Your Gut Is Talking Through Your Skin – The Hidden Root of Eczema & Inflammation
Could your persistent skin issues, fatigue, or hormone imbalances be your body’s way of signaling that your gut—and your stress—need healing?
In this episode of Hormones, Metabolism, and You, Dr. Cassie Smith welcomes Christa Biegler, RDN, CLT, an award-winning integrative dietitian and host of the Less Stressed Life podcast. They explore the critical connection between gut health, skin conditions, and stress, and discuss why restrictive diets and symptom-focused treatments often fall short. Christa shares how to approach healing holistically—by supporting gut integrity, detoxification pathways, and the nervous system. This conversation offers a refreshing, systems-based perspective for those navigating eczema, food sensitivities, hormonal imbalances, or fatigue.
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Guest info and links:
Christa Biegler, RDN, CLT is a nationally recognized dietitian, podcast host, and author of The Eczema Relief Diet & Cookbook. She helps health-conscious women overcome eczema, fatigue, and food sensitivities through a practical and science-backed approach. Her work focuses on resolving subclinical thyroid issues, nervous system dysregulation, and chronic inflammation—without overwhelming protocols or unnecessary restrictions.
She lives in the Midwest with her husband and children and leads a team dedicated to helping high-performing women restore balance and reclaim their health.
Blog/Transcription:
0:00 [Music]
0:06 Welcome to this week’s episode of Hormones, Metabolism, and You. I’m your host, Dr. Cassie Smith. I’m a functional
0:12 endocrinologist based out of Oklahoma City. Today on this episode, we’re really diving deep into your gut health
0:19 once more. On this episode, we are tying together skin issues. So whether that be
0:24 acne, rashes, eczema with your gut, we’re also talking about how stress that
0:30 you feel or maybe you don’t even feel can affect your gut, your skin, your mood, and your weight. In addition to
0:37 that, we talk about some of the myths that you hear on social media, Instagram, Facebook, myths around
0:44 restrictive dieting, keto diets, diets that cause you to no longer eat any
0:50 dairy, no sugar, no gluten, just are these things good? Do they actually
0:55 work? Do they improve your hormones? Do they make your hormones worse? How does your adrenal play into all of this? And
1:01 so, we really just dive deep into lots of questions. Why do people get acid
1:06 reflux? What does that mean? Why do we have rashes? Why does our skin dry? Why do we have acne? Especially during
1:12 certain times of the month. And you know, does stress really play that big of a role in our gut health and our
1:18 health overall? And so, if you haven’t noticed, I’ve started this trend on my
1:24 podcast where we talk more about gut health. And it’s because I truly believe it’s a pillar of health. And I want you
1:29 to realize all the things that go into making your gut healthy. All the symptoms you can have when your gut is
1:34 not healthy, sometimes not even related to what you would think would be gut health, like hand rashes. And I want you
1:42 to be able to just start putting these puzzle pieces and blocks together so that you actually truly can become
1:48 healthy and heal and be a better healthier person. So, Christa Biggler is
1:54 an award-winning dietician nutritionist who hosts the Less Stressed Life podcast, and she’s the author of the
2:00 Eczema Relief Diet and Cookbook. She helps healthy, savvy women overcome eczema, food sensitivities, and fatigue
2:07 without unnecessary restriction, endless testing, and supplements. She has a
2:12 passion for subclinical thyroid issues, and the nerve system as well. She lives with her unicycling husband and kids in
2:19 the Midwest close to me in South Dakota. I hope you enjoy this episode.
2:25 So today I have Christina Biggler and I’m super excited to chat with her. We
2:31 are going to talk about lots of things related to your gut. She is kind of an
2:37 expert in the field of skin issues with your gut, but also stress and just how
2:43 different things, whether you realize you have stress or not, can affect hormones and and your gut. And so, I’m
2:51 super excited to have you here today. I know that you’ve built this unique niche
2:56 around helping women with eczema, food sensitivities, fatigue, things like that
3:02 without a lot of restriction, which a lot of people like. So you’re not big on like heavy restriction or endless
3:07 testing. So I kind of want you to start by telling people what inspired you to
3:12 approach healing in this way. Well, I don’t know if we’re inspired as much as we become desperate, right? They
3:19 that’s the expression is that you’re moved to change either from inspiration or desperation. It’s usually the latter.
3:26 And so also my story I was actually getting into I’m a dietitian is a background and so of course I thought
3:32 modifying your diet is pretty cool. Um, and so I got into food sensitivity work about 10 years ago and it was great. The
3:38 short version, it was great until it wasn’t great. And then we layered in other pieces, right? Micronutrient
3:45 testing, we layered in gut testing, etc. And at the end of the day, I always think that life is about high quality
3:51 questions that you ask yourself. And so to zoom way way wayward, right? To zoom way forward, I was asking
3:58 myself, how could I help people get results faster and help reduce the expense? Because something I’m seeing
4:03 now in our space or the functional or integrative medicine space is sometimes people come in with thousands of dollars
4:09 of testing but not a lot of results. And so that was starting to really bug me quite a bit. And so I was just asking
4:15 myself powerful questions on how could we get results faster. And I think that if you zoom into if you what what I
4:22 don’t love is when we give all of the power to the test but we aren’t giving a lot of power to the symptoms. So I’m
4:28 also really big on understanding your body from a symptom perspective. I call them bio signals. And so if you
4:34 understand how different bio signals relate to different systems in your body and you start to support those systems holistically, symptoms disappear. And so
4:41 I just started thinking a little bit like that. My brain is a bit strategic. And so that’s how that it didn’t happen
4:47 because I thought, wow, this is, you know, it was like a lot of it was pain and new iterations. And so of course my
4:53 story is that way as well. Some other things I was getting tired of seeing was kind of the even orthorexia that can
4:59 come after food has been restricted because if if people restrict food and this is you know this is probably one of
5:04 the most challenging or toxic things that can happen because for years and
5:10 years and years you would go into a functional or integrative medicine provider and they would recommend doing some kind of diet change and obviously
5:17 diet is foundational and amazing and it informs everything else but if you’re not digesting what you’re putting in
5:23 right? Then nothing really matters. And so I was just trying to get to the root
5:28 of the root of the root. And so unfortunately sometimes we restrict food and it works for a little while, but
5:34 it’s really secondary to primary issues in the gut, you know, namely of course in the how the immune system is being
5:41 informed, how the immune system is getting communication. And so when we’re doing something secondary, we’re only
5:46 going to get results so long. We see this all the time, right? People do this thing and it gets them results for a while and then it doesn’t. And so
5:52 something that was also a travesty to me was with enough restriction, your immune
5:57 system is going to get the signal like nothing is safe. And so you end up really influencing your stress hormones
6:02 quite a lot as well. And then you can end up being quite hyper sensitive. So it becomes this quite a double-edged
6:08 sword if people overrestrict for too long. And I’m sure you see this and you I’ve seen that whole gamut, right, where
6:13 it’s like great until it’s not great to an extent. And so I wanted to just get to the point of okay, what is going to
6:19 give us the most synergistic, holistic, feel-good version at the end that
6:24 doesn’t feel overrestrictive or doesn’t feel like you can’t have birthday cake. I’m a big fan of enjoying your birthday
6:30 having birthday cake, right? And so you know it’s like what is the point of health when we’re not enjoying life,
6:36 right? I feel like when it’s adding stress, it’s contradictory. So that is
6:41 I’ll call it the short version, right? It’s, you know, how do you talk through 10 years of like iterations and changes
6:46 and things, but things work and then they don’t and then you and then you improve. And so I’m a lifelong improver,
6:53 lifelong learner, lifelong improver. Yeah, I think that’s a very powerful point. Like I have a lot of people who
6:59 come to me too with tens of thousands of dollars worth of testing or doctor’s
7:04 visits or programs. And to your point, like sometimes they’ve just tried and
7:10 restricted and failed in so many different ways and it’s like we need to like pull the covers back and say, well,
7:17 what is causing all this to begin with, right? And I think that you and I agree in the fact that a lot of times people
7:23 are not supporting some systems that they need to support before they’re trying to get better, right? So you and
7:29 I were talking about that before this podcast. So, what are some of the systems like that you feel like people
7:36 need to actually look at to become well? Like what are the things we can’t
7:41 ignore? Yeah, I bucketed into three systems and then of course there’s different pieces
7:47 to each and then I’ll I’ll talk a little bit more about the maybe the the bucket that is the one that you talk about the
7:53 most. So, the first system is gut and immune system because most of the immune system is stored in the gut. If you’ve
7:58 listened to podcasts, if you are a learner, you probably have learned that, right? And so what’s happening in the gut? The challenge is is that we talk
8:06 about think about all handle the gut in a different way. And that’s not necessarily a problem. There’s multiple ways to get to the right answer or the
8:14 right answer for you or to get to success. But my answers for this do not
8:19 include endless restriction. it they improve helping the gut f fun all all of
8:25 my approach is helping a system function optimally right and I was talking and I and I group gut and immune system
8:31 because the immune system is largely stored in the gut but I want to think about there’s so many different things that inform that immune system as well
8:38 so anyway gut and immune system is one bucket another bucket is drainage and detoxification
8:44 and you said earlier that I work a lot with skin so naturally I’m going to talk a lot about drainage and detoxification
8:49 because the skin is a very safe place for their body to dump trash. And speaking of inspiration and desperation,
8:55 people can have gut issues for a long time. It’s always easier if someone realizes, wow, I don’t have a perfect
9:02 banana bowel movement every day, right? Um, what else could be going on there?
