The Tummy Whisperer

Ep. 16 - Unveiling the Gut-Health Connection: Transforming Sleep, Energy, and Emotional Wellness Through Digestive Care

• Renee Barasch

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Ever wondered why your skin acts up or why you feel exhausted despite getting a full night's sleep? Tune in to this episode of The Tummy Whisperer Podcast, where we unravel the hidden links between digestive health and overall well-being. We tackle the usual suspects like gas, bloating, and constipation, and shed light on lesser-known symptoms such as poor sleep and fatigue that might be rooted in your gut. You'll hear fascinating stories of clients who transformed their health through dietary adjustments, emphasizing the paramount importance of nutrient absorption and the dangers of quick fixes like energy drinks.

We also explore the complex relationship between diet, meal frequency, and emotional health. Learn how managing your sugar intake can significantly impact cravings and cognitive function. We discuss the evolving perspectives on meal frequency, from six small meals a day to intermittent fasting, and how these choices impact digestive health. Don't miss our deep dive into the emotional connections to food cravings and how childhood experiences can shape our current health issues. Personal anecdotes, including stories about autoimmune conditions and the role of trauma, highlight the necessity of a holistic approach for a balanced, healthy life. Join us for an enlightening discussion that promises to offer hope and practical insights for your journey towards optimal health.

Get to the root cause of your Gut Issues!  Watch the Gut Restoration Masterclass at https://learn.digestivehealthsolutions.com/

For a FREE Gut Health consultation, visit us at  https://thetummywhisperer.com/.

Contact Renee:
Email: Nhsolutions@sbcglobal.net



Speaker 1:

and we're live. Thank you, janine, welcome everybody. Welcome to the tummy whisperer podcast. I'm back. It's been a minute. Whoa feels good to be back. How's everybody doing? Thank you so much for tuning in.

Speaker 1:

I wanted to just dial it back today. I want to check in, see how everybody's doing and I want to bring everything back to what we started in the beginning of the year, which is not only how to step in to some better health, better digestion, better absorption, better elimination, detoxification all that Also. So many people I get this all the time, janine People are calling me up. This prescription doesn't work. I've seen a functional medicine practitioner. I love functional medicine. Sometimes they don't do much with the digestive tract. They're saying I've been taking these supplements. My cousin told me to try this supplement.

Speaker 1:

I want everybody to stop playing whack-a-mole with their digestion instead of trying all these things. It's not wrong to try something because for some people, something may work. A probiotic may work, or a probiotic could also cause more gas and bloating. It depends on what's going on in the small intestine and really from the mouth to the cell. So it's okay to try stuff. What's not okay is if you keep trying things and they're not working. That's where I come in. That's where I come in to help you guys with trying to figure out what's happening with your digestion. So you guys have heard me say this over and over again what really is poor digestion? Gas bloating, constipation, diarrhea, belching, bloating on an empty stomach, all the fun stuff.

Speaker 1:

All the stuff we don't like to talk about because it seems embarrassing. But everybody has some kind of health issue. Nobody's absolutely perfect, right, but your digestive system is what feeds and nourishes the rest of the body, and your body is definitely heavily relying on your digestive tract. So we just went through those obvious digestive issues, right. But how about some of the not so obvious digestive issues, like poor sleep, fatigue, skin conditions, eczema, psoriasis, rashing all these things that are happening from some kind of refractory response in the GI tract in the body?

Speaker 2:

right. People don't know that a lot of the causes are from exactly what you just mentioned.

Speaker 1:

Right. And again, it's not just a two step process with eat good food and digest it.

Speaker 1:

That's just the first tiny microcosm of it. Right, you've got to put something in good that your body doesn't go oh, whoa, whoa, what is that? What are you sending down here? You have to put the good stuff in. So say, you do put something in anti-inflammatory, for your body's then got to break this down. It's got to start getting all the substrates and all the things that it needs to get into the cell wall. If you can get into the cell wall for better absorption and help your body utilize all those nutrients that's there. So it is a pretty complex process. But, as I was mentioning earlier, these digestive issues that are ranging from the things that I mentioned earlier and now we just talked about poor sleep and skin conditions and rashing and all that stuff.

