Will a Gut Cleanse Solve Your Digestive Issues?

It may seem like the easier choice - follow a quick supplement protocol & have all your gut issues resolved in a matter of weeks. But does it work? Join me for my thoughts and what I've seen work (and not work!).

Follow me on Instagram, and send me a DM to let me know what you resonated with in this episode. Ready to begin your gut rehab journey? Watch my program video and let's map out what that looks like for you.

Talk soon!
K


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Transcript

Katie Lovitt: 0:00

It's not just about your local gut environment. right now as it exists today. It's about how it got that way to begin with. Are those circumstances still going on to where, you know, maybe you'll remove or replace or whatever the organism is

0:19

Hey, everyone. Welcome to The Nourished and Thriving Show. I'm your host, Katie Lovitt. I'm a registered dietitian on a mission to help you increase your impact and legacy on the world while healing your gut and reducing your IBS symptoms. I'm so grateful to have you here. Each week I'll inspire you to live vibrantly and provide valuable resources and information that empowers you to take bold action towards your health goals. Before we dive in, make sure you follow or subscribe to my show wherever you're listening so you never miss an episode. Ready? Let's go!

Katie Lovitt: 0:59

Hey, guys, welcome back to the nourished and thriving show. I'm so excited to talk with you guys today about this topic. It's been coming up in our conversations in DMs on Instagram, even people responding to my emails that I'm sending out, which if you're not on my email newsletter list, you need to be because I'm always sharing tips and recipes over there. Reach out to me on Instagram and we can get you all set up. But people have been mentioning lately. nourished As we're talking about gut recap and talking about their hot mesquite and what they're going to do about it to actually get results, build butters, they can be free to live their lives again, instead of feeling like they're, you know, angry tummy bugs are ruling their lives. And I've heard it come up a few times. Oh, well. You know, that sounds amazing, Katie. Like you, what your work, that sounds awesome. Like you're getting results for clients. I'm seeing their testimonials. I'm listening to their stuff on your podcast and you're really effective, but I've been looking at just maybe doing a gut cleanse or just follow up, taking these supplements for a few months. You know, their marketing and advertising is saying it's going to get rid of all my issues too. It's going to take a lot less time on my part because I'm not having to learn. I'm not really changing much. I'm just taking these pills and it's going to fix it all for me. And they're saying that it can help and it's less money too, because I don't need, you know, all the expertise. It's shorter term. I'm just. buying these supplements and it's gonna fix it. And you know, that's all fine and good. And I do believe that there are good companies out there that are obviously marketing an effective product. Otherwise they wouldn't be in business or there would be lawsuits around them, which some of them, yes, you have lawsuits around them. So you may need to make sure that, you know, who you're looking at and researching, you know, their effectiveness, but not every company out there that's selling supplements is skeezy. Some of them are really, really good, but I wanted to just share it with all of you guys today. Why sometimes that's a great option for you. And why maybe sometimes it's not and just helping you walk through and think through that decision making process so that you're not potentially wasting time and money on something that's not going to help you or delaying just doing something that's really simple that could help you. So we're going to talk about all of that today. So does, does just doing a gut cleanse or taking a supplement protocol really pay off? So let me tell you guys, from what I've seen, I've been at this for a hot minute. I'm not new to this, like I've been working with people for years. I've helped hundreds of people reduce their gut symptoms by 80 to 90%. And if you're new around here, You know that I may have a sweet Texas accent. I may speak gently, but I speak the truth and I'm not afraid to give you a gentle, kind, loving kick in the pants if you need it. And ultimately it's out of love because I don't want you wasting your time. I don't want you not getting results. And so just know that I really am saying all of this. I care about you and I want you to feel better because I have been there myself with struggling with digestive symptoms, not knowing what to do about it, and just wanting to feel better. So I get it. So first of all, a lot of the time these gut cleanses or you know, gut, you know, whatever you wanna call it, supplement protocol that you're ordering online. It's honestly like it was just fair season here in Texas with the Texas State Fair. So I'm thinking of all the like fair games. It's like doing the like darts at the balloons. I don't know if that's even a fair game because we didn't do that, but I'm sure it is. Carnival game, whatever. It's like a classic, right? It's like throwing darts at the balloons, blindfolded, and you're not as skilled. dart thrower which in this instance, you would be a skilled dart thrower. Maybe if you had my experience, but honestly, I couldn't even give someone a gut cleanse and guarantee that it would get them results because you don't know what's going on. You don't know what direction the balloon is in. You don't know. What the balloon is. So in this case, the balloon could be a parasite in your gut. It could be a bacterial infection. It could be by normal bacteria. That's just in the wrong place. Like we see in the case of SIBO. You just don't know where your target is. So by taking a supplement, who knows if it's going to help, right? You're like, maybe you'll get lucky, you know, maybe you'll get lucky. And it'll help you, but maybe you won't. A lot of the time you won't honestly, because it's more complicated than that. And that really takes me to my second point is whatever a supplement is doing is really just one of like seven plus parts that go into gut health. It's not just about your local gut environment. right now as it exists today. It's about how it got that way to begin with. Are those circumstances still going on to where, you know, maybe you'll remove or replace or whatever the organism is. But if those circumstances are still present that got you there in the first place, you're going to maybe feel better for a little bit, maybe. And then you're going to end up right back where you started because the actual issue is still there. Like the actual issue most of the time isn't the pathogen the bad bacteria, the bad bug. It's whatever allowed it to be there in the first place. And there's a lot of different things that can go into that. And some of it's food and some of it's hydration, but some of it is stress. Some of it is relationship boundaries and team time management and sleep and exercise and of course nutrition. Like I said but it's not just supplements. And so even though it may help in the short term, oftentimes what I see whenever people just follow these gut protocols or even my own clients in gut rehab, if we haven't been able to fully identify all of the issues yet, somebody might lose