Fixing Fat, Bloat, Ache and Burnout at the Root (81)

Hello, friends. Uncle Marv here with another episode of the Unhealthy Podcast, the show where we talk about health and wellness in just a little different type of perspective. My last show we had on Sarah Reilly.

She is a functional medical nutritionist or functional medicine nutritionist. And we heard her story of being improperly diagnosed for about eight years. And she has now taken on the mantle herself of helping others, uh, heal their bodies in a much better way.

Sarah, welcome back. Hi, Uncle Marv. Thank you so much for having me.

It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you. Thank you.

Uh, have you had a little mental detox, uh, recap, uh, resting since yesterday's recording since my firestorm of, uh, reminiscing back to my, um, my story. Um, yeah, it's all good. It's all good.

All right. Uh, we're not going to recap that here, folks, uh, be sure to go back to our previous episode and hear her story. Um, but let's pick up, uh, Sarah, one of the things that we got to towards the end was, you know, your pursuit then of medical practice and you went and, uh, and, and got started there, um, starting with the holistic and then ending up doing the, uh, the medicine route.

What was it that actually, besides your experience, because most people, when they go through something like probably are like, okay, I'm done with that. Let me move on and try not to focus on that. Instead, you turned it around and you're like, I'm going to help other people in this situation.

When do you think that was, you know, the turning point for you that you were going to do that? Um, well, to be honest, um, I, I'm just going to be totally honest. I prayed a lot. I prayed to Jesus.

I prayed to God. And I said, if you help me get through this, I will help other people. Because I was so desperate.

I was so desperate. Um, and that was, it was a bargain I made with God and Jesus. And, um, it was something really, really, um, deep for me.

I mean, that's when, that's when personally, I mean, my spirituality found me, um, where like, I didn't get through this alone, right. What I went through. And I'm saying this because this is what's coming through for me right now.

I didn't get through this alone. Um, yes, my parents and closest friends and family. And, um, but I was so desperate.

I begged God every day and every night I begged Jesus every day. And every night it found me. I was not raised under a religious dogma of any sort.

My parents were of the facet of, we'll let you choose what feels true for you. Um, they had both been raised, um, there in very kind of more strict doctrines of religion. Um, and they said, we were going to let you girls choose what feels most authentic for you.

And I value that freedom to choose because it found me and it found me in the dark night of the soul and many dark nights of the soul where I was just begging for the stabbing, drilling pain throughout my body to go away. Begging to be able to breathe. Um, begging to be able to just think straight, um, and form words and just to, to be able to function in the world again and to live a life that I felt had been quite stolen.

So, um, that's like what really turned me into helping other people. I've always wanted to help other people, but in whatever I do. But this became something that's like a really, really deep backstory.

And I'm being totally vulnerable and totally honest here, but many dark nights of the soul where I was telling God and Jesus, like, I will help other people. If you help me find out what's going on, if you help me heal, please. Um, and so it's something very deep in my practice that I practice now.

It's very personal. It's very sacred to me, the work I do. It's not just that I've read some stuff in academia and gotten some certifications and degrees and I'm good to go, but it's a very personal work I do with my clients.

Um, it's a very personal level for me. Um, and that is what made me want to turn around and help other people instinctively and very much from my heart is that when I see someone who's life force or when their choices are stolen from them because of poor health, my heart goes out to them. When their dreams and their mission and their purpose is set on the curb because their health has escaped them.

That's where I come in with so much just genuine intention to help that person, because I know what it's like to have your dreams and your goals and your mission and your purpose to be stolen from you, I know what it's like. And so there's a deep level of empathy and empowerment that I feel in helping someone bridge that gap. Okay.

And that's, that's a very long answer to your very simple question of what made you want to help people. That's okay. It's a real answer.

That's what we're, that's what we're looking for here. So now, as we look at the pragmatic side, I guess, let's, let's get an idea for people to understand what exactly is a functional medicine nutritionist. Yeah.

What I basically do is I combine the powerful worlds of like holistic clinical nutrition and functional medicine. So. To blend those two amazing worlds to help get to the root cause of what, what, first of all, identify what patterns are going on for the person then to help correct those patterns naturally.

