Alyssa Chavez [00:00:00]:
You. Hello my friend, and welcome back to the Endo Belly Girl podcast. So I recorded part one of this episode or released this part one of this episode a couple of weeks ago and got so much feedback from it. So I will definitely link to that. That was episode 17 in the show notes, if you haven't listened to that one yet and would like to go back. And this here is part two. So in part one, we dove into a whole bunch of different digestive symptoms that you may experience in your body and what those digestive symptoms might point to. Things like bloating at various times.
Alyssa Chavez [00:00:42]:
Are you bloating within an hour of eating? Are you bloating one to 2 hours after eating? Are you experiencing diarrhea? Constipation? Are you burping? Are you feeling full after your meals? Do you have stomach upset by greasy foods? We went through a whole bunch. I won't go through all the symptoms again because then I would just be re recording episode 17. But that's what we were diving into, is kind of taking a look at those different symptoms and what they might be telling you about what is going on in your body. So in part one, we are really focused in on digestive symptoms, and here in part two, we are going to be focusing in on some other stuff that is also very important and crucial for your health. So in today's episode, we're going to be looking at things like vitamin and mineral need, your blood sugar, and how well your body is regulating that, and your essential fatty acids. So a lot of these are nutrients that are very necessary for your body and signs and symptoms that you may have some deficiencies going on in your body. They also are very foundational to your health. There's a lot more things that I could dive into.
Alyssa Chavez [00:01:53]:
I considered looking at things like your adrenals and your thyroid and your immune health, and your kidneys and bladder. And there's so many different things that I could look at your detoxification, but I want to keep this as streamlined as possible for you all so that you don't get overwhelmed with trying to figure out what might be going on in your body. And of course, the foundations are always the best place to start. Definitely optimizing your digestion is very crucial, first and foremost. That's why we talked about that first, because if you don't have optimized digestion, you might just be not absorbing some of the nutrients that you need. So if we're going through this list and you notice that you're having a lot of need for vitamins and minerals and things like that. It could be that you simply are not getting enough of that in your diet, but it could also be that your digestive system is simply not absorbing those nutrients well. And that's why we look at that first.
Alyssa Chavez [00:02:53]:
That's why the process that I take my clients through in my one on one practice, we dive deep into digestion first and foremost before we look at some of this other stuff. Because oftentimes just optimizing digestion can make a huge difference in your overall health. Anyway. Now, again, similar to when we were talking about digestion, you're going to notice some overlap. There's some symptoms that can point to various nutrient deficiencies and things like that. There are also a lot of nutrients that are commonly deficient and show a lot of symptoms because of it. Zinc and magnesium are perfect examples. Those are two of probably the most common nutrient deficiencies that I see.
Alyssa Chavez [00:03:39]:
And fun fact, those nutrients are also necessary for producing stomach acid. So we wonder why so many people are deficient in stomach acid. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go back to episode 17 and listen to where I was talking about that. But zinc especially is one of the very common nutrients that we need to produce stomach acid and other very necessary substances in our bodies. And zinc and magnesium in particular are very commonly, as well as B vitamins. You're going to see those come up a lot as well, are very commonly depleted for multiple reasons. One, you may just simply not be getting enough in your diet. That's very common.
Alyssa Chavez [00:04:22]:
They also are commonly depleted with things like medication, birth control especially, although there are other medications that can lead to nutrient deficiencies. But birth control in particular does contribute to zinc, magnesium and B vitamin deficiencies. And of course, that is something that is very commonly used with endometriosis. So just kind of putting the puzzle pieces together. And guess what? Our good friend stress is another reason that zinc and magnesium can be commonly depleted, as well as some of the other nutrients that we're going to talk about. So if you're wondering, well, why in the world is my body deficient in some of these nutrients? That absolutely might be something to look at now. Again, just like when we talked about the digestive symptoms, the list I'm going to go through today is certainly not an exhaustive list. This is not every single symptom that could ever point to every single nutrient deficiency, because honestly, we would be here for hours and hours if we decided to go through all of that.
Alyssa Chavez [00:05:30]:
So what we're going to go through today is some of the most common or more common symptoms that I see in my practice. Some of the things that I hear about a lot from my audience and what some of those symptoms might point to as far as nutrient needs and things like that. So we've got a lot to get through today, so let's dive in. Okay, we're going to start off with the mineral and vitamin need. Very common. I think probably most, if not all of us have some sort of mineral and or vitamin deficiencies in our bodies. But helping to up the levels of that and bring ourselves back to optimum can be very, very beneficial for your health in many, many ways. So starting off carpal tunnel syndrome, that's where you have that kind of pain in your wrist.
