Constipation, Gut Health & Weight Loss Resistance with “The Poop Queen” Liz Roman

[00:00:00] Hey Liz, welcome to the show. How are you today? I’m great. How are you? Fantastic. Thanks for arranging this. I know the audiences are gonna be a little bit shocked that I’m doing this solo because I’ve always over 200 episodes with Lori by my side, except I, I did a couple where I interviewed her and she vice versa, but usually we gang up on our guests and do that type of thing.
But this one, it was just. Such a, a hard time getting our travel arrangements, uh, in order. And obviously we would appreciate that you made the arrangements. Just let’s do it with me, but like, like everybody has noticed Lori’s in the intro and she’s gonna be introducing you as well. So Yeah, no pleasure to have you.
Thank you. I’m excited to be here and talk about gut health. I know it’s, it’s a fantastic topic. I was on your Instagram page. I saw, um, I saw Dr. Uh, Pedre on there. We had him on the show a few times. So I know that you know your stuff about gut health, so. Tell us a little bit about how you just dove into this particular [00:01:00] topic and what made you fascinated and in gut health and you know, a little bit about your origin story.
Yeah, absolutely. So I think like most functional practitioners or naturopaths doctors, they’ve gone through some healing journey themselves, right? Um, at least. In my experience with my colleagues, that’s what I’ve found. And so just a little bit of a backstory about me, I was diagnosed with children’s rheumatoid arthritis when I was a young girl, and then I really struggled after going through that process with heavy, um, prednisone and methotrexate steroids to get weight off.
Um, but I was also. Severely constipated. I was dealing with a lot of hormonal acne and PMS, and of course the doctors just basically said, go on birth control. That’s our solution for you. And you know, it’s a calories in, calories out thing. So fast forward, you know, I had done some Weight Watchers, very extreme, going to the gym twice a day.
I got weight off. But then quickly rebounded back and again, I was fighting more symptoms, right? So fatigue and brain [00:02:00] fog and skin issues, and just not feeling like myself. And so finally I decided that after my symptoms fell on deaf ears for so long, I was gonna seek out functional medicine. And that’s when I found out I had Hashimoto’s.
I had a lot of gut dysbiosis, a parasitic infection, canata all the things. And, um, through that journey in my early twenties is really what sparked me to start studying and realize like how life-changing that was for me. That I didn’t wanna be in corporate HR doing, uh, reduction in force and, you know, performance plans and all those things anymore.
I wanted to really get into. Helping women. So I, I first started out just in health coaching. Uh, we owned a gym at that time and we did a lot of, you know, macros and, uh, you know, helping women understand the basic foundations. But what I kept running into is that what, you know, I. On paper should work mathematically.
Really doesn’t always work. And so that’s when I kept continuing, you know, to seek out, um, more and more education regarding gut health, hormones, [00:03:00] thyroid, autoimmune, you know, for me, having now two autoimmune conditions that I’ve put into remission. That’s really a passion of mine and it all starts in the gut.
Um, we know that the underlying cause of all disease is inflammation, but where does most of that come from? Right? Things that we’re putting in our body, on our skin, and you know, in our environment as well. And so if you don’t have a gut microbiome that can keep things in balance and in check, we end up with an immune system that’s.
Overactive Right. And really imbalanced. And so that’s a long story short to say why I am the poop queen with the eight years of chronic constipation and all the gut health issues. That’s really what, you know, uh, stemmed all the other health symptoms that I was experiencing. Okay, gotcha. So I love the idea that you’ve.
Go on full in, on the being the poop queen. That’s is something that is, uh, is funny to me that, um, you know, someone can embrace that, but it’s, it is relevant, right? I mean, you, uh, can obviously relate to the fact that it’s a $6.5 billion [00:04:00] constipation. 6.9, yeah. 6.9. Yeah, it’s, it’s a 6.0. Wow. So, yeah, as of your, uh, the press release that I saw was 6.5, so it’s obviously getting worse.