Speaker 1:

I had a woman that just she just started with me a couple of weeks ago and she's been through functional medicine. Her two cheek complaints are a little bit of bloating and she's got some joint pain in her middle finger, which maybe she's just using it too much. I don't know. You never know, but it's so local, it's so weird. So tweaked her diet a little bit, a lot bit, not a lot, but she was already doing some good stuff dietarily, but we tweaked it. She's already noticing she's feeling less bloated. She's already noticing this weird little pain in the joint of her middle finger is muted.

Speaker 1:

So in her mind and in my mind we've changed the diet. We haven't even started digesting the food yet because we haven't received the urinalysis test back, but she's already noticing. So again it's these little nuances of. She didn't really have a lot of digestive issues. In fact I had another client come to me with only joint pain. Ball movements were perfect. She felt good, no bloating, no gas, usual like regular, but nothing that's earth shattering that she's embarrassed about or can't leave the house about.

Speaker 2:

So people think that pain is an arthritis pain and has nothing to do with your digestion. Is what you're trying to say? Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 1:

And first, arthritis is an inflammatory condition. Why do we get inflammation? There's only one way to get inflammation right what you're eating, what you're taking in, what you're breathing in. There's only three ways to get into the body the skin, the nose and the mouth. That's what are we breathing in. What are we eating? What are we digesting? If we are even at all, the body's taking it all in. But can the body eating what are we digesting? If we are eating at all, the body's taking it all in, but can the body manage it, utilize it, get your energy from it. Guys, do you know how you're supposed to get your energy? Not from Red Bull, right? Because Red Bull gives you wings and Red Bull gives me more clients. So keep it up. We're going to mess up your adrenals to the point of I don't know total exhaustion. But the way we get our energy is from our food, from our fat, from our protein, from our carbohydrates, if the body can feed them and get them. And the way we actually help quiet some of these digestive noises is from making these good choices and helping your body to break it down.

Speaker 1:

I know we touched on this last time with Dr Carey, but air traffic control center, the brain, called the hypothalamus, is that craver, that's the one that's saying hey, janine, you know we need something down here and you're like, I'm on it. Sometimes it's hard to keep the blood sugar stable, and that's another misnomer too, that people think eating more often is what helps stabilize blood sugar, and that's absolutely false. So we're going to go into that next time. But you know, eating we're designed to eat three meals a day and I have just started doing more of a fasting, so to speak. It's not really fasting. I'm putting four hours in between meals and I'm not always making it four hours, sometimes three, but in between I'm not always making it four hours, sometimes three, but in between I'm having a little bit of frozen butter with like maple syrup, like a butterscotch right, and it gives me that fat, it gives me that sweet and I'm like hypothalamus is happy, it's like thank you for setting that down. So I've also been testing my blood sugars, which have been remarkably good.

Speaker 1:

I don't have diabetes, I don't have prediabetes, I don't have anything like that, but for me, I'm trying to make sure my blood sugar is staying stable so I don't have to grab something all the time. It's just interesting, and I was out yesterday and I took the dog for a walk and I was out for a couple of hours and I went to the grocery store to get some things for the house and I'm like I'll just have one little Lara bar. They're so small, they're this big, they're literally four little bites. It was just. There was four ingredients, I think pecans, dates, two other things, no sugar, no nothing. But dates are high in sugar. I had the whole bar. I waited to test my blood sugar and it was out of range. It was 129, which 120 is normal. It wasn't that far out of range, but I've been in the 90s and the low 100s. I haven't spiked past 103.

Speaker 2:

Interesting that you mentioned that, because I used to be a big fan of the RX bars and the dates were one of the main ingredients in RX bars as well. Yes, yes, I wonder why they do that.

Speaker 1:

Because it can be dried easily and it's probably dates are probably cheap and yeah, we're saying date sugar maybe better than cane sugar, but sugars hate to say it, sugars like the devil. Anyway, like again for my sweet tooth, I'm taking a little bit of maple syrup with this frozen butter like a butterscotch and I'm just having. That's like I'm having two pats of butter with a half of a teaspoon of maple syrup and I'm stabilizing through there. But I don't want to go off a blunt sugar tangent here. What I'm saying is that it all goes back to digestion. It goes back to what's going in how the body can manage it. If the body understands that this is friendly, the body can use it.