Alyssa Chavez [00:06:27]:
It's very common with people who are on computers and things like that all day long that can actually point towards having a b six deficiency, as well as zinc and magnesium. If you have a history of stress fractures and or bone loss, that can point to needing nutrients like calcium, vitamin K, zinc, magnesium, manganese, potassium. Quite a list there. When it comes to bone health, I actually have a lot to say about bone health. It's not something that I talk about a whole lot because I know much of my audience listening to this podcast is more of reproductive age, where bone health is not probably top of mind, but as you get into pre menopausal and definitely post menopausal phases of your life, which we all will at some point or another, bone health is definitely something that's important, and that's actually something that I've received training on as well. How to optimize bone health and make sure that you're getting all the nutrients that you need so that you don't end up with bone loss as you go through the later years of life, because you want to be able to stay strong and healthy and be able to do all the things that you want to do. So something to think about even earlier on. Some people do experience things like stress fractures earlier on in life.
Alyssa Chavez [00:07:43]:
So if that's been an issue for you, that could point towards having some of these nutrient deficiencies if you experience calf, foot or toe cramps at rest, although really this can apply to any muscles in your body that can point towards calcium, magnesium and potassium deficiencies. And again, that could be any or all of those right now that can even apply to menstrual cramps. Your uterus is in fact made of muscle as well, and so muscle cramping of any kind can point towards those nutrient deficiencies so something to think about, but especially if you're getting, that's just a very common one, to have cramping in your calves, in your toes, in your feet, which can be very painful and uncomfortable. I actually used to wake up without happening in the middle of the night. When I was in my late teens, early twenty s, I would wake up and my calf would just be frozen and I was in so much pain from the cramping. And it's very likely that I was deficient in probably magnesium in particular. So something to think about. If you're experiencing frequent skin rashes and or hives that can point towards calcium and essential fatty acid deficiency.
Alyssa Chavez [00:09:00]:
We're going to talk a little bit more about essential fatty acids in a moment because I have a whole list of symptoms that specifically point towards a deficiency in that if you're experiencing pain or swelling in your joints, that can be a sign of needing vitamin B six. If you're experiencing this kind of a wide variety of symptoms that basically go back to having connective tissue or a need for support in your connective tissue, that can be symptoms like having popping and clicking in your joints, having hypermobility in your joints, even getting herniated discs, having bursitis or tendinitis. Those are many of these things are things that I've experienced in my life. And basically it goes back to your body needs some support, some nutrients to support your connective tissue. And that can include vitamin B twelve, glucosamine hydrochloride, msm, B six, vitamin c, calcium, magnesium, and those essential fatty acids. And again, it may be one of those, it may be a combination, it may be all of those. It just depends on your unique body. If you experience morning stiffness, you wake up and feel like you just can't move your body.
Alyssa Chavez [00:10:20]:
That can be a sign of needing vitamin B six and or essential fatty acids. If you crave chocolate, I'm feeling all the ears around the world perking up. And yes, that does mean around your period as well. If you crave chocolate, that can be a sign of magnesium deficiency. Chocolate actually has a lot of magnesium in it. So if you need an excuse to eat more chocolate, there you go. You're welcome. Chocolate has high content of magnesium, so if you're craving it, it can be a sign that your body is deficient in magnesium.
Alyssa Chavez [00:10:57]:
Do your feet have a strong odor? That can also be a sign of magnesium deficiency. Do you have white spots on your fingernails? I'll pause and let you all look at your fingernails really quickly so that you can see. Do your cuts heal slowly or do you scar easily? Do you have a decreased sense of taste and or smell? Those can all be signs of a zinc deficiency. Super interesting stuff. I really love nerding out and talking about this stuff. I feel like I could talk about it all day long and just kind of see what is my body telling me. I actually find myself staring at my fingernails all the time and trying to see, okay, do I have little white spots? Do I need more zinc in my life? Not the only way to check if you are deficient in zinc, by the way, or any of these nutrients. There are much more concrete ways to tell if your body might actually be deficient in these nutrients.
Alyssa Chavez [00:11:53]:
So that could involve a blood test and or a hair trace mineral analysis. With zinc in particular, I actually use even a zinc taste test with my clients where you hold some liquid zinc in your mouth and see what it tastes like. And that can actually tell you a lot about how your body is doing with zinc, which is super interesting. I love this stuff. I love how intuitive our bodies are and how much our bodies actually know about what we need and don't need. I just find it so fascinating. So hopefully you do as well. Okay, next on my list, I've mentioned a little bit here and there through the vitamin and mineral section, we were talking a little bit about essential fatty acids.
Alyssa Chavez [00:12:38]:
And as promised, we are going to dive a little bit deeper into that. Now, essential fatty acids are exactly what the name implies, essential to our bodies. We need these fats in order to do a lot of the things that our body needs to do. We actually need these fats to do things like produce hormones. The essential fatty acids are also really crucial for helping to reduce inflammation, which can be super helpful for things like pain, which if you have endometriosis, you probably are somewhat familiar with pain. Now, I'm not going to go super, super deep into essential fatty acids today, but omega three s are definitely one of the crucial sources that many of us are deficient in. So looking at supplementing with omega three s can definitely be helpful. I personally do supplement with high quality omega three supplement.