So, um, and it’s very common. I’ve never. Realized it until I really started coaching people and asked that question and it was just like, oh yeah, no, I go every once a week or something like that. And it was really like unbelievable to me. Um, I never had that issue, but it’s, it’s ab absolutely very common.
Can you go into that a little bit and, um, why it’s such a bad thing to not be going regular and how constipation affects your overall health? Yeah. So first let’s talk about just how common it is, um, you know, and define what constipation really is because we have a big difference here between conventional medicine and, you know, functional medicine and functional medicine.
We’re looking at the holistic, uh, approach, right? The, the entire body, all 11 organ systems. And if you [00:05:00] are, you know, somebody who is not a. Evacuating every day. And this waste and all of these toxins and these hormone metabolites and things that really your body needs to get rid of, aren’t eliminated every day.
That’s going to back your system up. Place a burden on your liver, right? Bacteria start to overgrow and ferment and producing gas and bloating, right? And so. We really wanna be moving our bowels one to three times a day pain-free is what I say. And I say that because so many people, even though they might be going to the bathroom daily, they could still be constipated because they might just be having small, bubbly like stools.
They might be straining to go to the bathroom, right? Like feeling like they need to go more, but. They’re not able to. And so we wanna feel satisfied and people are always like chuckling when I say that, but like, you should feel good about it. Like I cannot, you know, imagine living my life the way I did for so long, you know, today.
Like compiling that for years of, you know, decades even, because [00:06:00] this is where we would really start to think about systemic inflammation, brain fog, skin issues, joint pain, you know, a lot of things that people don’t necessarily correlate to constipation. Because they just may be thinking like, oh, my common GI symptoms right, are correlated.
I actually was just doing some study on research yesterday from another doctor who was talking about even the connections that they have found with chronic constipation and long-term health. So it increases our risk of cardiometabolic diseases, um, cardiovascular disease. I mean, there was a, a variety of their, uh, things that he was showing.
It also increases Parkinson’s disease risk and. 12% overall risk of mortality when we’re chronically constipated. And so again, this is something that conventional medicine says. If you’re going three times a week, that’s good. You’re not constipated, right? They’re, they’re not gonna consider this an issue for you.
Where we really wanna think about. Every single day, you know, your bowels should be moving. And for women it is more [00:07:00] common and a large part of that is our hormonal fluctuations. If you, you know, are cycling female, you might find that you are more constipated around ovulation or right into the, the period starting because of progesterone, which can be a little bit more constipating.
It just slows motility down. But so many things, uh, in terms of symptoms that people don’t realize can really. Start with the fact that people are not fully eliminating all of those toxins every day. So what is actually causing the constipation, generally speaking? Yeah, I mean, we can talk about some of the most common ones, but there’s, I have on my Instagram like 29 different, you know, reasons that can contribute.
So I would say the top one is that most people are not cellularly hydrated. I. Are they even drinking the adequate amount of water every day? Most people don’t, right? Half your body weight and ounces, two thirds if you sweat, is what I recommend. And then to be cellularly hydrated, really putting in a good electrolyte, some sodium, potassium, magnesium, right?
These minerals. Um, magnesium is a, a [00:08:00] miracle mineral and plays a huge role. You’ll see a lot of people talk about magnesium, especially for constipation, whether that’s oxide or citrate glycinate, and I would just recommend that anyways. I usually tell people five milligrams per pound of body weight is kind of a good goal just because of the way that our food has been grown and processed, like we’re not getting the amount of magnesium it used to.
So I think that’s a huge contributor. I would say stress. Is a really big contributor. So when we think about our central nervous system, digestion is a rest and digest state, and most people walk around in this fight or flight right there. I just always say like, your hair is on fire, so, mm-hmm. I’m an entrepreneur, I’ve got a toddler, I’ve got a newborn.