9:08 Because sometimes our our subjective impression is that gut issues have to be
9:13 this like raging thing. And I would say that having a skin issue is having a
9:19 digestion issue as well as a drainage and detoxification issue because the body is going to put trash that it
9:25 cannot handle right now onto the skin. And so that shows up in acne, psoriasis, eczema, etc. And you’ll even see that eb
9:32 and flow throughout the month because of hormones ebing and flow throughout the month, right? And so drainage and detox
9:37 uh all of the systems have complexities, right? So there’s at least four um four
9:42 systems in the drainage path, you know, for drainage pathways at least. Um it’s probably more, right? And then the
9:49 other, so that’s just one bucket. And then the last bucket to me is stress hormones. And so I break that down because stress hormones to me go before
9:56 sex hormones. Everyone wants great progesterone. Everyone wants great libido. Everyone wants all of these things for their sex hormones. But it’s
10:03 like you’ve got to start at the stress hormones first. And most stress I always think of from the hierarchy from my
10:09 standpoint is the adrenals are the most underrated stress hormones or the most underrated conventionally. Um and I I
10:15 say that without you know very neutrally like don’t be angry with your provider
10:21 if they’re not talking about about your adrenals with you because it’s sort of an underrated conversation. Our testing
10:27 is not uniform. Our approaches are not uniform. And so unfortunately we get kind of a d you know it’s it’s
10:34 everything from acknowledged to completely ignored. And I always say don’t blame your provider. Their adrenals are probably taxed as well
10:40 because we live in this crazy world. So that goes first because I don’t think the thyroid cares about making you know
10:48 helping set your metabolic pace if your body is running from a tiger even though it’s not running from a tiger if stress
10:54 hormones are really um prevalent. And then finally uh sex hormones. But generally, I’m going to hang out.
11:00 Supporting your adrenals is not a short-term thing. It’s really an ongoing thing. Um, but there’s lots of things we
11:06 can do. I would say like all of these systems we can break down to at least three pieces typically, but I’m sure you
11:12 talk about all types of hormones all the time as I’m sure you talk about all the complexities of thyroid, etc., but I
11:18 just bucket it into stress hormones. Yeah. So, I like that. So your so your
11:23 gut, you like that, you like drainage, detoxification, and then adrenal. So this leads me to a
11:31 lot of different questions I want to ask you, but let’s start with the skin because because you said that. So tell
11:38 me or tell listeners, you know, I see people a lot and and you talk a lot about eczema who come in and say, “Well,
11:45 I have this rash,” which a lot of people just get termed eczema because they’ve seen a million doctors put six different
11:51 creams on it. It’s never gotten better and they don’t know what it is. And so I see a lot of these I have eczema, it
11:58 won’t go away. I’ve tried all these creams and I talk a lot about how a lot of times that can be from your gut. And
12:04 I think that you agree with that, but also the, like you said, the detoxification system of your body. And
12:10 you brought up a good point prior to the podcast when we were chatting. So tell people if somebody’s listening to this
12:15 and they’re struggling with skin issues, whether it be breakouts at certain times of the month, a skin rash they can’t get
12:20 rid of, how could that be brought back and related to your gut, and what can you do to make that better?
12:26 Yeah. So, it’s actually related to all of those buckets, all of those systems, and it depends on how the eczema looks
12:32 specifically. And one of the primary problems with how we handle eczema as a topical issue is we treat it like it’s
12:38 all the same. And by looking at it, by looking at where it’s presenting, how it’s presenting, and how it’s acting,
12:44 you can direct it actually to different one of those different systems being the priority. So if the gut is the priority,
12:50 and usually for all children, um, the gut is typically the priority, but if it’s red, angry, rashy, round, kind of
12:57 how you would normally think of it, the gut is typically the priority. And so what else is going on there that we can
13:03 all kind of like wrap our brain around? And so the skin grows from the like how do we grow skin? It grows from the
13:09 inside out, right? And so something we do universally agree about with eczema
13:14 specifically is that there’s an overgrowth of bacteria on the skin. Staff aras being overgrown on the skin.