Alyssa Chavez [00:13:34]:
I have many of my clients on that as well. You can also get omega three s through diet, things like fish, like salmon or herring or mackerel. There are a lot of plant sources of omega three s as well. Things like walnuts and chia seeds and flax seeds. So there's a lot of ways to get those omega three s in your body. And it's something that most of us just don't do enough of, and it can make a huge difference just to up the amount of omega three s that you're getting in your body. So what we're going to go through here today is some of these signs and symptoms that can show us, tell us that you may not be getting enough essential fatty acids in your diet. But there is a small caveat on this, because if you're experiencing some of these symptoms, it could be that you're not getting enough essential fatty acids in your diet, but it could also be simply that you're not breaking down fats.
Alyssa Chavez [00:14:33]:
Well, so this goes back to what we were talking about in episode 17 when we were talking about liver and gallbladder congestion and the need for biliary support and being able to break down fats the way that you need to. If you're showing signs of deficiency in essential fatty acids, it may simply be a sign that your body isn't breaking down those fats. Well, meaning you can't use them. That's why I always like to say, we all have heard that saying over the years, you are what you eat. And what I like to say, my twist on that is you are what you can absorb, right? It's not just about what you're putting in your body, it's about how well your body is able to absorb and utilize the nutrients that you're putting in your body. And those are two separate things that both need to be addressed if you want to optimize your health. Okay, so these symptoms that can be pointing towards this essential fatty acid deficiency can include craving fatty or greasy foods, having tension headaches at the base of your skull, getting headaches when you're out in the hot sun, your muscles being easily fatigued and having dry, flaky skin or dandruff. Those can all be signs of that essential fatty acid deficiency, as well as I'll point you back again towards episode 17 and go through that list of the symptoms of your body needing that liver gallbladder support.
Alyssa Chavez [00:16:11]:
You can also add these to the list of essential fatty acid need, because really, those two things go hand in hand so well that there's a lot of crossover with those symptoms. So if that's something that is an issue for you, and I am going to include in the show notes, I had talked about this on the last episode, and I don't think I have mentioned it yet today. So I will hear if you are walking, driving, cooking, whatever you like to do, multitasking while you listen to this episode. Don't stress about it. Just do what you're doing and just listen in. Make it simple for yourself. And I have created for you a free checklist that you can go into the show notes at your convenience and download. And it will have a list of all of these symptoms that I'm talking about today.
Alyssa Chavez [00:16:57]:
And you can basically download that, go through that checklist for yourself when you have a moment to sit down and do that and kind of see where your body may need support just based on your symptoms, which I always find super interesting. It's kind of like we all love taking those personality tests that they used to put in magazines. Remember magazines back in the day? I'm aging myself, I think, as I say this, but they used to have all these personality tests where you would take this little quiz and learn something about yourself. This is like an upgraded version of that. You get to take a look at all these signs and symptoms in your body and see what that might be telling you, what all these things that you experience on a day to day basis might actually be telling you about your health. So it's like an upgraded version of that personality test. You are welcome. Okay, my friend, next up on the list, we're going to talk about blood sugar dysregulation.
Alyssa Chavez [00:17:56]:
And this is a big one. This is one of those really foundational things that I work on with my clients because many of us have dysregulated blood sugar. And a lot of that does come from just our day to day habits, our dietary habits and spacing between our meals, what we're eating and putting into our bodies. There's so many things that can have an impact on blood sugar. I am planning in the very near future on doing a whole episode just on blood sugar because it's such a big thing that is just not talked about a lot, especially in the world of endometriosis. It has a huge impact on our health because it impacts your hormones and your adrenals and your energy levels and all of these things. And yet it's something that I just don't really hear about very often. So we're going to dive much deeper into blood sugar regulation in the near future and what you can really do about it.
Alyssa Chavez [00:18:55]:
But what we're going to talk about today is, again, some of the symptoms of blood sugar dysregulation that you can look for that may show you that you need some support in that area. So here's the list for blood sugar dysregulation symptoms. Do you awaken a few hours after falling asleep and then have a hard time getting back to sleep. And yes, my friend, this does include if you get up to go pee, you might think that your body woke you up because you have to pee and you just have this itty bitty, tiny little bladder that can't make it through the night. But even if you might get up and have to pee once you awaken, it's actually very common that we are woken up during the night because you have had a blood sugar crash. Because when your blood sugar crashes, your body wants to wake you up so that you can bring your blood sugar back up by eating. Although most of us, I think, don't really get up and eat in the middle of the night. Maybe you do, who knows? But blood sugar can actually have a lot to do with that.