If I am, you know, wanting to get up in the morning and have some time to my. I need to be intentional with that. And some individuals might not be doing that, right? They’re trying to get as much sleep as they can. They’re really pushing back that alarm or hitting snooze. And then, okay, the first thing they gotta do is chase the time that they’ve [00:09:00] just lost to try to get out the door on time for, you know, school or work or whatever.
So I think that’s a big part of it as well. Stress is a major, um, you know, player for a lot of dysfunction in the body. And then when we look at our diet. Right. Um, the standard American diet, the Franken Foods that we have, these artificial fibers that the body does not recognize. The average American only consumes about 10 to 12 grams of fiber a day.
Our ancestors used to consume over a hundred, which is always interesting to me. I always tell this on podcasts like. This is what I’ve heard multiple times. I can’t find the source of Yuma. And I always wonder how they know that our ancestors, you know, had bowel movements that were like two plus pounds a day.
But if you think about it, right, like they grew the food, they were eating a lot of fruits, vegetables, roughage beans, things like that. And so we just don’t eat enough fiber in our diet. And I think that’s, uh, another really big contributor. But then we have to look at. All of the other things in terms of poor bile flow from the liver, gallbladder, how many people commonly get their gallbladder taken out?
It’s so sad. [00:10:00] Conventional medicine doesn’t tell them the side effects, the long-term effects of that. Talk with women all the time where I’m seeing a lot of liver dysfunction now. Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease after having their gallbladder removed and they were never told that they needed to support.
Not having that organ. Just because you can live without it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t serve a role. So we have things like that. We have infections in the gut, h pylori, you know, sibo, sifo, fungal overgrowths, candida, mold toxicity, heavy metal toxicity, parasitic infections. Um, you know, when we think about the stomach too low stomach acid, this is depleted through infections and also through stress.
And as we age. So the thyroid, this is another big one. You know, again, especially for females, um, the thyroid has this intimate connection with the liver and our hormones and the gut. And a lot of times we’re seeing that individuals are going years like myself without having a full thyroid panel because the doctor says TSH is fine.
Thyroid stimulating hormone, which is not a thyroid hormone, it’s a [00:11:00] pituitary hormone, and then they might run a T four, that’s your inactive thyroid hormone. They’re never really looking at the active thyroid hormone. T three, especially free T three. Mm-hmm. We, uh, kind of have a saying anything below a three.
You’re gonna have slow motility and you’re really gonna struggle to lose weight because this is the master of the metabolism. It really, you know, runs how well your body is burning calories, how well you know, you’re able to, uh, go to the bathroom. And I will tell you that I have clients that have other variables, right, that are constipated even though they’re free.
T three is good. So we don’t wanna just isolate that, but that is a contributor. Um, and so some common signs of that are like, you know, you’re doing all the right things, can’t lose weight, you’re tired, you’ve got. Some skin issues may be popping up. Typically with thyroid, it’s gonna be like some white spots on the skin.
Um, again, cold hands, cold feet, cold nose, slow motility, brain fog. There’s a lot of things that we can contribute to thyroid dysfunction in and of itself, but I. Thyroid’s not the issue, it’s the gut and it’s the liver. Uh, and [00:12:00] so we have several podcasts that we’ve done on that. And then, you know, again, there’s other outliers here, you know, different vitamin and mineral deficiencies that I didn’t mention.
But you know, vitamin D plays a role. Other things that you might wanna look at in terms of lab work. So there’s a lot of reasons, and I think most people just think because of conventional medicine. It’s a laxative deficiency, right? It’s MiraLax deficiency. That’s what my doctor said. Just. Drink some water, have some MiraLax.
Mm-hmm. And, uh, disregard the horrible side effects of MiraLax and the stomach cramping that you get from it. Yeah, no, it’s unfortunate that that’s what the advice that we’re just typically getting constantly from doctors and yeah, it’s, it’s, um, it’s really fascinating that. The thyroid does have, has a role and it’s so misdiagnosed as far as like the blood work that comes back and the lack of specific testing that the thyroid panels actually are showing when you just go to a doctor for just your regular checkup.
