It has been 3 weeks since my first appointment with Carissa where I left feeling pumped and totally inspired for my challenge! I was committed to being gluten and dairy free and was happy to swap in plenty of awesome alternatives (because trust me there are plenty and a post on that to come!)…so naturally I wanted to bound in to my follow up appointment full of self praise and feeling 100% cured of all digestive issues and potential gut problems!
Ok ok, so perhaps this expectation was a little over zealous and maybe even naive…and while I felt as though a couple of Carissa’s digestive tips definitely seemed to help with some of the lesser issues, there were also things that continued to occur…specifically (sorry about the detail!) the gas and constipation!
I think I also had to remind myself that 3 weeks is not a long time in the scheme of things and sometimes life can just get in the way. Before I met with Carissa I was running through the previous 3 weeks and some of the reasons why perhaps I wasn’t feeling as amazing as I had hoped:
Hurdle #1 Wedding away in the country! So I LOVE a good wedding, enjoying a few champagnes, good company and good vibes. The food at the wedding was gorgeous, so I tucked in to almost everything. By the time I arrived home in Brisbane on Sunday, I had eaten my share of gluten and dairy – and so be it! While I didn’t feel the best (probably a combination of alcohol and a little overindulgence) I certainly didn’t feel as though I had failed, I really had a great weekend away and certainly had no regrets. HOWEVER, this probably did not do my any favours in trying to determine whether gluten and dairy were playing games with my guts!?
Hurdle #2 I picked up a little tummy bug from one of the kids…as we do as parents of kids who attend daycare and eat dirt, am I right?! It was absolutely nothing major, but gave me some stomach cramping and led to some (again the detail!) diarrhoea…really only lasting a day or two max but again kind of threw the whole food testing thing out the window!
Hurdle #3 When I think about trying to avoid certain foods (and swapping in others), I may have a tendency to over-eat other foods…and really too much of anything is probably not great for your guts (unless of course it’s veggies ;-)) So I was constantly snacking on nuts, perhaps a little too much fruit, healthy baked goods I had whipped up etc etc. In my eyes it’s all good and nutritious so a second or third helping can’t be bad…can it?!
I appreciate that none of the above seem that dramatic and my situation is certainly NOT dire, but is it too much to ask that I get through the day without constant gas and that I manage regular bowel movements?! Wow, how my priorities have changed over the years…haha!
Anywho, I got to my appointment with Carissa and admittedly felt a pang of disappointment that I couldn’t tell her I was cured and everything was amazing…but of course she took it all like a champ and immediately came back with some fresh suggestions and some other potential causes.
Firstly, we had a great old chat about Liver Function…of course I knew the liver was important, but I guess I never really thought about it too much…and to directly quote Carissa, in a nutshell, here is what it is responsible for…
The Liver has to process almost everything that we put into our bodies – good and bad. It just sits off the the side constantly processing and detoxifying day in – day out. This does not just end at the ‘food’ level – our liver also has to deal with all our hormones and their metabolites and move these along to be excreted or re-circulated. There is also a host of biochemical reactions that occur in the liver, one to specifically mention is that of T3 and T4 { which has to do with the thyroid } so you can imagine that if our liver is struggling, overburdened and/or inflamed – the other organs in our body are also affected. Stress and stress hormones place a massive strain on our liver as does poor GIT function – if we are not eliminating our toxins as the liver clears them these toxins simply get recirculated and the poor old liver will have to deal with them again.
So I guess it’s pretty damn important, right?!
As we continued to chat about liver function, I started to track back and think about why my liver might not be functioning optimally. And brought myself back to my late teens/early 20’s where (in hindsight) I was simply NOT healthy. At this time of course, I was having a ball enjoying myself and really just living my life with very few worries or responsibilities….I was drinking and partying a lot, eating badly and rarely looking after myself in terms of exercise, rest and recovery. And while I absolutely do not take back or regret these years, I wonder whether this is now coming back to bite me when I do have the odd blow out, or a few drinks over the weekend? Perhaps my body just cannot process or handle it efficiently enough…?
Ok for some of you this might all sound too hard and you probably think I’m getting a little bit carried away with it all, but honestly I love it and if nothing else I am enamoured by the information and research and really just love learning!
So back to it…the liver chat was enlightening and did make me really think about how your past habits can come back to bite you in some form – and for me this MAY include the development of a food intolerance or another GIT issue? Or it could be that my liver was overtaxed during these years and has never really made it back to optimal functioning?
Carissa and I discussed many options for natural liver detox solutions (some easy and yummy green smoothie recipes to try!) and other ways I can try and ease the gas and constipation and we both agreed it was best to not change too much – otherwise how do we know what’s working and what’s not?! So at this stage, I am sticking with gluten and diary free (giving it a real red hot go!) and I’m also satisfied that nutritionally I am not getting anything of major benefit from these food groups that I am not getting in abundance through my regular diet. I’m also happy to report that I’m starting to quite enjoy my Almond Milk flat white 😉 (stop the press, haha!) and know all the good spots to go!
In addition to the gluten and dairy free, I am ramping up my fibre intake to try and get my bowels going more regularly…I’ve used store bought fibre powder in the past but it has not always worked consistently for me, so I’m adding more of certain types of veggies (cooked and raw) to my meals and a teaspoon of psyllium husk in water between breakie and lunch and just a quick reason why…(to quote Carissa again!)
As well as been a great source of fibre, PH is a great ‘binder’. It acts a bit like an intestinal broom. As it moves through the GI tract, it collects ‘stagnant debris’ ..that has not been cleared, this is typical from long standing constipation – stuff is just sitting in your bowels festering away until something (hopefully fibre) clears it and moves it through! Obviously Gas can be caused by a host of other things, food intolerances and/or microbial imbalance in the gut – but trying to get the GUT to have some healthy bowel motions is a good way to start!
There you have it Sisters, my work in progress continues! Just a reminder that these tid-bits of info/advice are for me and my situation.
And to finish off this essay of a blog post (Soz!), these are my words of wisdom (ha!). At Soul Sister, we truly believe in a 90/10 (and sometimes 80/20) approach to diet and health…while we live and breathe good health 90% of the time, we believe that 10% (or 20%) should be for those favourite little indulgences – your wine with friends, the lindt Easter chocolates or whatever you desire! And one of the things that have taken from my appointments so far is that (for most people) if you have healthy Gut and Liver function, you should be able to enjoy a little bit of everything in moderation without the yucky consequences…and this my friends is exactly where I want to be!
Until next time…
Em x