Speaker 1:

The body needs a little bit of this sugar from the maple syrup. I need this to stabilize where I'm at. I need this to turn down some of these cravings so that I'm not overeating. That's another huge thing. Janine, right, we're overeating. And not big portions at the mealtime, it's the eating throughout the day, every single day, every two hours. I'm going to grab an apple and some sunflower seed butter right Now I need a bar. Now I need a rice cake and some hummus. Now I need some cucumbers. You know, I'm really working on trying to streamline this so that I can have my three to four meals a day, and I've noticed that my brain feels like it's firing a little bit better.

Speaker 2:

Ron. Well, shame on the media, because the media years ago was like oh, we're doing it all wrong, we don't need three meals a day, we need six small meals a day. And got personal trainers and they all said the same thing oh, you need to eat six small meals. And it's like you know what. Not everyone's created equal and every digestive track is different and unfortunately the media controls a lot of what the population does and for me that didn't work. For me, my body, like I can't eat that often, that frequent, I just can't do it. My body doesn't like to eat like that. It won't for most people who are not diabetic, somebody who's diabetic.

Speaker 1:

They need a little bit more support. Maybe they need a little bit. Their blood sugar starts to tank and they definitely have to have a little something. So this again, I preface this by saying, not talking to diabetics, although type two diabetics maybe this could be something for you as well too, because you're not having that huge plummet and that huge spike as well too. But yeah, that eating every six small meals so much for the digestive system to try to manage, which is really how intermittent fasting was birthed, right Like to rest the digestive system so that you could have some room for a good incoming load. So my diet's been laced with animal protein, like I'm having steak, small servings, I'm having eggs, I'm having chicken, I'm having turkey. Of course Brooke loves my new diet. He has the kitchen like head up, like mom's cooking, so damn cute. But I'm definitely noticing as I move through this. It seems to be helpful. So that's next level stuff For those of you that are listening to me and those of you who I'm talking to.

Speaker 1:

You know what your symptoms are. You've got the constipation, you've got the diarrhea, you've got the bloating, you've got nausea. You can't sleep or you're waking up, you're able to fall asleep, but you can't stay asleep and you're waking up exhausted. That is all a mechanism and functionality of digestion. Your adrenal glands rely on your body to break your food down, Because if not, the adrenal glands are like oh Houston, we have a problem. What happens there? Start having destabilized cortisol, more craving. It's a circle. So when you can stop that by making a good food choice and actually digesting what you're eating, it really helps the body on so many levels. But yeah, some of the clients that come across my desk are having joint pain with no digestive issues, so they don't think in their wildest dreams that it can be a digestive problem. When, sure enough, a lady just gave me another five-star review, I'm honored. But she was having so many joint issues and her son actually went to the program too and he was having digestive issues and he's doing better. He's a young guy.

Speaker 2:

Nope.

Speaker 1:

That's another thing. Kids these days are having so much health issues, and why? Because of our shitty food, because stress, right, poor digestion, and it's causing a lot of issues for them and all of us. To be honest with you, I don't know what that means.

Speaker 2:

Can I talk Like you're fl flashing, everyone watching?

Speaker 1:

I don't mean to flash everybody, sorry, why not?

Speaker 2:

It's like the weather girl who's stripped. It's like the tummy whisperer. You know why not? Let's do it Just kidding. So funny.

Speaker 1:

I can't I don't even know what to say at this point. It's funny. We just cut out of that, which is funny, I know. Well, they're okay, we're not going there.

Speaker 2:

Okay.

Speaker 1:

But anyway, but yeah. So again, just reminding everybody that there is solution to these health issues that feel unfortunately so big and out of your control. I have a friend I guess I'll call him my husband's colleague. He's having some really severe health issues, from like brain issues to blood clotting issues, to he had a mini stroke. He's our age, too young, to have all that. He eats relatively clean, but he's exhausted. And when I shared with him hey, there's possibly something that you're eating is causing this exhaustion through the feedback loop of your adrenals and poor digestion, it makes sense to him. He's not ready to move forward yet because he's still stuck in the medical model.

Speaker 1:

And I'm here to tell you, folks, western medicine does not stop digestive chaos. It's not the answer for metabolic diseases that are often your body due to poor digestion. Don't get me wrong. Medication is needed to save your life. We need it for emergency care Absolutely beneficial, but for a new and digestion and digestive issues not fixed, it's a. It's a bandaid, right, it's a bandaid over a pothole and for some people not even a bandaid, for some people it makes them worse.