Um, I’m also like curious too, and I, I guess it’s like a silly [00:13:00] idea, right? I’ve always thought like the junk food that you eat and I, maybe it’s just meat when I eat like bad. I, it just goes like, I have to go to the, like, it just, so, I don’t know, maybe that’s because my body is just u not used to that kind of stuff and it, it, it could see it and just gets rid of it.
Yeah. But to think that we, so many people don’t go and they’re just packing all this garbage, like you said, these Franken foods, what happens? Where does it go? Just, it just. Stays in there and just goes, see your fat cells. And then it just, it. Can you just talk about that cascade and why that’s such a big deal when it comes to weight, weight gain?
Yeah, absolutely. So I, um, if you watched the interview that I did last Friday with Dr. Petri, we talk a little bit about the gut liver access and that’s really where I, um. Passionate about right now. Right. I think as practitioners we kind of all go through different phases of learning different things. Um, and I’ve really taken a deep dive into this because, you know, as you mentioned, like you’re just packing things in, right?
You, you get an ultrasound, you can see a [00:14:00] colon can hold up to five pounds of waste. That’s pretty crazy. Wow. And you know, so when we think about. This just sitting there. There’s bacteria. I mean, we have trillions of bacteria. We are essentially walking bacteria, but there’s bacteria there that’s sitting and it’s fermenting and it’s, it’s feeding off of the things that you’re giving it.
So when we think about things like candida or fungal overgrowth, a lot of people have sugars or you know, other types of foods that are very inflammatory and that’s gonna feed off of that, right? Um, this creates inflammation. Inflammation creates the, the gut lining, permeability. So this is what people call leaky guts.
But you know, again, scientifically we wanna stay within some of those, you know, uh, frames, permeability, and as things seep out, then from the gut, I. That should stay in the gut into the bloodstream. And this is where we’re looking at like endotoxins and particles. That shouldn’t be, you know, getting into the bloodstream.
Your immune system is now upregulated and trying to clean things up. And so the first place [00:15:00] that most of it goes is to your liver. But your liver’s already struggling ’cause you’ve got all this other stuff that’s getting, you know, recirculated. You know, back in line to the liver. You’ve got hormones that are fluctuating, estrogen’s not getting detoxified.
That’s going back to the liver you’ve got. Food and new things coming in, right? All these chemicals, things that you’re breathing in, that you’re ingesting, you’re putting on your skin, all that’s, you know, on the liver. So the liver now is trying to do like a, a triple job and keep up. And so I love when people say like, you don’t need to support your liver.
It’s your natural detox organ. Well, yeah, I would agree with that, but it’s the burden. It’s the toxic load on the body that’s burdening our livers more than anything. And when we look at non-alcoholic fatty liver, this is an epidemic and nobody’s talking about it, I mean. 25% of people now we’re seeing have non-alcoholic potty liver.
And that’s not to mention all different types of other, you know, inflammatory, uh, liver conditions or cholesterol conditions or whatever. And so a large part of this happens because when we have this leaky gut. [00:16:00] These endotoxins seep out to the bloodstream, it goes to the liver. The liver says, whoa, whoa, whoa.
This is not good for me. I’m now going to create inflammation and to protect myself, I’m going to start to create these fatty depositions. Triglycerides, we start to see liver enzymes go up A LT, A-S-D-G-G-T, right? And when this is happening, the liver is not able to produce bile as much. So I mentioned gallbladder before.
I think this is really important to understand for people totally layman’s terms. ’cause we’re trying to go, you know, high level here, but bile is produced by the liver. It is stored and concentrated in the gallbladder if we are lucky enough to still have a gallbladder. Bile plays many roles, many people will talk about that.
It is just there to, you know, break down fat-soluble vitamins and antioxidants so you can absorb them. But even more importantly, it acts as a way to remove cholesterol from the body, so quester toxins and acts as an antimicrobial. So in the small intestine, as food is moving through the digestive tract.