13:20 Like that is universal. We actually do agree about that. But you know what I would see on a 100% of gut tests that I
13:27 ran on people with eczema is overgrowing staff and strep inside of the gut every
13:34 single time. But it was not the only one, right? There was also other imbalances, dispiosis, weeds, right, in
13:41 the gut. And I always use this silly analogy. I think that we’re a lot like a lawn. I think we are a lot like a a
13:48 mirror, a direct reflection of nature. We are all nature. And I don’t mean that in this weird way. It’s just like duh,
13:54 of course we are, right? Like we’re all on this planet together. And so if you think about looking at a dandelion in
13:59 the lawn, any kind of weed uses up your nutrients and it gives off its own seeds or toxins, right? And so I know just
14:07 recently you had a podcast and I one of your guests I remember learning so much about him on endotoxins that come from
14:13 these weed type bacteria. And so these endotoxins, they’ll cross the bloodb brain barrier and cause brain fog,
14:19 right? they’ll the body’s got to do something with this trash. And so there’s an increase of trash when
14:24 there’s a lot of weeds going on in the gut or this imbalance. And so the it’s just a safe place to put the the weeds
14:30 or the trash is on the skin. And so that’s how the gut is specifically part
14:36 of the conversation related to skin. There’s so many other pieces, right? If we talk about even estrogen metabolism,
14:42 the gut can impact the enzymes that break down estrogen. And something that
14:49 is not so random, people will say, “Oh, my skin just flurs randomly at different times of the month.” Or, “I could I
14:55 could buy you 12 sandwiches, um, Cassie, if if for all the times I heard, oh, my
15:01 hand eczema or my skin rash started after pregnancy.” I’m like, “Well, here are some possibilities that could have
15:07 happened after that time.” So, so it’s related to depending how it’s presenting in the story and all those things, it’s
15:13 related to every one of those buckets, but from the gut specifically, usually it’s going to look red and angry. Usually, it’s going to maybe be a little
15:20 bit better in the morning, usually a little bit worse in the afternoon. Um, it can be all over. Usually, when eczema
15:25 starts, it’s in the elbows or behind the knees, but it can be anywhere. Um, as well, there’s there’s I could talk
15:31 endlessly about that particular topic, so I’ll leave it there for a second. So, yeah. And you have a cookbook,
15:37 right? The eczema relief diet cookbook. I do. I did write a cookbook. And so, I
15:42 want to be really clear. I worked with a company to write a cookbook and they
15:48 made me cut 10,000 words. Do I think that this cookbook will solve all of your problems? It’s a generally like a
15:53 top eight low histamine diet cookbook. And so, and this would came out right
15:58 around the time COVID started. So, it’s 2020. So, it’s 5 years ago. I’ve probably gone through like two or three
16:04 human interrations since then. But what specifically what’s important about that particular book is that it can be really
16:10 helpful for supporting gut mediated eczema for sure. It can help with mitigating some of that, but remember
16:16 that food is secondary to other things that are going on. And I remember, you know, when you write a book, I think you
16:22 just finished writing a book, you want to be you want to help people as much as possible. And so I remember the
16:28 publisher said, “Christa, this is a cookbook, not a textbook.” And so we cut they cut 10,000 words out of it. And so
16:35 I don’t mean that positively or negatively. I just like to be really transparent and honest about yeah people
16:40 have given me great feedback about the cookbook but generally it’s a histamine which is a whole another separate food
16:46 topic that’s secondary which is super relevant right from hormone perspective to skin perspective to anxiety like all
16:52 kinds of different symptoms low histamine and top. So it can provide some relief for sure if alls you’re
16:57 eating is like a smorgus board of histamine as well. So, so two things Kristen. Number one, it
17:04 sounds like maybe you should write a book book about Yeah, like a textbook. Number two, so if we could run your book
17:12 through AI and it would generate five topic or five tips that would help
17:17 people struggling with skin issues in general, like not
17:23 overwhelming, but just five tips people could use to transform their diet. What
17:28 five tips would AI pull out of that cookbook? Okay, I’m just going to make sure I hear you really clearly. So, people could transform their diet to
17:34 improve their skin. So, most most skin or most eczema
17:40 most eczema has a histamine connection. So, I will say that. So, I’m try to be
17:46 brief about this. Um, second, it’s top eight because often there can be and
17:51 eczema is just part of the attopic march eczema, allergies, and asthma. So it’s very common that one of those top eight
17:57 allergens can be partially driving it. I would say histamine is much more likely and my goal is generally to overcome
18:04 things. So that’s why it’s histamine top eight. And then also in that book I talk about the health triad and how you can
18:10 go about every symptom from this nutritional chemical angle, right? You can go about it from a physical angle.
18:16 So if you’re talking about skin, how are we supporting the skin structure, any infections going on topically or what’s
18:22 coming in from the environment. So that’s the structural angle and then the last one is the emotional energetic
18:28 angle. And so I always think that there’s always an emotional relationship to every symptom as well. So those would
18:34 be three things. I think I probably also talk about um the same systems that we just talked about, gut drainage, etc.
18:40 It’s just like very briefly mentioned overall. So you’re you’re taking me back five years. Um what else could could I
18:47 tell you about that? Are there tips that somebody could get out of that book as far as how they could change their diet? like should
18:53 they totally I mean that’s that’s that’s what so there’s now that I’m thinking about it there’s like three phases and so as
19:00 one of the really important things that I think is necessary so this is great uh is that if you are going to change your
19:05 diet usually you can see big shifts with the diet within 3 weeks the challenge is when people stay really restricted for a
19:12 very long time so we do in this book we do a low histamine top eight free for
19:17 about two to three weeks so there’s certain immune system cells that have a halfife of about 10 to 14 days and so you can actually see those changes
19:23 within 10 to 14 days. Depends on how your eczema acts and what its real root causes are. But um so if it’s gut
19:30 mediated especially, you will usually see that. And so within uh two to three weeks, but 3 weeks is almost always the
19:37 answer for like implementing something and seeing a shift and then you want to broaden and you go path of least
19:42 resistance back into it. But is that you know I think the question is can you
19:48 heal your gut from restricting food? And I am not sure I believe that you can
19:54 heal your gut from restricting food. And so there’s that piece as well. It’s like well how are you going to bring that
19:59 bacteria back into balance? And there’s again multiple options. I think the other thing that I don’t know how well
20:05 the book goes over but it’s like how well are you digesting because stress is always compromising digestion. And I
20:11 think I always make a joke and one of oh I was so happy the other day one of my clients I said something she was
20:17 guessing something. She’s like, uh, and I I make this joke all the time that they can put on my tombstone like no one
20:23 was digesting. So, uh, it just makes me laugh cuz she brought that up. She’s like, “Was no one digesting?” And I’m
20:30 like, cuz we were talking about tattoos or something really randomly off. And so, I thought it’s so great when people
20:36 know your isms, right? When it’s like no one was digesting. So, so yes, you can
20:41 do a like and the other thing about um changing your diet, Cassie, is that when
20:47 you’re going to a whole food healthy diet, you’re automatically removing a lot of toxic burden automatically,
20:54 right? So, that takes us to another piece of that puzzle when we’re supporting skin. So when you clean up your diet so to speak and actually most
21:00 of the research is I would say the consensus of the research that I found at that time was that literally having a
21:08 cleaned up diet meaning not so much ultra high processed foods was actually like the biggest con consistent needle
21:14 mover with skin and diet as well. And so as long as you had and I would say most people come into me at this point with
21:21 that already, right? They come in with a really healthy diet. They’ve already changed all their laundry detergents and all that kind of stuff. Usually people
21:27 aren’t coming to me for that basic stuff. Um they’ve figured that out from the internet at at least if not their
21:34 friends. And so um but that’s an other side effect to changing your diet is that often you’re removing these I think
21:41 things that we were never meant to digest right with these ultrarocessed foods. And I don’t mean that in some way