And so a lot of my tools can be very food based, can be very, you know, holistic based, but then also blend in the functional medicine piece where we're able to dig deeper and get under the hood more of what's going on, identify what are the patterns of dysfunction, and to be able to look at certain data points inside someone's body, and then be able to really create a roadmap to help unwind that dysfunction. So their body can regenerate function. Now, what does that look like? I guess on a day-to-day basis? I mean, obviously somebody comes to you, they're in a state where they know they need help, but what are some of the day-to-day steps to start to unravel that and figure that out? The day to day to, to unravel it? Yeah.

Um, okay. Well, to unravel it, first of all, I mean, first of all, I look at someone's lifestyle, I look at their sleep and their stress, their diet, their lifestyle, their environment, right? Kind of the Petri dish that they're living in, right? And really dissecting that, the patterns that I'm seeing there. If someone's not sleeping, right? They're getting four hours of sleep a night.

That is a, that is a, that's a deal breaker for recalibrating your health. It's just, you're not going to get your immune response. Your endocrine system is going to be thrown off.

Your central nervous system is going to be so stressed and pushed towards a bandwidth that it exceeds. So first of all, looking at just, let's just say lifestyle, how stressed is someone, how much sleep are they getting? Right. Um, before even running any labs or anything like that, you've got to look at the big picture and really put it all together.

Look at the web of the person. Like what's the web of dysfunction going on here? Where do they have function and where's the dysfunction? And then I look at a full web of diet, lifestyle, environment, symptoms on a variety of different levels, and then also data points from labs. Then I look at that full web and then have to decide very carefully, okay, where do I pull on this web first? That will yield the most impact for the person's body.

So most people, and I say that not knowing for sure, but much of it is that most people aren't going to go through something as serious as you did, or as long as you did. Most people are going to be like me. We're living our life.

Yes. We're tired on a daily basis. Yes.

We're slightly stressed. Um, we are told to push through, gut it out. Um, we know we should sleep more.

Yeah. Um, we know that we should eat better, but for us, for a simple type of person like us, is it harder to figure those things out? No, not necessarily. I mean, here's the thing.

Typically what I've discovered is that people generally have some element of not feeling well. Maybe they're tired. Maybe they're foggy.

Um, maybe they've got gas. Maybe they've got bloating. Maybe they have digestive distress.

Maybe they have, you know, um, you know, going to the bathroom is either erratic or doesn't happen or, um, it's a thorn in their side. Right. Um, meaning by that, some people have, you know, bouts of urgency to go to the bathroom.

Some people, and no one likes to talk about bowel movements or any of that, but I've found it to be such a core, a core area in practice. Um, but because it tells so much that there's, there is imbalance going on in a major way. Um, so, so even for someone who's living the everyday life, there's typically an element of, oh, I just wake up tired or I have to have my coffee or I eat and I get bloated or I've got this chronic, I get these headaches.

I just, whatever. I'll just take some aspirin or Tylenol or whatever. And I've got these aches and pains, right? There's usually something about someone feeling a little fat, a little bloated, little foggy, as you say, those things, a lot of those are symptom based.

And, you know, we'll, we'll say, yeah, we have those symptoms, but we don't want to dig to the root of it. We're too busy looking for, you know, the latest injection, the latest pill and all of that stuff. So how is it that we go from there where we spend a lot of money and not actually change anything to getting into that area of honesty that you talked about as to, okay, what is it that's really happening that causes.

Yeah. I think someone gets tired of the rigmarole of the quick fixes and they're like, okay, quick fixes. Aren't working the diets, you know, the, the, the repetitive diets.

I'll try this. I'll try that. I'll try that.

Um, the, the injections, the pills, the potions, the powders. And they're like, okay, this, this isn't working for me. Right.

And that's when someone gets to a point of like, this isn't working. So I need to try something else. I am now ready to make more of an investment in myself to look deeper.

And some people don't even realize that looking deeper is available to them. In fact, most people don't. They're like, I have no idea anything like this existed.

Right. Because it's, it is unique. Um, and also when you say looking deeper, I just want to ask, because looking deeper to me might mean going and getting a full body scan.

Don't have to do that. No, don't have to do that. I just mean running some simple labs, some simple labs.

Um, and these are typically functional in nature. And what I mean by that is we're looking at labs differently than they do in conventional medicine and conventional medicine. They are a much broader range based on a fat, sick and tired population.