File [00:17:00] should circulate from the liver, the gallbladder, into the small intestine about 15 to 16 times. And it’s doing that to keep bacteria in check so that bacteria don’t start to overgrow when that happens. This is where we end up with bloating, gas, food intolerances, right. Um. This is most commonly known or associated with sibo, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, but it also plays other roles.
It stimulates motilin our motility hormone towards the end of the small intestine as it’s gonna go back into recirculation to the liver and you know, start to to get cleaned there in the liver. It should also activate some nuclear receptors to. Release, um, from the mucus membranes, antimicrobial compounds as well.
So we should have bile and this, um, nk, uh, r or fx r receptor, releasing these antimicrobial compounds in the small intestine to keep the bacteria in check so that we don’t get infections, right? We don’t see large intestine infections. Things like, uh, you know, c diff and [00:18:00] some, some really stealth, I would say infections, but.
The liver is now burdened with all the things that are going on, and it’s not keeping up with bile. So bile becomes insufficient and stagnant. And that’s how a lot of this, um, you know, starts to continue to proliferate because if the liver is off and struggling, the gut is struggling and they’re making each other worse because it’s a cyclical connection.
And so that’s why in my practice I talk so much about supporting bile. Liver, the gallbladder opening, drainage, detoxification pathways, making sure that people, if they’re doing gut healing work, are always thinking about adequate bile production. And sometimes we need this supplementally. I. Sometimes we’re needing to put in direct ox bio or maybe other things to help thin bile out so that it’s not peanut butter.
Like, and it’s moving fluidly because it’s our, it is our, I mean, God designed us pretty miraculously, I believe. And if we are able to keep the body functioning as it was designed, that’s your built-in, antimicrobial, your [00:19:00] antibiotic, right? That’s your, um, you know, laxative. So we don’t need all these other things.
And then the other thing I wanna say with bile is that estrogen. Estrogen dominance specifically, and low, low estrogen. So any imbalance here does impact our bio flow and it makes it a little bit more sluggish. Uh, and so that’s a big thing for women, and this is why we see more women, you know, have their gallbladders removed and why We also see a lot of people feel bad with, like you mentioned, these standard American diet fatty foods.
So let’s say you have pizza or you have a burger and fry, something real greasy, a lot of fat in there. The body is like, oh gosh, like I’m either bloated and I’m really, really constipated and I’m like having like these straining stools, or I’m getting a bile dump. ’cause the body’s trying to, you know, get it out as fast as possible.
So that’s a really big thing that not a lot of people consider with their gut healing protocols. And I don’t know why, you know, gastroenterologists don’t talk about it more because it’s such a key, you know, to our health, our gut health, [00:20:00] and just our overall health. Yeah, no, that’s a lot there. And it’s, it’s amazing.
Like, again, just the neglect of the gallbladder and, and what it actually serves. And like you said, the assumption is that if you can live without it. It’s not necessary. Right. So, um, but I do wanna talk about, you know, the, the, the liver portion. In a lot of the show, we always touch the subject on alcohol.
I, I, I’m assuming that you’re not a fan of alcohol in the context of. Its role in liver. Um, but, um, maybe you’ll surprise me because I, I do enjoy a drink and, um, I’m only one person I think we’ve ever had on the show is like, yeah, go for it. Knock yourself out. So, yeah, so, you know, I always tell people we have to be realistic and I’m never gonna throw rocks at a glass house.
I enjoy some good tequila, I enjoy wine. Um, I think that we have to. Understand and recognize the effects of alcohol in the body, right? So there’s a lot of things that you can do to [00:21:00] mitigate. I mean, alcohol is a toxin. It is inflammatory. Yes, we recognize that. Um, but at the same time, I think that if you’re doing a lot of other things to support your body, your microbiome, your detox pathways, your liver, like.
