and this does nothing to say about like Department of Agriculture or whatever. A lot of times when there is some sort of a department built for these things, it falls under the purview of some other department that on paper doesn't get a lot of funding.

Right.

And when people don't want to pay taxes, a lot of times those are the programs that are underfunded, when people don't understand very clearly what it is, what that money is going to. And, you know, When you spell it out like you did for like how helpful it might be to have more than just 2 people going across all of Nebraska to find puppy mills, as well as on top of that, all the different farms that there are with agriculture, like that makes a ton of sense to try to up that budget.

Cattle ranches and things like that. So, but I digress. Our microbiome. So I want to go back to When I had mentioned that many times they'll talk about an antibiotic being what you need to get rid of that opportunistic bacteria.

Okay.

I, I do that. They normally always also say, or you can use something natural because there are certain natural substances that can also take care of that opportunistic bacteria. And that's how I help people clear out opportunistic bacteria. Yes, I could give them an antibiotic they take for 7 to 10 days and it's done, but as you mentioned, it also clears out the good bacteria, right? So, um, when we give the natural supplement that helps clear out the bad bacteria, it's a 30-day process. But it's pretty simple. It's Pretty gentle, right? You shouldn't, you know, people don't have a lot of issues with it, but at least we know we have not wiped the slate clean, as you mentioned, that we are, we have not hurt the microbiome that belong there, and we've been able to get rid of the opportunistic. The way to get rid of the opportunistic bacteria is with probiotics.

Mm-hmm.

So, in the case of this person and the particular opportunistic bacteria that they have, it's probiotics supporting the microbiome that belongs there, giving it the opportunity, a little support, so that it can get rid of that bad bacteria.

Hmm.

So all that's taken into consideration when it's put together on how to treat it and what to do it and what to use and how to treat it. And food, again, there's another one here that says a lower fat diet may help.

Which we're already kind of— wait, no, we're not really on a lower fat diet. We're just kind of elimination diet things. Because that's the other thing I meant to mention this earlier and I, and I didn't, but a part of this meeting in the middle is that we're restricting items. We're not really restricting calories.

Correct.

And so that to me is— I knew that that was going to be not necessarily a deal breaker, but something that was going to be tough because I knew that, that, you know, a cleanse was on the way. And anytime I think of a cleanse, I think of, for some reason, just like drinking celery juice.

And but it's not that. So when you call it a cleanse, I'm just like, it's really not a cleanse. It's not a cleanse because I think of cleanses as something where, you know, they do— you're— it's a really strict— you can't eat for, you know, 7 days. You can only drink this special juice and take whatever. Um, it's a detox.

Detox. I'm using the wrong word. I'm so sorry.

And it's not a harsh detox. Some people always think of— also, they've been some of that crazy, you know, whatever the greatest fad was detox where people have to do X, Y, and Z, and it's very, very restrictive. This is not that at all. This is— there are 2 different things going on here, and they are 2 different things They are not 2 things doing the same thing. One is detox, that's your shake and your supplement, that is detoxing your body, detoxing, helping the liver do its job. The other is the elimination where you're eliminating the inflammatory foods. Those are 2 separate things you're doing right now, not one thing that has a shake and a pill with it.

See, so that's where I, Should have gotten a little bit more clarity on that before we started talking. I'm so sorry. That's okay.

That's not a problem.

Well, and that's a that's a perfect segue into sort of a question that I had once we started all of this is like with the microbiome and gut health in consideration, and you know we're getting a jump start on it by. Removing items from my diet as well as helping with some of the detox. Now I understand why I said it was just a detox from the beginning.

Yep, they go hand in hand.

Yeah, it's a detox shake or something. Um, but that, that being said, how— I don't think I jumped into this understanding that I might be off balance on my gut biome. So if I was to go back at the beginning and wonder like This seems to be a very integral part about this sort of solution for our health. How would I look at it differently last week, John, to wonder if my microbiome was out of control? Because I tell you what, some of the questions on the questionnaire led me to believe that I don't understand what, you know, might maybe like bloating is or whatever, like, and that seems— Aloof, but like truly, like, you know, I was just a dude living my life, eating whatever I wanted to eat. How do I know if my microbiome is out of whack? Like, what am I looking for? Like, if I was to go back and tell myself, this is probably what you're dealing with.