21:46 like from a from a pedestal at all. I’m a very normal person who enjoys life who may have ultrarocessed foods um when
21:54 traveling or whatever. But you know, life is always a mix of um doing what
22:00 the best possible thing the majority of the time and then also kind of just living your life the other little
22:06 percentage of the time too. So I will bring that to it as well because I think that’s a different piece of you can
22:12 always support or help those systems work better when you’re giving them good
22:18 quality fuel and you’re digesting and you’re using it and it’s actually getting it’s actually functioning. And I
22:24 think that’s actually probably where stress comes in to be the most important last piece no matter what is that stress
22:30 seems to always be the self-limiter on how well the diet is even working. How well a lot of your inputs are really
22:36 working at all because it it is really contra like it really breaks it stress
22:41 always breaks something. It breaks a system that would normally work. It breaks digestion. It it it shuts down
22:48 immune function, right? It depletes certain nutrients, etc. Your body uses up more nutrients under a stress state,
22:53 right? And so if your body is already um struggling to perform at an optimal rate, stress tends to be the thing that
22:59 slows you down the most. Yeah. So I think you brought up a lot of good topics. One of which is, you know,
23:06 the 8020 rule, right? So like no matter what you’re doing when you’re trying to heal, if you try to force your body into
23:12 like, you know, never eating anything bad, you know, this really really powerful restrictive diet process,
23:19 that’s not sustainable long term. Not to mention, when you do that with your body, and I want to talk to you about
23:24 this, when you’re highly restrictive, you induce a lot of stress on your body, which also affects your gut. But I think
23:31 the other thing that you brought up there is you said something about you don’t think you can ever truly heal the gut by just, you know, restricting or
23:38 changing your diet. And I think that’s pretty important, too. So I think that when you are really sick, right, when
23:44 people come and and they have severe leaky gut and really bad bacterial overgrowth and all these things, terrible rashes, I think that changing
23:51 your diet at least, you know, solidly for 30, 60 days is going to be very
23:56 impactful and beneficial. But is that on its own going to fix your gut? 100% it’s not. And so I think in a lot of people,
24:03 you know, I want to transition and talking to you about this. You bring this up a lot as well. So tell us how
24:10 stress affects your gut, but then not only how it affects your gut, but I like the points that you make about how a lot
24:16 of people who are listening to this podcast right now have no clue how stressed they really are. So we have
24:22 just internalized it. We live in this environment where it’s okay to be doing 17 things, listening to this podcast,
24:29 putting on your makeup, and eating your breakfast on the way to work. None of that is okay. Um but we’ve just kind of
24:35 made that as normal part of society, right? And so talk to us about how stress impacts the gut in ways people
24:42 might not expect and then also how people sometimes are stressed and and
24:47 don’t even realize it. Does that make sense? Yeah, for sure. So I’ll go about both
24:52 questions I think simultaneously. So something I want to say to the listener is that I am your peer and I have also
25:00 had unrealized stress or I think we’re all we all deal with a certain amount of
25:05 unrealized stress. So unconscious stress is the stress you’re like I think I’m okay. I don’t think I’m stressed but
25:11 shoot I’m only bloated on the days I go to my nursing shift. Right? Like the other days I’m fine. That was that’s
25:18 just like a real thing that came up for a client, right? It’s like I don’t think I’m stressed, but it’s that this is I
25:24 think that the the particular audience that my heart goes for the most is like this
25:31 high achieving person who’s just really capable of getting stuff done and at the
25:38 cost of whatever, right? Because our nervous system like it’s got its own ideas about about how it’s processing
25:45 all the information coming into it. So, I’ll talk for a moment about stress and maybe I’ll even use um a little bit of a
25:51 I’ll share a little story that happened to me last year that was I think I always like to like pull stories and share them with clients because I think
25:57 that’s how we I think we learn through experience and stories. So, I’ll mention there’s a few primary ways. I mean
26:02 stress that the more you learn the more you realize like man it just breaks everything. But there’s three primary ways I think about a lot with how stress
26:10 impacts the gut and the immune system which I kind of group together a little bit because they both are um huge uh for
26:17 everything we’ve been talking about so far. So the first one that you’re probably quite familiar with as well is
26:22 that when stress is up, when we are going to deal with something, when we’re in fight or flight, right, which is
26:29 going from meeting to meeting to meeting or running from this thing to that thing or whatever or multitasking, your body
26:35 is not going to digest. In fact, your body is going to downregulate or deplete stomach acid in general. And stomach
26:41 acid is kind of the gate for everything else to come in. And so when stomach acid is depleted, a lot of things can
26:46 happen. we’re not digesting, absorbing nutrients from protein and amino acids which make up our neurotransmitters which make up our mood. And then it can
26:53 take a long time, but there’s quite a downstream effect to this. But also low stomach acid is or it’s really this gate
26:59 to letting other pathogens kind of come into the gut and set up shop overall. That’s where that’s where stuff as it
27:07 comes in the body has this natural uh place so that way you’re there’s certain things that don’t get beyond that point.
27:12 Okay. So that’s one issue that is just going to in general massively affect
27:17 digestion. And when digestion is affected, you’re going to end up with food sensitivities which are a moving
27:22 target. And so moving sensitivities are largely larger food particles that are
27:29 not fully digested that are crossing the gut membrane at the wrong time and the immune system looks at them as invaders
27:34 because it’s like, hey, you’re supposed to be vitamin A, B, whatever, not this like chunk of an apple, right? Okay. And
27:39 so it’s going to look at that even healthy foods as a foreigner when it’s not fully digested. So stress impacting
27:45 digestion overall is a massive issue or burden. Another one is that it’s going
27:51 to downregulate immune system function in the gut secretary IgA. So everyone
27:56 has had this experience you know in college or in work life or even as you were describing I think on air about
28:03 sleep in your book and whatnot. you know, when we have a higher time of stress, you can all think of a time you
28:09 were maybe cramming for a test and then so there was a stressful period and then right after that you got sick and so we
28:16 I don’t know if I I feel like we have all experienced or your sleep is depleted and you get stressed or you get
28:21 um you get sick. So when the immune system is getting downregulated because the body is like prioritizing resources
28:27 for other areas, the secretary IGA or immune system soldiers as I call them get downregulated. So that’s another way
28:34 that the immune system which is part of the gut is massively affective. And then another one is um mineral function and
28:41 so or nutrients in general. So I always think about stress as kind of like the
28:46 um gas pedal in the car. And so the more we push on the more we speed through
28:51 life, it’s just like a kind of a good visual for us. The more we’re kind of speeding through life in general, we’re
28:57 using up more gas, more energy, more resources. So that makes sense. And then as we use up a lot of resources, our
29:04 body is meant to survive. It’s always trying to survive. So, it’s going to go into kind of what I would call a reserve
29:09 tank overall. And so, it’ll go into that reserve tank. But, you end up kind of running high high and then hitting this
29:16 burnout point. But, in general, you’re burning through a lot of nutrients. Nutrients are workers at all those
29:21 systems in the body. And when you burn through lots of workers um and your systems are already not functioning
29:27 optimally or they are functioning okay usually a period of stress that’s kind of long term. So um we we consider
29:34 medically right we can we consider the difference between acute to chronic about a month. So if you have stress that is kind of prolonged for a month
29:41 for one you’re you have a new baseline um you you start to think it’s kind of normal even if you’re like yeah I’m kind
29:47 of stressed right now but it’s becoming your baseline. And two, after this period of longer stress, think it’s very
29:54 normal for both of us, I’m sure, to hear people come in and share about something that happened to the body or something
29:59 that happened in life. Um, or it doesn’t even have to be something like an emotional or physical stressor. It could have been something else that came into