Alyssa Chavez [00:20:01]:
And we all know that having a hard time sleeping can have huge impacts on our health and our overall well being. So keeping your blood sugar stable can actually have major impacts on your sleep. Do you crave sweets? That probably isn't shocking that that has to do with blood sugar. But if you're craving sweets all the time, it can definitely be a sign of dysregulation of your blood sugar. If you are regularly binge eating or have an excessive appetite, those can also be signs of blood sugar dysregulation. If you find that you crave coffee and or sugar in the afternoon, you're feeling sleepy in the afternoon and you just feel like you must have that little pick me up to keep you going. Guess what? More signs and symptoms of blood sugar dysregulation. If you have fatigue that is relieved by eating, meaning you are feeling kind of sleepy, but after you have a meal, you feel a little more revived and ready to go, that can also be a sign of blood sugar dysregulation.
Alyssa Chavez [00:21:12]:
If you experience symptoms like having headaches, if your meals are skipped or delayed, if you have irritability before meals. Hello, hangry. Yours truly has certainly been guilty of that. Ask my husband. He knows all about it. If you get shaky, if meals are delayed, I think that kind of goes along with the hangry thing. Those, again, are all symptoms of blood sugar dysregulation. So making some very simple dietary and lifestyle changes around your meals can absolutely have huge impact on all of this stuff.
Alyssa Chavez [00:21:47]:
Like I said, I'm going to do an episode on blood sugar very soon. I've been kind of planning that out in my brain, trying to figure out what all I want to touch on because there's just a lot to say when it comes to blood sugar. But those are some of the common symptoms anyway, that can come up around blood sugar dysregulation. That's really what we're focusing on here today, is some of those common signs and symptoms. So that's really the list for today. My friends, we dove deep into vitamin and mineral need. What signs your body might use to tell you that you have some deficiencies going on there. Same thing with essential fatty acids.
Alyssa Chavez [00:22:24]:
And then we dove into blood sugar dysregulation and how your body might be telling you that that is an issue. So if you enjoyed this episode, definitely make sure that you go back to part one, which was episode 17. I will link to that in the show notes. It was just two episodes ago, so not very far away. And make sure that you hop into the show notes at your convenience and download that free checklist which will list out on paper every single one of these symptoms that was talked about so that you can create sort of a visual aid for yourself. You can go through and just make check marks on the symptoms that you're experiencing and see what those symptoms might be telling you, where you might need support in your body. And I find that helpful, too, just to help to focus what your priorities are. That's really the big thing when it comes to these symptoms.
Alyssa Chavez [00:23:21]:
What are your priorities? Because many of us probably need support in a lot of these areas and more. I know I had mentioned some of those other areas that people may need support earlier in this episode. Things like your immune system, your hormones, your thyroid, your adrenal health. There are so many other things to look at, and a lot of that is just sort of secondary to this foundational stuff that we're looking at. So if you work out these foundations first, the digestion and blood sugar and nutrient status in your body, everything else starts to fall into place much more easily. And it can be much easier than to bring back into balance some of those other pieces that can be very, very challenging to do just on their own. Oftentimes we get very focused on, oh my gosh, my hormones are out of whack and I need to focus in on rebalancing my hormones. But the thing is that hormones don't work by themselves in your body.
Alyssa Chavez [00:24:23]:
Your hormones rely on so many other pieces to be able to function correctly. So it's absolutely something that we can support and can be very helpful to support, but it's not necessarily the starting point. There is a process, there's an order that you want to address things in your body, and that's why I've kind of laid it out the way that I have. So you can look at what are these foundational pieces you may need to look at. So I hope that's helpful for you. If you have any questions or comments or anything that you want to know more about, please feel free to dm me on Instagram at Endobelly Girl. Remember that you can also book a free 30 minutes consultation with me at any time if you want to just talk through some of this stuff and where your body might need support and all of that good stuff. So I will link that in the show notes as well, and I will also link back again to episode three, which is all about what is functional nutrition, the work that I do, how it can help with endometriosis, so that you can kind of see how we take this information.
Alyssa Chavez [00:25:29]:
And along with what we're talking about today, was really more about the signs and symptoms. And I like to use that in combination with actual tactile, hardcore facts on paper from the functional testing. I like to use both. So that way we're listening to your body's intuition, but also getting tangible feedback on what's going on in your body. And that's really the combination that I like to use in my practice with my one on one clients. So I'll share that episode as well. Episode three, and that's all I've got for you today, my friend. I hope that you are having a wonderful 2024 so far.
Alyssa Chavez [00:26:08]:
I have so many fun plans this year that I just can't wait to share with you all. And in the meantime, I hope you have the most wonderful day, and we will talk soon. Bye.