Enjoy, you know, some drinks. It is something that is, is social for many people. Do I think that you should be drinking bottles of wine, you know, bottles of alcohol drinking daily, right? No, I don’t believe that at all. Uh, but if you wanna have a few drinks, the biggest thing that I say to people is support your lining of the gut with something I call it’s bloat ease pro, but the ingredient is immuno immunoglobulin, um, that are very good for the, the lining of the gut.
Can also act as a binder to different toxins and help, um, just metabolize the alcohol and then give your liver some love, some activated charcoal. So I tell people, right, like before you go to bed or even before you begin drinking, um, you know, take some activated charcoal that’s a binder can just help the liver out a little bit.
You know, there’s all of these, uh, funny story actually. I planned a girl’s [00:22:00] brunch a few weeks back, uh, for one of my good friends and we went to the winery. And some of the girls there, much heavier drinkers than majority of us had these hangover pills. And so they’re like passing them out ’cause the girls were getting ready for their day drinking.
Uh, and so I’m looking at this later because actually the girl I planned it for, she took some and she got really nauseous. And so I’m like, you know, I bet you that that was like some milk thistle and some really strong, like good liver support and it’s exactly what it was. While she’s dealing with a lot of underlying dysfunction, um, in terms of cholesterol, liver enzymes are elevated and things like that, and so she got nauseous from it.
It was, you know, too much for her. And so, um, I would just caution people out there, right? When you’re looking at some of these hangover pills or whatever, I mean, the devil’s in the dose, like anything. But yeah, I mean, I’m not gonna say that I don’t have a few drinks from time to time, and I’m not going to say that I don’t think that everybody has to avoid it entirely.
Is it good for us? [00:23:00] No. But at the same time, there’s so many other things that people are doing that we could argue are also not good for us, right? Uh, so right. I think you gotta be realistic. No, and I appreciate that. And uh, like I, I admire the fact that you’re just being honest with people with the facts and, you know, we do have to have some balance and and whatnot.
And I think that what’s interesting too, and I don’t know if you’ve broached this subject a lot because everyone keeps talking about alcohol in the negative. Uh, they’re, they’re going in the other direction now that as majority of the country has legalized some form of marijuana or, you know, uh, that, that in that category at this point, what, does that have any lesser, um, health effects on your gut, uh, your liver, et cetera, than alcohol?
And is it, is it something that you’re seeing more of nowadays? Yeah, so I would say if we’re talking about, are we talking about THC? Yeah, THC, so actually. One, I’m not the expert on the subject, and I will tell you [00:24:00] that this is what I know to be true. I cannot tolerate it, so I don’t do it. Um, but I do know individuals who have used it actually when they were going through healing protocols.
I really like CBDA lot. Um, the THC component, I know that, uh, Sal from Mind Pump, if you listen to that podcast, that show, he was on our podcast and we talked about how he actually used this, uh, when he was really struggling. And then I would say for people that have. A lot of pain, some chronic pain conditions.
I would prefer that over heavy dose, painkillers, NSAIDs, things that are really damaging, you know, to the gut. So I think it’s a lesser of evil there. Um, it is a more natural right. But again, everybody takes things like way too far sometimes. Right. So what’s the purpose and the intent? Mm-hmm. You know, with it.
Um, I’m a big fan of like microdosing, you know, mushrooms. I think there’s been a lot that’s come out with that. Um. More natural to the body, less effects on the gut, less inflammatory, less calories, not sugar, you [00:25:00] know, all that stuff. And so that’s also where, and not again, the expert here on all these different substances, but in my mind it makes sense to me to say this is natural.
Mm-hmm. This does not come with a lot of sugar. Unless, and the reason I don’t do THC is I get very hungry, uh, unless somebody you know is eating then like the box of Ho Hos or Oreos, because they’re, they’re doing THC, um, but generally right. Some of those. Low dose things, um, I think are better than, you know, even just let’s compare it to like your Starbucks frappuccino that is 1300 calories and 89 grams of sugar that you’re starting your day off with, right?