30:06 your life. You know, pregnancy um is kind of this intentional stressor very often. See a lot of things pop up after
30:12 that. But we use up those nutrients under the stress. And if the system’s not performing optimally, the system is
30:18 now working at half staff or not not well staffed. And so what happens when
30:23 your systems aren’t working? You have lots of symptoms because symptoms are just the body’s way of trying to communicate something. Is your when your
30:30 skin is breaking out? It’s not it’s not fighting you. Your your body’s not betraying you. It’s just trying to send
30:36 you a stronger signal. It’s just trying to let you know, hey, could use some help down here. I need some help. If you
30:41 could if you could hear this message in here somewhere, I need some help. And so often I don’t usually believe it when
30:47 someone tells me that they have only skin issues. It’s pretty rare that someone would say that. I’m always kind of looking for everything else because
30:53 I’m looking for all of those symptoms to correlate to those symptoms to say, “Okay, this system seems to be in the
30:59 most dire straits, right? It needs the help the most.” So like hand eczema for example is very typically stress
31:07 mediated. It’s very typically comes on after a very long stressful period. Um I
31:12 see that all the time. So anyway, I don’t know if I answered your questions, but I think unrealized stress is kind of
31:19 the most challenging, frustrating um thing. And I think that’s something we’re all called to assess and stop and
31:27 take inventory of. And if you don’t think you can stop and take inventory of stress, one of my favorite exercises is
31:33 just to draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper and on one side just set a time like put put on two songs that
31:40 you like or some some music with no words or just put a timer on for five minutes and then just write like what is
31:47 f what fills my cup and what is over here emptying my cup. And I think that that’s that’s a stress inventory right
31:53 there. And it’s one of my absolute favorite examples and I wait to do it too long all the time, right? But it’s a
32:00 beautiful thing of like, okay, I need to what can I shift or what are my options or like what can I do here? But that’s a
32:07 stress inventory, right? And if we don’t think we have time to stop and take inventory, then you probably really need
32:12 it, right? So it’s how we make it the the sometimes the unconscious a little bit more conscious is just like stopping
32:18 and assessing where we are. Yeah, I think that that’s really powerful. I tell people like to have tea
32:24 time with themselves, right? Like so to stop and ask yourself really like how am I feeling? Does anything hurt? Have I
32:32 eaten today? You know, am I hungry? Am I thirsty? Do I need to go to the bathroom? I mean, these are things that like, you know, I work in healthcare and
32:39 it’s not uncommon for nurses and providers to not go to the bathroom all day long, to not drink water all day
32:46 long. And so I do like the just like stopping and getting a vibe of like how am I feeling? I think that you brought
32:53 up some good points about stress in general. And you know what I tell people is if you’re having a lot of symptoms
32:58 all of a sudden like if you are tired and you know you have brain fog and you’re bloated and you’re constant I
33:05 mean just all these random symptoms that you can’t like put together or you’re blaming something and trying to fix it
33:10 and it’s not helping then probably we have stress going on in the background
33:15 that we don’t even realize is going on. Right. Because to your point, it affects your digestion, which is so so so
33:22 powerful because when your stomach acid gets out of balance and you’re not digesting your micronutrients, you get
33:27 bacterial overgrowth. You get leaky gut, which causes insulin resistance and your cortisol to get high. It starts messing
33:33 with your adrenals. And so, I really think it’s just important for people to,
33:38 you know, set and just think, how am I feeling? And if I have a lot of things that aren’t adding up and you know
33:45 symptoms that I can’t pinpoint why I’m having them then we really need to go back to the drawing board of well is am
33:52 I super stressed right? How is my sleep? How is my stress? How is my gut? And I think when you do that then you’ll get a
34:00 lot of answers. You know to your point like your body can’t send you a text message or an email or call you and say
34:06 hey stop stressing out about you know doing the laundry and making sure your house is perfect and this and that.
34:11 instead you end up with a rash or you end up not sleeping well or you end up bloated. And I think it’s just really
34:16 important for people to understand that and put all that together because people like you and I talk about this, but we
34:22 have to remember that most of the world doesn’t talk about gut health. You know, your providers don’t talk to you about
34:28 nutrition. They sure as heck don’t talk to you about digestion or how many times you chew your food, you know, or how
34:34 much you’re sleeping. And it’s just we really have to try to start normalizing this and making sure that people
34:40 understand it’s a really really important part of life and and of health, right?
34:49 Yeah. And so then with stress too, you know, a couple of things. One thing I
34:54 want to point out is you had a post recently about acid reflux and just like how a lot of people don’t realize that
35:01 acid reflux can be caused by by certain things and a lot of times it can be stress related and so I think a lot of
35:07 people listening to this could probably relate like I try to find things that people listening could relate to and
35:13 millions of people take PPI medications in this country which is really sad and millions of them take them for years and
35:20 these are medications that were made to be taken for six to eight weeks. you know, in an acute event while you figure
35:25 out what the problem is and then fix it. So, can you tell listeners maybe some of
35:31 the most common reasons people have acid reflux or maybe just some things that they may not know about acid reflux
35:37 that’s causing them to have these issues? Yeah, I love acid reflux also because I
35:44 find it to be pretty straightforward physiologically. Um however it is
35:49 unfortunately we are a little bit at odds with how we kind of talk about it conventionally because if you are having
35:54 acid reflux usually as you said usually the treatment is to get something that
36:00 reduces the acid in the stomach and sometimes people feel better for a short amount of time and I think especially if
36:06 someone’s dealing with an ulcer which we know I’ve had such an interesting experience with that in time where I’ve
36:13 had people that really are presenting like they have an ulcer which can feel like a stabbing, burning in their
36:18 stomach. Um, quite acute, quite painful, quite quite really can double them over.
36:24 I’ve had people where we think they have an ulcer, they try to go in to get an endoscopy. It takes a month. By the time
36:30 they get the endoscopy, no ulcer is seen. Um, of course, we’re not going to sit on our butt for a month. So, we’re
36:37 going to give them soothing things that soothe that tissue and heal that tissue that entire time. And guess what? It
36:44 takes a few weeks often to really see that visceral change overall. But I bring this up because this is what I see
36:51 all the time, right? Where it’s like, okay, so you get put on this reduction. Here’s the example of where it can
36:57 really be supportive. But we are made to have stomach acid to digest proteins and
37:03 food as I was talking about earlier. And if we are not digesting those proteins or foods, then 100% it will lead
37:09 downstream to fatigue, potential mood issues, potential skin. I mean, pretty much everything. It can it can cause
37:15 everything if you’re not digesting, right? Or if you’re not even getting those amino acids alone, those are huge.
37:20 So, let’s talk about acid reflux a little bit. So, we talked about this some of these pieces. So, this will be
37:25 great because hopefully it’ll be a little bit of repeat information, but when we have stress, we’re depleting our
37:31 stomach acid in general. And if that’s depleted and we’re not digesting there can kind of be this sort of like back um
37:38 I call it kind of like back flux or it’s sort of like you’re not digesting overall. So the body kind of it just
37:44 kind of comes back up a little bit. And so for some people just adding acid can
37:50 be something that they can do or they can trial. So it’s pretty easy to find
37:55 like some people will trial like a shot of apple cider vinegar and it will improve things for them. That was never
38:01 me. I actually did worse with that. I just mentioned that there’s always lots of like there’s kind of a lot of
38:08 options. And so there’s like here’s this really cheap easy option. You don’t really even have to maybe buy anything,
38:13 right? Type thing. But some people they add acid and it actually improves our digestion and they stop having reflux.
38:19 So that’s one possibility. Another possibility is that stomach acid has gotten low enough where we have different kind of dispiosis in the gut.