their focus. feel better. And then we noticed symptoms start coming in. And the differences whenever you're doing gut rehab, you have me there with you to like phone a friend and be like, Hey, starting to feel bloated again. Okay, let's take a look. That's information that we need to know that your body is telling us what's still sitting here that we missed. What have we not seen yet? Because I've always said this, you know, healing your gut. I like to speak in like analogies and metaphors. So hopefully you appreciate this. I always say healing your gut is like you're following a map or GPS, but you don't get the really big overview of your entire route. You just get the turn by turn direction. So even me, like I'm getting the turn left in 50 feet with you, but then I can help you evaluate where we're at and then help us decide where to go from there. Or, you know, Hey, you missed your street when you turn around and go back. But if you're just doing a. A supplement protocol that you bought online. You don't have any of that. So you're just flying free. And then the disappointment at the end of that, after you put all your weight in this thing, and it's going to be the thing that fixes everything. And then you're so disappointed at the end and you're like, well, I'm never going to get better. You know, I did this, I followed all the rules, and these supplement companies, their marketing is so great, you know, they want you to think that this is all you need to do, and this is the thing, and you want it to be the thing so badly because you want to feel better, but sometimes it's just not the thing, or it's not the whole thing, you know, there's just more to it that you need to do, so maybe it's completely off, and you need to completely start over, but maybe it's just a part of it, and you need to keep going, but you're going through it. Not really sure where your next turn is. That's the benefit of working with a skilled provider and really investing the time and finances and energy into understanding your body. Because then whenever you walk away from working with me, you graduate. You have a clear understanding of your owner's manual for your body. You know how you respond to different things. You know what, who the players typically are. If you start to have gut symptoms and how to manage them, instead of feeling hopeless or feeling like you have to start over, you have confidence and clarity in your own body and how to navigate that. And that's life changing you guys. That's. life changing. So that's the second thing. So first of all, you don't know if it's going to work. You don't know if it's going to work. You're throwing dark darts, blindfolded at a balloon that you don't even know where it is or what the balloon is. Maybe you'll get likely lucky. Maybe you won't. The second one is it's only one part of gut healing. I've done this for so long. I see. It's so comprehensive. I always, you guys probably get tired of me saying our bodies are systems of systems and just. You know, targeting what's going on in your gut at a microbial level is not enough to heal your gut long term and provide long term symptom relief and true healing. And then third, do you really know what is in the supplements? Is it the quality that you think you're going to be getting? Is it safe to take? Is it going to interact with a medication that you're on? Is it going to make you feel sick? Is it going to cause more harm than good? You don't really know. You know, I think a lot of the time people think that just because something is natural, that it's safe. And that's not the case. Many poisons are from plants, right? You need to know what you're doing. You need to really understand what's in the supplements. Is it something that can make you feel worse? Is it something that can interact with the medication? And like I said before, on that first point that I made, if you don't really know what the issue is, You can't really answer if that supplement is safe for you to take or not, or if it's going to make something worse. And then just speaking to quality for a minute supplement quality in the U. S. is really, really unregulated. And so what a company might say is in a product. May not actually be in the product at that level. So you know, is the dose of the active ingredient actually even effective to what it says it's supposed to do? You don't know, like, unless it's a really great company that is testing every single batch of product that they're making, which most aren't you don't really know. Are there contaminants in there like heavy metals or you know, other things like that? Possibly there's actually a really good chance that there could be some mold or contaminants like heavy metals in a supplement because they're not really well regulated and they're not testing every single batch and a lot of them are using like co packers where they don't fully own the manufacturing process. And so it's not highly controlled. And so you're really just trusting a marketing promise, honestly, with the quality of the supplements and your health. And so I just really challenge you to think about these points like. Do you really want to trust a marketing product promise with your, with your health? You know, do you really want to trust a business who is selling supplements without guidance with your health? Do you feel like that's really going to provide the answers and long term relief that you're seeking? You know maybe it will, maybe you'll get lucky, but honestly. I don't hear it often. I don't hear it often. It's, I've just been doing it for so long. And just knowing that what helps my clients and what all goes into that, the ones who truly see huge symptom improvement and huge long term successes and long term changes in their health. I just don't buy it. I just don't think that just taking some supplements is going to do it for you. So those are my two cents. I think that what you need instead is a comprehensive plan. So if you were on team got cleansed, I'm going to do a supplement protocol that I found online and you feel like I've made some really valid points today. And you'd like to talk some more about What I can do to help you, how I can help you have a strategic plan, not waste your time and energy and money on something that may or may not work for you may or may not be good quality. I'd love to talk with you, reach out with me on Instagram. Let's chat about, you know, what a comprehensive plan for you might be able to do, what it looks like, how I can help you. And I'd love to do that, but just if you are buying supplements online or, you know, putting all of your hope in a plan just please research the quality and make sure that it's. Not gonna make you feel worse. So at the very, very least. So I hope that that provided some clarity for you guys and we'll talk soon.

13:45

Thank you so much for listening to the entire episode. I hope you are feeling inspired and empowered to take bold action towards your health goals. If you enjoy what you heard, don't forget to follow my show so you never miss a new episode. And it would mean the world to me, if you left me a review, so others know what to expect from my show. Last, get in touch. Let me know what bold action you're taking. Let me know how you're inspired. Follow me on Instagram@the_healthygut_dietitian. I've put a link in my show notes for you, so you can simply click and follow. Come say hi, I respond to all my messages and I can't wait to get in touch.