Um, so there are some very specific things. Specific things would be like, after you eat, maybe you feel like Your stomach just seems like it gets— it expands a lot. Okay, that could be bloating, or you get a lot of gas after you eat certain foods, or you don't have a formed bowel movement every day. Maybe you go 2 or 3 days without one, or you have loose stools. That's not normal, right? Something is not right within your digestive system. It can be you have a little reflux or a little heartburn. That doesn't necessarily mean you need a pill to knock down the amount of acid in your stomach. It may be that you don't have a healthy gut, your microbiome is off. Maybe you don't have enough acid in your stomach. So those are the things that are some symptoms. Now, for you, because we're doing the weight loss program, we look at everything. In fact, there was a study, and they've done this where mice, where they had It's very interesting. They, they had a mouse that was thin, and they— and they're doing this with human now too, where they call it— I think— I don't— it's a microbiome transplant, where they literally kill the microbiome in a human and they transplant, and it's a stool transplant. They put someone else's stool in that person's body to try to change their microbiome makeup. They are doing this, okay? Um, but the mice—

Bananas to me.

Yeah, they took a fat mouse and they wiped out his microbiome and they implanted some microbiome from the thin mouse and the fat mouse became a thin mouse.

What? What? Really?

That's why you do your gut testing for the weight loss.

That is weird and wild.

And I had a patient missing one of her short-chain fatty acids, and it was a short-chain fatty acid that had to do with appetite. So we supported her body so that it could replace that or make more of that short-chain fatty acid. And it helped with her severe hunger, that no matter what she ate, she was always hungry.

You know, I've heard of this. I've heard of like people having, uh, maybe even in their genetics something that makes it hard to stop eating.

But do you know what it is in their genetics? See, might it be that there's an issue with their microbiome? Microbiome, huh?

So they're they're testing that with humans right now.

The oh they already they've been doing with humans for years. Yeah, it's it's the name of that if I ever get told by a doctor. Microbiome transplant.

Okay, that's so see it doesn't seem like what it is.

That's a very simple or SMT a fecal matter transplant.

FMT. See, they had to—they had to—they had to make it smaller because people would know.

Right? I mean, they're using it for you know obesity, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, irritable bowel because we know and I have treated two people now for irritable bowel syndrome, and we did it by figuring out what in their microbiome was the problem, and it's. It's been— it was an opportunistic bacteria. It was a bacteria that did not belong there.

Huh.

Um, I have another patient that just came in a couple of days ago, and she was missing some short-chain fatty acids, so we gave her some resistant starch fiber, and we got her— she's the same person that had the issue with the gluten and the bun, the swelling in her eyes and the Cramps. She had severe, um, constipation, like she wouldn't go for 4 or 5 days and was very uncomfortable. She no longer has that.

That's— I mean, that's awesome that she doesn't have—

Primary care or GI probably would have diagnosed her with IBS, irritable bowel syndrome, and then they would have wanted to give her medication to make her go more often. a pharmaceutical that would take care of the symptom but not heal the problem.

See, and that's the key. Look, going back to the beginning of one of the things that I, I think is, uh, important to stop on is like you're focused on personalized issues about one body to try to get it at the source and not leave it up to You know, we're just going to treat it with like an antacid or something.

Right, exactly. We're not just going to treat the symptoms. We're going to attempt to find the root cause and take care of the problem and what's causing it.

Okay. Well, I mean, shoot, that, that to me makes a ton of sense. I'm sure we could keep talking about microbiomes and gut health for many more hours because I've got more questions. So maybe we break this up into a part 2, but There we go. Say somebody's sitting there worried about their gut health, because now we've got the information, right? What's the first thing that we need to do to get to contact you?

So go to the website, sign up for a 15-minute discovery call.

Perfect.

Yep. I was just gonna say You can go to the website, sign up for a 15-minute discovery call, and ask some questions. We'll talk, decide if this is something that you need. What is it that you need? What is it that you want? Um, it's balancedbodymedical.com. It's easy to do, and I'm happy to talk to anyone.

Perfect. Sherri, this was a wonderful conversation. Funny enough, about Gut health. I, I learned a lot, and I'm going to use this knowledge to further my own gains, which I encourage other people who are dealing with whether it's weight or just gut health in general to give Sherry a call, set up that 15 minutes, and just like talk through. Because again, I didn't know, and I still don't know because we haven't gotten results back, but. I tell you what, I'm already feeling different, better with a, with an asterisk, just by changing my diet a little bit for this, um, elimination diet thing. So possibly something is bothering me, right?

So if you already feel different after only 2 days, there was probably something that was inflammatory in the foods you were eating, without question.

Well, again, I'm still only 2 days in, so—

And wait till you get the energy and start sleeping better and start losing weight, and you'll be feeling great. Give it a couple weeks and you'll be feeling much, much better.

I can't wait. A couple weeks is a short amount of time in the long, long-term life of John, so That's right.

Well, perfect.

Thank you, Sherri. We'll bring it up. We'll, we'll pick it up next week and we'll talk more.

This has been the Balanced Body Medical Podcast with Sherri Griggs, owner of Balanced Body Health and Wellness. If you're looking to find Sherri, go ahead and look for the website balancedbodymedical.com. If you're looking for the business and you want to find Sherri at her office, you can find her at—

10815 Elm Street in Rockbrook Plaza. Thank you.