38:26 So one that’s very common that I would see all the time on testing but is not very commonly picked up in conventional
38:33 testing is helicoacttor pylori and our prevalence for this in the United States
38:38 is I think in the literature I think it’s 30ish% I don’t know if it gets to 50% in some places I know in the Middle
38:45 East it’s up to 80% prevalent and to the point where they actually chew mastic gum after and I don’t I don’t know that
38:52 it’s like that’s the reason but I have a friend um from Jordan and we talked talk a lot about this and she said, “Yeah,
38:58 it’s like really cultural for people to actually chew on this resin from trees that can help balance that H pylori or
39:04 help correct that overall.” Now, this is a little bit of a of a a spicy topic
39:10 depending on who you’re talking to because if I say this and you go into your regular provider and get testing, it may come back negative. And I used to
39:16 work in conventional care for eight years before I went into private practice and I saw this. I saw I had a guy who had like severe symptoms um
39:24 because he was he was a patient we would see in the clinic all the time. He had severe symptoms. He’d go on intense antibiotics, things would get a little
39:31 bit better and then it would just come back with a vengeance. But he would test positive negative positive negative for H. pylori. And in retrospect, many many
39:38 years later, I now see like that was never corrected. That was never corrected because um you can correct the
39:43 H. pylori balance, but ultimately you also have to support that stomach acid. And so, as you can imagine, stress can
39:48 be an area where things get out of balance in general. The other reason it’s a little bit spicy is because some
39:54 people uh we’re a little bit at odds. People say that H. pylori should be like
39:59 a commensal normal um organism in the gut that there should be some there. But I would say like from my perspective
40:07 working with real humans in front of me is that when they have that overgrown, they usually had symptoms. So we would
40:13 usually pursue correcting that imbalance or try to bring that back into balance. Also there are some significant
40:19 virilence factors that can be associated with H. pylori that can cause ulcers,
40:24 stomach caster gastric cancer, throat cancer. And I’m just like not willing to put up with stuff like that. I I just
40:31 think why don’t we prevent as much cancer as possible? That would be great. So that’s my kind of take on on H pylori
40:38 a little bit. Now, another one more common cause I see for reflux or maybe I
40:43 like to use the words reflux, indigestion, and heartburn. And it even group burping in here because burping is
40:50 the first sign of something not really being digested properly. And that’s all
40:56 we’re talking about is something’s not being digested properly and now we’re kind of it’s like coming back up overall. And of course, there’s all
41:02 these other little like side topics, right, about spicy foods or or foods that relax the lower esophageal
41:08 sphincter and allow that stuff to come up. So, there’s a lot of like little nuance, but another thing that I
41:14 especially see as a cause of low stomach acid, is mineral um balance. And so,
41:20 certain minerals that are depleted with with stress, namely potassium, sodium,
41:25 which you’re not going to really find at a regular conventional prover’s office. I’ve just I’ve had some I’ve seen a lot
41:31 of um kind of alternative testing that has shown this and the results have just been like crazy. I’ve seen where okay
41:39 when you’re uh when these two nutrients are low, you’re having a lot more burping. You’re really digesting poorly because these are part of the
41:45 ingredients to making the stomach acid that the body uses. They’re just part of the ingredients. You know, nutrients
41:51 make the world go around in the body, right? They help make all reactions happen. So, these are part of those
41:56 nutrients that are depleted with stress. So in short, stress is always a self-limiting factor with reflux in
42:02 general and it can cause like there’s just a lot of adjacent issues like is there also an ulcer? Is there also like
42:09 inflamed gut tissue or gastritis? And if that’s the case, we want to give a lot of soothing support to that. Um but our
42:15 goal is always kind of the same, which is to correct the issues happening with
42:20 digestion and to support them to stay corrected and to let people know that because you fix something once doesn’t
42:26 mean you’ll never have this problem again. you created this this this problem was created in the first place.
42:31 And here’s another really tricky one is that we share microbiome with our families and we share micro we share
42:38 organisms or pathogens. We share bacteria with people we’re sharing spoons and cups and whatnot with and
42:45 kissing. So that can make it a little bit interesting. And I always say like look at your partner and see how their
42:51 um digestion, you know, reflux, uh, burping, etc., all of that is because that’s going to give you a signal to how
42:57 at least the upper part of the digestive system is working and they’re going to be sharing any kinds of imbalances with
43:03 you and potentially reinfecting you. Even pets can be a vector point um, with this. I’ve had some fun chats with
43:08 veterinarians about pets actually having h pylori as well. And um we think that
43:13 it’s very possible, right, that a pet could look a person’s face and potentially give them this organism
43:18 also. And unfortunately, our testing is not amazing, but also fortunately, there’s a lot of things you can do to
43:24 bring that back into balance. As I was talking about earlier, mastic gum has been long used for a long time. We use a
43:29 lot of different things, but um there’s always lots of options. So that’s the good news. Yeah. So I would say the points I kind
43:36 of would take from that are 100% H. pylori in traditional medicine is not
43:43 well tested for documented. A lot of the tests that they do have high false false
43:49 negative rates, right? So like the breath test and then I’ve seen tons of people who actually get scoped and have
43:55 biopsies but then do a stool test and have PCR for H. pylori because they’re biopsying one place in your GI tract and
44:02 H. pylori can live in more than one place, right? So, if you biopsy a tiny piece of the stomach, but that piece
44:09 just didn’t have any H pylori and it’s, you know, there’s the entire rest of your stomach has H pylori, that doesn’t
44:14 mean you don’t have H pylori. And so, there is a lot of kickback from traditional medicine. And then when you
44:20 do have H pylori, it’s like, oh, let’s just dump all these antibiotics in them so we completely obliterate the rest of
44:26 their GI tract when there are other ways to treat it. So, I do think that acid
44:31 reflux in general needs a lot more discussion from a holistic standpoint. I
44:37 do think that a lot of times it can be stomach acid or digestion driven, but a lot of times it’s stress driven as well.
44:43 And so, you know, it’s just really I mean, again, this is just kind of bringing to everyone’s awareness how
44:49 much stress can actually affect just your gut, not to mention your weight, your sleep, your hormones, and other
44:55 things like that. So, I want to kind of start to transition into the three
45:01 questions I ask everyone at the end of the podcast. But before I go there, there’s one thing I want to ask you
45:07 briefly. Um, you know, on Instagram, you talk a lot about myths like around
45:13 probiotics or food testing or supplements. I think there is a ton of misleading information and myths,
45:18 especially about gut health in the, you know, Instagram space. And so, what is a
45:25 myth that you find most damaging out there right now that’s just kind of
45:30 trending? And what is the actual truth about that? And if it can be related to gut health, great. But if not, if it’s
45:36 eczema, skin, stress, but like what is a myth that influencers are talking about that’s actually really damaging to
45:43 people’s health? Well, I feel like a dinosaur on being on trend because to me
45:49 I feel like one of the biggest problems is overrestriction, right? And you know,
45:54 when you’re in the bottle, it’s sort of like, well, I hopefully that we’ve kind of moved on from this, right? But doing
46:00 just going and doing food sensitivity testing and then restricting without any rhyme or reason or plan or strategy I
46:05 find really damaging or going in you know this whole like stress reactive uh
46:12 approach where it’s like uh I’m throwing spaghetti at but just generally the overrestriction for me is the one that
46:18 kind of breaks my heart the most because when we’re overrestricting we’re absolutely not getting to the root cause of something and we’re not really
46:24 supporting any of those systems that are just begging for help. we’re actually just kind of I would say masking um
46:31 what’s really going on. And the real challenge here is that when people restrict for a long term, so when people
46:36 go what’s hot right now is carnivore. And I like I want you to know like I have no judgment around people changing
46:42 their diet or experimenting with food, I really don’t care. I’m just not super interested anymore, right? Like I see
46:49 too many negative out, you know, fallouts of this. But what I can say with certainty is the longer and more