There are plenty of things wrong with that, uh, including the moldy coffee that they use, right? It’s not organic and you know, all the things. So I can’t say that I’m the expert, but I do know that a lot of people have used THC or you know, CB, D, even just in a lot of their healing protocols. And that’s worked very well for them, and I’m a fan of that.
If that keeps them off of a lot of the other medications that then inflict [00:26:00] more side effects, right. That then they put another medication in place to mitigate those side effects. Right. Because if you look at the average American, they’re on multiple medications, right? Right. So. I would go the more natural route if I was in that situation.
Okay. And being that it’s more natural, it just, you, you’re, you’re assuming that it has less effect on your liver and it’s not o in comparison to alcohol? I guess that’s what I guess was right. Yeah, that’s would be my assumption. I’ll have to, my guess I should say, I don’t like to assume things. My guess would be that is true, and again, I think we always have to just say the devil’s in the dose Right.
With anything, but yeah, absolutely. It’s, um, it’s funny, I, I didn’t want this show to go in that direction necessarily, but I, me personally, I’ve never enjoyed, I like the alcohol effect more than I. The other effect with the, yeah, the THI just, I don’t know why it, it’s something that also I’m just maybe just used to.
Um, but yeah, I’ve always, you [00:27:00] know, people Oh yeah. Just don’t do the alcohol anymore. Just switch, like it’s Yeah. Something to do. But, well, when I studied abroad, I studied abroad in, um, France, and we backpacked through Europe. Okay. So we went to Amsterdam. And in Amsterdam, I had never seen anything like this in my life.
It’s literally a Bible. It is a cocktail menu. THC. And so, I mean, again, I’m not an expert in this ’cause I don’t do it. All I know is that the times that I’ve done it, it made me really hungry and it would be 400 pounds if I continued to do it. You know, so. Right, right. Um, I, I just know that I think, you know, you talk to the experts there and that could be something even, you know, for us to interview somebody on.
I’m curious about this now, right? Uh, the different strains and the, the strands. Like maybe is there one that would provide that same effect? Because from my experience, and this is probably I think what you’re kind of. Alluding to here too, is that the alcohol effect is more of that upper, I know a lot of people say like, you know, obviously it’s an upper and then it’s a downer, right?
And so that’s why people then have the hair of the dog and they keep going back. But again, I think devil’s [00:28:00] in the dose there. If you’re just having a couple drinks, you’re feeling good, you wanna get on the dance floor, uh, you know, something like that is completely different than I think, you know, really overdoing it and like using it as a substance to help you pass out.
Right? Or a lot of people do that as well, like the. I gotta have my, what do they call it? Like the night cap, but it’s like super strong to help them sleep well then we’re not actually getting restful sleep when we are having alcohol. So I would just be curious to know from that cocktail of the Bible that I saw of THC in Amsterdam, maybe there is one strand out there that would be more of that upper, you know, alcohol like effect compared to some of the more mild ones.
I definitely gotta talk to Lori. We’ll get someone on and we’ll share notes and compare. ’cause you know, it’s, it, it’s a thing out there right now and a lot of people are interested in finding a, you know, an alternative to it. And like you had mentioned earlier, why are we doing that? You know, that’s the, the bigger question.
Why are we, why are we just saying, you know, let, gimme another drug to, to do something [00:29:00] else. Um, but that’s, that’s kind of a lot of people’s philosophy at this point. Um. So I guess what I would like to kind of wrap up with is, you know, just definitely because we’re a weight loss show and yeah, we definitely understand the constipation and you’ve definitely highlighted why it, it’s a thing.
Um, what, what would you do with a client who comes and says, listen, I, I wanna lose weight. Mm-hmm. Um, what, what would like some of the first steps that you, you go through with, with the client or any recommendation that you would have for someone who’s just interested in trying to do it on their own?