In functional medicine, we look at a more narrow range that gives us more insight to patterns brewing under the surface. Um, maybe even more of a preventive element, seeing things that are on the horizon, but really being able to put things together in a web of patterns that are going on, um, and that's just running blood, you know, blood running blood work and being able to look at that in a unique way and giving someone insight of like, Hey, here's these glucose patterns coming for going for you, you're stepping into pre-diabetes, you know, you've got these inflammatory markers going on. You have a thyroid autoimmune condition and that, that no one's ever going to test you for likely.

Um, and you had no idea that this was slowing down your metabolism. The hence it's also driving up your cholesterol that they just want to put you on a statin for, but really your thyroid hormones not able to burn off your cholesterol at this point. See, Oh, look, you've also got some, some, this other high inflammatory marker.

You may need, um, you know, it's another form of B vitamin that you're taking. Okay. All these different things.

Those are just a little examples, but all those things we can look at just in blood from a blood panel. Um, and then there's other specialized testing in a variety of areas and functional, other good angles. Okay.

So some of these things that you mentioned, blood tests and stuff. Why are we not getting those? If we go to our general practitioner or something, they take blood. Do they not, you know, can they not run those tests or are they not within the defined protocol of what they're allowed to do? They're going to look at the test differently.

And also they're not able to run because it has to be passed through insurance and the conventional insurance based disease model. Everything has to be approved and be able to go through insurance, which is a fairly narrow panel, CMP, CBC. That means a comprehensive metabolic panel and, uh, um, you know, complete blood count.

Those are pretty standard that the dog, if you run thyroid, they're probably going to run like a TSH T4 at the most and a T3, but those are very, very narrow panels. That's just a fragment in, in functional medicine of what we're going to look at. We're going to look at a lot more markers that are going to give us more of a web of dysfunction and in the contrast of function.

So, um, it's because it has to go through the portal of being passed through insurance. It limits the doctors to what they can order. And again, the doctors are stuck in a system that is limited by what the insurance companies have determined is acceptable.

All right. So what I heard there is that if insurance doesn't cover it, most people won't do it. So they won't be able to do it through their doctor.

I'm sorry. They won't be able to do it through their doctor. Okay.

So I, I I'm hearing my friends in the background going, how much more does that cost? And can I afford it? Blah, blah, blah. Is that what you hear normally at the beginning? Of course. Yeah.

Because everyone's trained for the insurance model where insurance covers quote unquote everything, but it doesn't cover everything that's possible to be run, right? It's a very narrow view when you enter into the insurance model, because the insurance pays for a certain amount of things and you can run some of those other things, but it's going to, it is going to cost you through the conventional system. Um, a lot, right. And so, um, so it's a different, there are different models.

We've got the preventive prevent. We've got the insurance based disease model on one end of the spectrum, right? That's the insurance based disease model. Then we've got on the other end of the spectrum, the proactive preventive wellness model, right? Now there's a, there's a time and a place for both, like we talked about in the last conversation.

Um, but in the realms of the, um, the functional, that's where we have to step out of what's solely available, um, typically to be able to pass, to be passed through the insurance model. Typically I'm talking typically, right? Not universally, but typically. Okay.

Mm hmm. All right. Um, I know that as we take another step back, so, uh, part of your program, um, shouldn't say program, part of what you talk about is true nourishment.

Um, so let's get a perspective on what true nourishment actually is. Yeah, I think, well, first of all, I can't be healthy eating, right? Yeah. Well, that's where I, I think that's where it gets a little tricky because that can look different for everyone.

Okay. Not just fruits and vegetables. No.

No, it can look different for everyone. Um, two people may have bloating, um, weight issues sitting next to each other and they have, may have two very different reasons why. And so that's why, you know, I work in such a customized way because people need different things.

Um, someone may completely crash on carnivore, right. Or completely crash on keto. And it may just not be for everyone.

Nor do I really focus on those polarized diets. I might for a therapeutic time for someone. Um, but it's not like my practice is run from any particular quote unquote diet.

Um, do I remove common inflammatory food triggers for people? Because yes, most people coming in to see me are inflamed. Um, and then if someone has autoimmunity or needs serious gut repair, which most people coming into me have some element of either or both, then, um, then there's particular angles we need to take with that, like looking at more of an, you know, an autoimmune paleo approach. Um, so it really depends on the person.