46:55 restrictive someone has been, it’s almost like they just went 12 steps backward on trying to get them back online. Like it is a disaster sometimes
47:04 when people have been restricting for I would say like more than several months, but if they’ve been really restrictive
47:09 for like over a year, it is it is such a roller coaster. And they have developed
47:15 probably some unconscious orthorexia, right? Which is that disordered eating in the name of health. Um, and so
47:21 they’ve they’re so obsessed with the food that it’s like literally driving
47:26 the stress like the the stress is is talking to the immune system. So like everything sucks. So that I feel is like
47:34 so damaging. We’ve kind of come there’s like been such a there’s been such a
47:40 journey of it over the years. Like it used to be in 2010 like all functional medicine was like do this elimination
47:45 diet and I don’t even know if that’s as common now but now I just see the people out there influencing for like you know
47:53 high protein or or carnivore and I don’t again I think that there’s a lot of
47:58 options for people and you can do different things. I just get really worried that that’s like the tactic and
48:04 there’s no other plan beyond that. And I would say that a lot of influencers that were ones like even the people who
48:10 started Whole 30 have really even like kind of shifted into a more um an approach that’s a little bit softer
48:17 overall, right? Like it used to be pretty I think dogma is the real is the real threat in on Instagram or in the
48:24 world and it sells. So people are excited about dogma and I think dogma to
48:29 me is a red flag at this point in my career, right? like if you’re too if you’re too something if you’re too like
48:34 attached to some particular thing or outcome. Yeah. No, I completely agree. I think
48:39 that overrestriction is a huge problem and not only for stress but lots of
48:47 reasons it develops you know eating disorders and things like that. The true
48:53 flex in my opinion is if you can have muscle and eat a lot. I mean, if you
48:59 have muscle and you eat a lot, then I mean, you know, eating is a part of life. I’m not saying it’s, you know, but
49:05 it it is nice. And to your point, like to be able to just go and and eat when you’re hungry and eat until you’re full
49:12 and not be super restrictive on what you’re eating, but nourishing your body with good nutrients. I mean, that is
49:17 like the ultimate flex. Our, you know, my health coach works with a lot of people at our office and we have to do a
49:24 lot of reverse dieting in people and teaching them that 1300 calories a day for seven years while we’re doing two
49:31 hours of Pilates is not the answer. You can do it, but you’re at my office paying me a lot of money for a reason,
49:37 and it’s because what you’ve been doing for seven years doesn’t work. So you can think whatever you want to think or you
49:42 can, you know, get on board and we can start reverse dieting you back into some decent amount of calories so your body’s
49:48 not always chronically restricted, your adrenals aren’t mad and you actually get better, you know. But it’s like this
49:53 culture that we have, we grew up in this diet culture in the 80s, right, where it was like all the cardio, all the low
49:59 fat, all the dieting, but it honestly doesn’t work. And so I think that that
50:05 is a huge myth that’s very harmful on social media and you know the intermittent fasting like if you’re 100
50:11 pounds overweight or the keto then do I think there’s some benefit in that for a couple three months 100%. Do I think
50:18 that you should do keto and intermittent fast 18 hours a day for the rest of your life? I don’t like and I’ll, you know,
50:25 stand on a grave screaming that because there’s, you know, you’re missing a lot of nutrients with keto and you’re
50:30 missing a lot of, you know, calories if you restrict like that long term and then you end up with muscle deficiency
50:36 and things like that. So, I think that’s a very a very good point. Well, it’s kind of like, you know, are
50:42 we the same people we were five years ago or 10 years ago? And so, usually your diet would not stay the same. And I
50:48 think I think the challenge or to me, I think that there’s always room for cycling, right? like cycling something
50:53 and I was getting annoyed also by people being on the same supplements forever as well. It’s like, well, why why do you
50:59 need this particular thing? Like, if you cannot tell me why you need this specific thing, right? Then why? So, I’m a huge fan of cycling, which is kind of
51:06 what I think that’s what we miss with dogma is we miss like nuance and cycling
51:11 and and it just doesn’t always fit in that particular sound bite. So, I agree. Yep. I cycle my supplements. I cycle my
51:19 exercise. I cycle, you know, the foods that I eat based on the season. Um, so
51:25 yeah, I think that that’s very it’s powerful. So, okay. Well, this has been
51:30 a very interesting conversation. So, I want to ask you these three questions I
51:36 ask every podcast guest and I don’t want you to overthink it, but these are just helpful things. So, the first one is,
51:42 what is one food that’s most beneficial and why that you think currently?
51:47 Obviously, it’s not going to be the same as five years ago, but right now, what is your one beneficial food and why does it benefit you?
51:53 Yeah. I mean, the first one I think I could have 12 answers to this and I’m okay with that. Like, what comes to my
51:58 mind today is just I’m like in wanting my son to grow me some more sprouts for
52:05 those sulfur compounds, for those brasica sulfur compounds for detoxification. And this is just again
52:11 cycling like he hasn’t made them for a long time, but it’s like they’re these little tiny little seed superhouses. And
52:17 so it’s just like sometimes if I can get my 11-year-old son to grow me some sprouts that I’m like I’m ready for
52:22 those sprouts or I love actually I’m going to this reminds me of just my love
52:27 for herbs right now and we’re kind of like where I live we’re coming into the end of our gardening season so I just made a ton of pesto um and I’ll make
52:34 some parsley pesto and I am so obsessed with like freeze-dried herbs that maintain so many phytonutrients. So, um,
52:41 we get more phytonutrients often from these like little herbs than we can from
52:46 fruits and vegetables. So, I remember when I first got exposed to freeze-dried herbs, I kind of went home and threw everything else away because they were
52:52 just so potent, so packed with lovely nutrition. And so, as I come into the end of this season, I’m trying to
52:57 preserve that and freeze myself some pestos and get some freeze-dried herbs as well. So,
53:03 awesome. So the next question would be, what is one thing that anyone can do for
53:08 their health that improves their health that’s 100% free? I would say what comes to mind and
53:14 mostly because I’m thinking about food and seasons and you just brought this up in cycling is um one of my favorite
53:19 things to support health that’s like makes health cheaper is shopping seasonally because we become creatures
53:25 of habit and so it becomes easy to shop seasonally by buying whatever’s on sale because usually what’s on sale is
53:30 seasonal, right? they have a lot of it at that time. And so it kind of is like a win-winwin, right? It’s like buy the
53:37 thing that’s in season that’s on sale and then you’re going to get diversity from these different particular fibers
53:42 that feed different bacteria in a better way. You’re going to get all these different color changes, etc. And you’re
53:48 saving money. So, I always think that that there’s a lot of free ones, but since we were just on food, that’s the
53:53 one that came to mind first. Okay. Well, here’s another free tip for people listening as far as digestion
53:59 goes. chew your food. Like chew your food, you know, 10 to 12 times as opposed to just like shoveling it in
54:06 your mouth. That’s free. Helps you digest it better, right? I was just watching people recently. I
54:12 was traveling and like watching people eat at an airport is alarming in so many
54:18 ways, but one of them was like, I mean, this person was just like shoveling a spoon of food in their mouth like every
54:24 3 seconds. I couldn’t even breathe that fast. And I was like, good lord. You know, I like when I go to Europe, I like
54:31 to, you know, I people always talk about how the food is so much better in Europe, and that might be true, but my
54:37 experience there is like staying up late, lots of smoking, lots of drinking, etc. And they’re having fun and they’re
54:44 really enjoying life and like stimulating dope, I think it’s opioid receptors, right, which also talk the
54:49 immune system. But I only bring this up because their rate of actually enjoying
54:54 a meal is unparalleled, I think. like they just enjoy meals and enjoy time and
55:02 I yeah if you want to see like how we are taught between our military and our school system it’s almost the same on on
55:09 like the speed of eating unfortunately and so I had to I had to really unlearn you know reverse dieting is a is a term
55:15 that is familiar but we need to come up with a term for uh reversing fast eating
55:20 as well it’s like we got to stop to chew as well
55:26 reverse kneeling might I don’t know what it is. Okay. And the last question is, what is
55:32 one thing you wish you would have known about your health 15 years ago that you would have done differently?