Speaker 1:

I've had so many people come to me on either PPIs, nexium, prilosec. I'm like, ah, I just felt worse taking it. How do I get off of that? Because that stuff shuts off your digestion. If you already have a digestive problem and you take something that's going to shut off your digestion, how do you think you're going to feel Like you're just going to feel poorly.

Speaker 1:

So I'm preaching, but I love what I do so much. Preach, honey, let's go preach. I love what I do so much because I love helping people not have to worry about their health, not have to have that be a second Retire. When I'm only worried about my health, I'm not enjoying my retirement. I'm worried out of their digestive health. So we talked about whack-a-mole, right? All these things that people are trying to do to help their health and help their digestion.

Speaker 1:

Again, it's okay to try these things, but at the end of the day, you've got to really strip it down. Oh, I keep cutting it out, okay, yeah, you do too. Is this better? Yeah, at the end of the day, we've got to really dial it back. We've got to really strip it down and really look at the food that we're eating, what we're consuming. How clean is it? Can our body digest it? Can our body absorb it? Can our body utilize it and get rid of the waste. If we're eating Taco Bell, body's going to have an issue with that eventually. For those of you like I, have Taco Bell so we can own those. Well, eventually, don't get me wrong. I love me a piece of Taco Bell, but I haven't had it in years.

Speaker 2:

I knew a girl in her 20s that would eat it every day. I'm like what do you mean? Who's going to catch up to you?

Speaker 1:

Oh, you eat Cutting In and Out now too. I missed you. What did you say? You were Cutting In and Out.

Speaker 2:

Oh, a friend of mine used to have Taco Bell every day in her 20s and she loved it. And she, every day, without fail, every day, taco.

Speaker 1:

Bell. Remember we used to call it Taco Hell, right, taco Hell, yeah, taco Hell Again. The whole idea behind these podcast guys are to give you some help, some hope, some inspiration. Just a little push in the right direction. Right, a little tiny push, a little nudge, so that you can have some awareness around these things that are happening in your body, this joint pain, these rashes that are coming on your neck or your arms or your legs, this stomach ache, this kind of nausea, this low level hunger all the time.

Speaker 1:

Or another thing I hear people tell me and I have heard this for coming up on 20 years now is I can eat a full meal and still feel hungry. You know why? Because they're not breaking it down. The brain isn't seeing that the stomach has what it needs. The stomach has enough volume, but it's not broken down properly. So the brain's saying, hey, go get more protein, go get more fat, go get more carbohydrate. We don't see it down there. We don't have enough that whole gut-brain connection.

Speaker 1:

So when we start really looking at not only those physical symptoms, janine, right, those emotional symptoms too, the cravings that come from what we think are physical hunger I was actually talking to my colleague, my practitioner, one of my coaches, because of course takes an army, like Dr Kim said, and she said to me you think you're physically hungry, but this is, it's deep rooted emotions behind food for everybody and there's not one person on this planet that doesn't have some kind of association or need right, those carbohydrate cravers, missing some of the sweetness in life, fat cravers, needing to have that long-term fuel but maybe missing something who knows long-term childhood stuff. And this stuff goes way, way back too. So there's a deep emotional component to food. So when we start changing the chemistry which is what I help people with start changing that biochemistry can help that brain. Some at least start to see that we have better fuel available. And then, when we have that big brain stuff, we're going back to Dr Carey's work. I started seeing her colleague, dr Naomi, who, oh, I gotta tell you, had on a stick. What he's been on is her colleague, dr Naomi, who, oh, I got to tell you, kind of sick. She's so phenomenal, such a gifted healer, and really feel my body just being pushed not pushed, nudged in the right direction or pushed Like she were lifting off a lot of old stuff and it's really helping my body just get back on lines and even by changing the physical chemistry.

Speaker 1:

For some people that's not enough. Like me, right? I have old wound, childhood trauma. I'm not wearing it as a badge of honor, I'm just saying it messed me up, right, messed up how my body processes, changes my chemistry to now having an autoimmune diagnosis right, hashimoto's thyroiditis very common. So what I'm saying with the rollercoaster, thyroid medication and autoimmune stuff, autoimmune is an impressional opinion and learned as well too, with something called psychoneuroimmunology. I've surveyed every autoimmune person in the world. But if I did, I guarantee there'd be some kind of trauma there. So I'm moving off. I wanted to paint the picture.