Some people have MCAS, which is mass cell activation syndrome or a severe histamine sensitivity, or they've got oxalate overload, or, you know, they've got arthritis. There's so many different variables where we've really got to pull away what I call inflammatory food triggers. And those may look different for different people.

Okay. The basics are the common ones that we see show up the most in food sensitivity testing. And that's like gluten, dairy, corn, soy, peanuts, and eggs.

Hmm. Okay. Now, how much of what we understand of diet when it comes to, um, looking at what is all this stuff we look at, you know, calories, uh, counting all the stuff out there, does that play a part in any of this? Um, in my world? No, I, to be honest, I don't count calories with my clients.

Okay. Um, what's, uh, macros good versus bad food again, different for different people. Yes.

Okay. Yes. Yes.

Um, I, I create, I've created a very simple meal mastery system that I have found to be successful over the last 18 years. Um, because by the time people come to me, they, they have counting fatigue. They have counting overwhelm counting my macros.

I'm counting my macros. And it's like, okay, calm down. Let's breathe.

Right. And let's look at your plate. And I know what we want to dominate on that plate.

Right. We know what we want to have a certain proportion and we, so we just take it down really simple and it may look a little different for everyone, but we want, you know, a good half of the plate filled with like an alkalizing high fiber, you know, vegetables and leafy greens. And now again, those vegetables are customized for different people because of the lectins and the oxalates and the plant fragments that can inflame people.

So sometimes that has to be very customized. Um, and you know what, we want good, healthy, clean lean, a healthy proteins on there, ideally clean, not jump jacked full of hormones and antibiotics and pesticide feed. Um, the whole plate is ideally organic or everything that is at least on the clean 15.

Um, and, um, so we, you know, healthy, healthy protein leading with that, um, non-starchy veggies, um, and then a little bit of starchy veggie and lots of leafy greens and lots of healthy fats. And that proportion may look different for different people. Um, but there's a general scale of how the, I call it an ideal meal looks.

And then someone begins to then get a visual imprint in their brain. It's all color-based what I use and it helps create a visual imprint in their brain. So ideally by the end of three weeks, they're making their own very tasty gourmet meals that don't require recipes within 15 to 20 minutes.

And they're stabilizing their blood sugar and they're starting to feel more clear, sleep better, have more energy. And the weight is starting to just drop off. That's without excess exercise or counting calories or starving themselves.

Now, I didn't prep you for this, but do you have kind of an example, a story of somebody that, you know, you can walk us through where they started, where they ended and the changes that they did to get there. Sure. I've got many of those.

Um, let's see, which one shall we choose? Um, well, one, the one is just coming. One's coming to mind. Um, one's coming to mind in my whole process, she lost about 42 pounds and she worked with me for like a four month, five month process, but let's just take, for example, the first month when we're working, it's called a kind of a balanced fresh start phase.

And we're working really on diet and lifestyle. Okay. And mastering breakfast, lunch, and dinner and lifestyle.

And so she lost 18 pounds within four weeks. And this was a woman who had been, uh, fully vegetarian. And, um, she was having an inflammatory response to a lot of the foods that she'd been eating because it was very high oxalate and high lectin, which can drive inflammation for people.

And she also had severe knee pain, osteoarthritis, knee pain, um, trouble walking up and down the stairs in her, to her home and in her home. Um, and she really got traction with the first phase, which is the fresh start phase in my process. And, um, she, she, I mean, it changed her life just in a matter of four weeks.

That's an example, right? So we dialed in her lifestyle, um, got her sleeping, got her lowering her and also got her doing, um, specific exercises that she could do. Um, very simple exercises I do in the first phase and, um, and shifting out a lot of the inflammatory food triggers for her and getting her onto a little bit of animal protein and more protein in her body. So her body could take in amino acids instead of just trying to build amino acids through a very heavy carb diet of grains and legumes and nuts to build that in her diet to try to get her amino acid there, try shifting that so that we could shift her to a more protein, non-starchy, healthy fat diet.

Um, and for, forgive me for this. So in my mind, in, I'm sure in most people's mind, when we think vegetarian, we're not thinking somebody who needs to lose weight. Or I've had so many vegetarians and vegans come to me that are overweight.

Maybe they were advised to go, you know, eat less, exercise more and, um, you know, try veganism, see if that helps. Um, and it's just not the answer. Um, vegetarian, see if that helps.