55:39 15 years ago. I won’t overthink this. I think it would probably have something to do with stress because, you know, I
55:46 ultimately think I went through three healing journeys and they kind of parallel all those systems. The first one was skin which was a gut and
55:52 drainage journey. And then the next one was an adrenal and thyroid journey and stress hormone journey. And finally, I
55:59 feel like my most recent one was around inner healing and emotional work. And I feel like a lot of people who’ve been in the space for a long time um would say
56:07 that as well like they’ve gone through a lot of um just kind of reparenting or whatever, right? So to to impact how
56:14 their own nervous system is processing through stress. So I think if I could go back 15 years ago and I had younger
56:20 children at that time was I would love to have some of that emotional intelligence work even earlier because
56:26 or even attachment theory stuff. It’s like this stuff you don’t think is actually relevant to your career
56:31 whatsoever. Right? I went to school for nutrition and I was completely unprepared for the amount of anxiety that walked into my office every single
56:38 day as I started working with gut health because everyone was anxious. Right? And so my own attachments, my own stuff
56:44 shows up there, right? in how we show up with people. And I think probably an underredited conversation that you’ve
56:50 mentioned a little bit is that you were talking about how nurses and providers like, you know, sometimes have a a a
56:57 higher threshold for not feeling good. And I would say that for sure. I always see that with my nurse clients. It’s
57:02 like, oh my gosh, you guys have a real high tolerance because you you see you
57:08 see really tough stuff all the time, right? And so if I could go back and support myself with all of that kind of
57:14 stuff earlier just to show up better. You know, taking care of yourself is the most important. The longer you’ve been
57:20 in practice, you realize that you can only help people if you’re taking care of yourself, right? You have that own oxygen mask on first. And so I’m always
57:28 asking myself two important questions. What’s in best service to my client? But the other question that must always
57:33 filter through but doesn’t burn me out. And so that’s a really um interesting
57:38 thing as a person who performed for results and really likes results in
57:44 general and derived a lot of value from work etc. And so if I could go at 15 years I would do some of that healing
57:50 around performance-based mindset etc earlier whenever possible just because it would help my own clients and myself
57:56 a lot better. But no regrets. I think that’s a great answer. Okay. So
58:02 tell everyone, Christina, where they can find you, what you have going on. Yeah, it’s uh Christa, which is okay.
58:11 People say Christina all the time. No problem. So I’m over at kristabigler.com.
58:16 Um and I have a whole page of just some different whatever is going on right now. Chrisigler.comlinks.
58:23 Recently, I just came out with a secret like a little niche podcast called Unrestricted on how to um heal eczema
58:31 and food sensitivities without unnecessary restriction and endless testing as you were talking about earlier. So, that is something I was
58:37 working on just very recently. I’ve got some other things in the works, but that page shows you everything. And I’m also
58:42 over on Instagram at anti-inflammatory nutritionist as well. I have a podcast that I’ve had since 2017 called The Less
58:49 Stressed Life. So, um, always looking to have more nerdy conversations over there.
58:54 And what’s the new one called? The new podcast. The new podcast is just like a niche secret podcast, right, that you have to
59:00 opt into, but it’s called unrestricted. And that’s just like a quick 10. It’s bingeable. It’s like less than 45
59:06 minutes in total, but little tiny things with some case studies. I talk about eczema types. I talk about the systems
59:12 that need to be supported, etc. So, I just kind of get into those little tiny bite-sized sections. So,
59:18 I love that. Okay. Yeah, it’s kind of a nice when you’ve had, you know, when you have over 400 episodes on your main podcast, sometimes
59:24 it’s nice for people to say, “If I have this issue, you know, where could I start?” And I would say like, “Oh, you can just start right there, few minutes
59:31 at a time.” And so, you just did you take old podcast or you made all new stuff? No, I just made new stuff. I actually
59:37 from the first time I published it, I actually redid the whole thing as well, just because it was meant to be short,
59:43 sweet, to the point, you know, and sometimes your first draft is not your final draft. Well, pretty much ever, right? um never the final draft, but it
59:50 was just something that I wanted to put out there in a in a way that was really kind of familiar to me and kind of
59:55 interesting. So, those are speaking of trendy things, I feel like a secret podcast is kind of a trendy thing right
1:00:01 now, but it felt right as a person who’s like a podcast fiend. So, I like that secret podcast. Okay. Well,
1:00:08 Christa Bigler, thank you so much for coming on and chatting with my audience. I know they’re going to love this. just
1:00:15 some tips on gut health and you know skin issues and we’ll make sure that all
1:00:21 your stuff is linked in the show notes. Thank you so much for having me. I enjoyed it. If you can relate to any of the things
1:00:26 that we discussed in this podcast like maybe you have a really bad skin rash, you’ve seen several dermatologists,
1:00:32 you’ve tried tons of creams, but you still have this rash or this itchy skin. Or maybe you do feel stressed and after
1:00:40 you know you feel these stressful situations or you have to go to this stressful job, you notice that your stomach hurts or you’re not sleeping as
1:00:47 well. Anything that we talked about, you have acid reflux and you don’t know what brings it on, but you can’t really make
1:00:53 it better and you’ve been on a PPI for years. Any of these things we discussed today, they’re all a reflection and tied
1:00:59 back to your gut health, also to your adrenal glands and your stress. And so if you found any of this beneficial or
1:01:06 educational, I would like for you to do a few things for me. Share this with anyone that you know that is also struggling with this. Education is
1:01:12 powerful and this is how we demand more out of our health care system, out of our providers, and just in general as
1:01:18 patients. So share this with anyone who could benefit. Leave me a review wherever you get your podcast. Follow me
1:01:25 on social media and let me know if you like this type of content, what content you want me to continue to focus on,
1:01:30 what sort of education I can provide you so that we’re not just relying on myths from influencers on Instagram. And
1:01:37 lastly, if you have not seen our gut health accelerator webinar, I do a live one every month where I’ll help you
1:01:43 connect the dots between symptoms and teach you about the six gut health types and why they are so important. So,
1:01:48 you’ll want to get registered to see the next one. It can single-handedly change the trajectory of your health.
1:01:55 Modernocrine now has a license in 42 states. We’re accepting virtual patients in every state or you’re welcome to come
1:02:02 see us in person in Oklahoma City. So, you can check that on our website as well. Thank you so much for spending
1:02:07 this last hour with me and dedicating to dedicating your time to learning more
1:02:13 about your health. I’ll see you next week. The information presented, including any
1:02:19 materials discussed, referenced or linked within this podcast, are for general educational purposes only, not
1:02:26 the practice of medicine. No doctor patient relationship is formed from you listening to this podcast or utilizing
1:02:32 any of the information provided. I am a doctor, but I am not talking to you as your doctor. The information provided is
1:02:40 not intended to diagnose or treat health problems or take the place of the professional medical care provided by
1:02:47 your doctor. If you are experiencing any health problems, including problems you believe have been touched upon in any
1:02:53 respect within this podcast, you should consult your doctor about the problems without delay. You may ask your doctor
1:03:00 whether he or she believes the information I have provided would be helpful to you, but you should still
1:03:06 consult your doctor immediately and follow his or her medical advice as your treating physician. I’m just here to
1:03:12 provide you basic knowledge about the issues we discuss so you are more aware of them and can better discuss them with
1:03:18 your doctor. That’s why we call it back to the basics. Join me on the next episode as we continue our journey.
1:03:26 [Music]
Disclaimer:
The information presented including any materials discussed, referenced, or linked within this podcast are for general educational purposes only, not the practice of medicine.
No doctor-patient relationship is formed from you listening to this podcast or utilizing any of the information provided.
I am a doctor, but I am not talking to you as your doctor. The information provided is not intended to diagnose or treat health problems or take the place of the professional medical care provided by your doctor.
If you are experiencing any health problems, including problems you believe have been touched upon in any respect within this podcast, you should consult your doctor about the problems without delay. You may ask your doctor whether he or she believes the information I have provided would be helpful to you, but you should still consult your doctor immediately and follow his or her medical advice as your treating physician.
I’m just here to provide you with basic knowledge about the issues we discuss so you are more aware of them and can better discuss them with your doctor.
That’s why we call it Back to the Basics. Join me on the next episode as we continue our journey.