It's missing key points of what's inflaming in this person. And what's, what's halting the metabolism, looking at that deeper level. There's no one diet for everyone.

Okay. So they didn't start out as vegetarians their whole life, but that they were told to do that to fix. A lot of people were, um, a lot of people were, and some people were also chosen for, um, you know, ethical reasons for themselves, which I totally get.

I love animals, but also animal protein and provides a solid amino acid that our body knows how to interpret and break down if we have enough hydrochloric acid for it, um, and enzymatic production to break it fully down. So you mentioned a few things there, and you mentioned a lot of times that some of these things are simple enough that we can do on our own. So if there were one or two basic changes that somebody listening would just be able to do on their own to get started in the right direction, do you have pointers that you give peace? Yeah.

As for diet, I think a great place people can start these days. Cause so many people consume it, cut out gluten, cut out gluten and dairy and see what happens. That's an easy little starting points.

They don't, they're not easy incorporating, but, and what I mean by that is people are very attached to gluten, but there are so many alternatives now, but cutting out gluten, just try that. It's such an inflammatory food component. And so many people are, they're damaging their guts because of the glyphosate content of it.

And try cutting out gluten for three weeks. Okay. But a lot of us don't know how to do that because we don't know what gluten is.

Um, I know gluten is associated with. Wheat and beer. Right there.

Okay. Those are two good starts, but any like bread and pasta, bread, your breads, your pastas, um, cereals, a lot of cereals have wheat. Yeah.

Like any, most cereals, um, have, have gluten. If it, if it's wheat-based, um, I would have never imagined cereal being wheat-based. There's so many wheat-based cereals.

Yes. Okay. Just start looking at the labels.

Look at, you know, um, at, um, yeah, let's start looking at the labels, but they're not going to say gluten on it. It won't say gluten. It'll say wheat.

It'll say wheat, whole wheat flour, anything with whole wheat flour, refined wheat flour. So wheat flour, the wheat flour. What you can look for is things instead that where you used to have like a bread or a pasta or a cereal, right? These are big staples in the American standard American diet but look at something that says gluten-free on it instead or try leaving out any grains.

That's a big jump for people but leaving out any grains and just trying what happens when you just have some animal protein and vegetables and some healthy fats say, yeah. All right. So I changed my peanut butter and jelly sandwich from white bread to whole wheat bread.

So do I need to cut out peanut butter and jelly? Because it's a bread period. So, so that is still white bread to whole wheat bread is gluten. They're both gluten-based, right.

And so, yeah, you would change out the peanut butter for, um, almond butter. Really? Yeah. Cause peanuts are also another inflammatory food trigger.

They don't contain gluten, but we're on the gluten train right now. I forgot. We're talking about gluten and how to cut that out.

So gluten's in a lot of things. It's, it's ubiquitous in a lot of the processed foods that are made today. They help thicken, they help bind.

And so that's where you just have to really start getting aware of what's under the label in the processed foods you're eating now, a way to circumvent all this. My clients come off processed food. There's just no need for processed food anymore.

That's found in a bag or a can or a box. It's not clean, lean animal protein, lots of healthy veggies, non-starchy veggies, low starch veggies, and lots of healthy fat that way we circumvent all the junk that is actually put in processed food. Yeah.

So I am finding it's very hard to get away from that processed food. And I mean, I know that we're supposed to eat our food on the outside aisles of the grocery store. Yeah.

Yeah. All the good stuff's on the inside aisles. Well, it depends what you consider good stuff, right? I shop on the outside aisles.

The tasty addictive stuff, I guess is the best way to say it. And that is by nature. That is by intention that it is the tasty addictive, right? Yeah.

So, I mean, that's the real big challenge is like, try two weeks of like, I'm going to eat clean, lean protein and, you know, lots of leafy green veggies in a saut  or a steam and some healthy olive oil, um, or avocado oil, um, or coconut oil. And try it as a challenge. It's a big leap for people who are really used to process food, but it is possible.

I do it with any, every one of my clients. We, I call it eating from the ground up. Okay.

Yeah. You want a snack instead of a bag of chips, maybe have, um, some sliced apple with some almond butter on it and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Y'all mo.

Okay. So I've done sliced apples with regular peanut butter. So we got to get almond butter.

Now is that it's not in the peanut butter aisle. Yeah, it is. All right.

You'll find it all in the same area, but that's just a nut. That's a lateral shift. You can make that's for peanuts, right? A lot of people are sensitive and, uh, to peanuts because it's just, it's another thing that shows up really common on food sensitivity testing.

Um, I say the, the big one is really gluten. And the why is because anyone who eats gluten, it releases something called zonulin in the gut. And then what zonulin does is it acts like scissors that perforate the small intestine lining.

Okay. And it really depends on someone's ability and bandwidth in their gut to be able to repair that damage. But what also comes in with gluten nowadays is a high dose of glyphosate.

Glyphosate is the herbicide that they spray on the wheat crops in the United States, everywhere in the world, actually. Most places, not everywhere anymore, but let's just talk United States. Um, they are dousing wheat with glyphosate.

There's a, you know, agreements between the wheat industry and the pesticide industry. They've got a deal, right. To apply that.

And, but the problem is, is that glyphosate then goes in and that damages the gut. Okay. I'm sorry.

I'm stuck on the fact that they have a deal. What possible deal. It's the way that pesticide companies work in lobbying with the largest crops.

And let's just talk United States, largest crops in the United States, corn, wheat, soy, hence all these sensitivities to these foods. Okay. So these are crops that have agreements with the pesticide companies to spray these herbicides, glyphosate, so that they can have more duration of crop and fight the weeds, but yet still get the plants to grow.

But what happens is, is that we end up consuming the glyphosate. Okay. So any corn, soy, wheat, gluten, you're going to be getting a dose of glyphosate unless it's organic.

Right. So, and I, and forgive me, cause I know you probably don't have the answer, but you brought it up. So I'm going to ask you if we know that this glyphosate is bad, I mean, can they pesticide companies not try to change? That's the great conversation.

Okay. That's the great conversation. I mean, it's probably a U S Congress Senate discussion, right? It certainly is.

Okay. And one that needs to be revisited, but we've got people now in office that are actually unveiling what's been going on to more of society. And hopefully society will wake up to the fact that your food is being poisoned, thus you are being poisoned.

And that's why organic is so important. But I mean, organic isn't even that's getting contaminated now, but it is better than the actual pesticide laden crops. Okay.

Let's just say, for example, you have sandwiches every day with your whole wheat bread, right? You think it's healthy. You're getting your fiber, right? You're getting a dose of glyphosate and gluten. That's going to break down your gut lining.

Therein lies the problem that that leads to leaky gut or intestinal permeability. Therein lies that chronic inflammatory response in your body that then exposes your internal system to the outside world, because anything that you then eat and is not broken down effectively or toxins or microbes can then just pass through that intestinal lining into your systemic circulation. And then therein lies your immune system that's trying to protect you.

And it says, Hey, wait a minute, you're a poison or you're not broken down. And then you have this chronic inflammatory process. And that's where we see a lot of autoimmunity generate from.

A lot of joint pain. That s where I see a lot of chronic weight loss resistance because of this inflammation that gets generated in the body as well. Okay.

All right. I'm going to try to land this plane gently because we're getting deep into it, but you've brought up gut a couple of times and I'm going to combine gut with bowel movement that you've mentioned a few times, because I think when we all hear those things, we think of, we need to do two things to fix it more fiber or have a probiotic. Ah, yeah.

Well, both neither are bad, but also neither are for everyone. It depends on the person. Um, let's start out with a probiotic.

If someone has an overgrowth of upper GI bacteria, a probiotic is not for them at that time, possibly down, down the road. Um, because that is just adding more bacteria, more strains of bacteria to an already overpopulated area where it shouldn't be overpopulated, which is the small intestine. Most of your bacteria should be in the large intestine where you house trillions of bacteria that are fighting for you every day for all your bodily processes.

But when someone has something like, you know, GI distress and they've got a lot of bloating and they might have an overgrowth of bacteria in their upper GI, a probiotic is not for them. Yeah. How do we know that though? Is that one of those tests that you have to go get? Cause yeah, well that might be where someone's like, oh man, you know, when I eat fiber, oh, I'm feeling so bloated or when I take my probiotics, they're supposed to be good for me, but that's making me more bloated too.

And in this case is when we've got bacterial overgrowth, especially in the upper GI is where fiber and probiotics can actually be disruptive, make the person feel more bloated, more foggy, more fat, more achy, and eventually more burnout because that's all going to just inflame the brain as well. And an inflamed brain makes you depressed and anxious and lackluster of life. Okay.

So again, that's those deep study things you have to do. And each person has to be checked differently and. Well, I mean, that is, that is an opportunity when people come into me that we absolutely do look, you know, and there's, there's stool analysis that are like DNA PCR based, not like the ones you run at your doctor's office.

Those are more culture based, but in functional medicine, we're able to look at some really keen assessments to see, okay, what's going on. Is there an overgrowth of certain bacteria that could be driving this OPG inflammatory pattern or inflammatory pattern? You know, any, anywhere in smaller, large intestine. But yes, fiber can be great coming through the diet.

Again, getting those, it doesn't mean you need a fiber supplement, but getting fiber in your diet, because then you're also getting those mineral rich vegetables. You're getting those, you know, polyphenols and plant nutrients that protect us from free radicals. And we're getting certain carbo, certain carbohydrates and certain fibers in those plant fibers that our body are very attuned to breaking down if there is not a dysfunction in the ability to break them down because of GI distress.

As for probiotics, fermented foods can be great when someone resolves these GI distress issues or for a preventive type of thing. Sure. Fermented foods can be great.

I think that's a great way through a food form through like kimchi and sauerkraut, um, and things like that, you know, as an addition to your meals. Um, and then at times probiotics can be appropriate for the right. Person as well, but they're not appropriate for anyone.

Let's say for example, someone does have a mass cell activation or a hyper histaminic response going on in their body. Most probiotics on the market generate histamine. So that's not going to be the choice for them or very keen probiotics will be.

Um, so these are just with the level of people that come to see me having had years of chronicity and they're like, Oh gosh, I just want to get through this. Um, we have to do this finer tune looking under the hood. Um, but it, it comes down to the person, right? Yeah.

Yeah. All right. What's going on there.

I want to make sure that I get some information out there, folks. We've just dumped a ton of knowledge on you. Um, a lot of this, you can start to get over at Sarah's website, getnourished.net. And actually, if you go to her page now, you're going to be able to sign up for.

The 15 triggers keeping you fat bloated, achy, and burnt out. Uh, so probably a little bit of the information that she just shared, but probably a little bit more, um, and, uh, Sarah can really help, uh, basically, uh, I was going to say fix your fat, but, um, but obviously, uh, going beyond this cookie cutter approach and, you know, dealing with the power of, uh, holistic. Clinical nutrition and functional medicine and, uh, getting us on the right track.

Uh, sure. Uh, Sarah, what else can you share about, uh, your website and, uh, any other groups? Um, yes, you're yeah. Please go to my website.

It's going to give you so much insight. The 15 darn things keeping you stuck. It's going to give you so much insight about what we talked about today and even beyond, but these are things that I work with, with clients in practice, and it'll be some really interesting reading for you that might resonate with you.

Um, and then, yeah, go ahead and grab that. And then you can also follow me on socials like Instagram and my, um, Facebook business page, and you can access those links there from my website. And, um, yes, we'd love to, um, you know, have you in our community and, um, yeah, everyone is welcome.

Right. And there's also a newsletter you can sign up for as well on the website. So, all right.

Well, Sarah, thank you very much for sharing all of this. And I do want to say, you know, thank you for opening up, uh, in our first episode. Uh, it kind of felt like you were, you know, sharing a lot of stuff, not for the first time, maybe, but in a more open way, does that, is that fair? That's fair to say, because you and I had to take one and that was take two.

And so in take two, I just went for it, went for it. So hence my, um, yeah, my, my, my, um, fire hose of, of, yeah, the, the nuts and bolts of my story, yes. Thank you for that.

And thank you for being so open, uh, and for sharing here and agreeing to kind of give us that, you know, format to, you know, give the story and then, uh, do this dive here today. So, uh, folks again, go to her website, get nourished.net. The link will be in the show notes and, uh, you can follow her in all the different places. Uh, that's going to do it for today.

So Sarah, thank you very much. Thank you, uncle Marv. It has been an absolute honor and pleasure to be here.

Thank you for having me. Thank you. Uh, folks, again, you can go to the website.

All the links will be in the show notes, Sarah Reilly, functional medicine nutritionist, and I thank her for her story and her knowledge today. And with that, I'm going to let you get out of here, but always remember, do what you can to live healthy and be happy.