Yeah. Well, so one thing that we didn’t touch on, and we’ll touch on it here, is the impact of constipation and all these infections and, you know, not excreting the toxins daily on our blood sugar and all of this inflammation too. A big part of actually bile that I, I didn’t mention there is that it’s signals, uh, the insulate cells from the pancreas to release insulin.
So we have insulin. So for everybody listening, and I’m sure you guys have covered this on your show, the way that I say it’s like you’re shuttling hormone, [00:30:00] it’s the Amazon driver and he is bringing blood sugar to the cell. Mm-hmm. Right? And we need somebody to answer the door and accept the package. And then that package is gonna be all your nutrients, right?
The things that you’ve eaten to build your muscle and, and then you want to also be able to. Get rid of the waste from your cells. And so a lot of times when we’re dealing with this infection that’s driving inflammation and we’re constipated, and there could be other reasons for this too, right? The the liver is really burdened from other things that your body is trying to.
Get rid of but can’t because it knows, the immune system knows that if it starts to release these things, the person would get sick. This is where we call like, um, like Sears or Chronic inflammatory, um, oh, I’m blanking on the, the acronym here. But essentially it’s basically where. Your cells just go into shutdown mode.
Like they don’t wanna release, uh, you know, all of the, the toxins or the heavy metals or the compounds. And so we see people really, really struggling. And this is where first thing I do as a practitioner is I run a [00:31:00] comprehensive lab panel. ’cause I need to know what is the health of your liver? What are your liver enzymes telling us?
What’s your cholesterol? What are the inflammatory markers? Uh, what is your insulin fasting insulin, A1C blood sugar because many people. We’ll go to the doctor and they get a complete metabolic panel done, which has your fasting glucose, and they think, oh, I’m good. That doesn’t tell you anything about your blood sugar or your insulin.
And so I think I just wrote about this this week actually, I put together a whole blog on all of the markers for weight loss resistance, and good metabolic health and what the optimal ranges are. So we look at conventional medicine and A1C, they’re not gonna call somebody pre type two or diabetic until they’re passed a 5.7.
We want 4.5 to 5.2, I think is really optimal. Some of the functional ranges go up to 5.4, but that’s a pretty significant difference, right? When we’re looking at insulin, some of the LabCorp panels, insulin’s not high until you’re above 20. Wow, [00:32:00] we want two to eight or really somebody who’s fit and healthy like four to six.
Like that’s the, that’s the sweet spot. So there’s a big correlation here between the gut microbiome and liver health and our metabolic health. And so I think that is the thing. You wanna get eyes on all of those markers. It’s on my Instagram page. If you guys would like to grab that. Just comment, optimize, I think that was the word that we did.
And it’ll send you all of those metabolic health markers. So that’s generally where I start. And then I really tailor and customize, uh, protocols to the person. But I most commonly see that people who cannot lose weight, it’s because they’re inflamed and their body is not hearing the signal. Right. Right.
And, you know, able to, to see the progress that they want and or they’ve dieted for their entire life. Right. I know that you guys have probably talked about this and you get clients like this all the time who have just driven their metabolism. Into the ground. You don’t damage like people out there like metabolic damage and like, you know, kill your [00:33:00] metabolism.
My metabolism doesn’t work. Now what’s happened is that you’ve dieted so hard for so long that you’ve taught your body to downregulate and to conserve energy. And so we see typically with this thyroid downregulation, right, we’re gonna see that we’re more in that slow free T three, below a three generally.
Um. There’s a lot of things, and I’m sure you guys touch on all of that, but this would be for the person who’s coming in that’s. Dieted a long time. I’m gonna reverse diet them for a period of time and, and tell them like, we have to signal your body that, you know, we have more fuel. We’re not in this survival mode, in this conservation mode.
And generally it goes one of three ways. If they do it correctly, um, you know, at least low and slow up. We’ll see weight loss. ’cause the body’s like, oh, it’s less stress, not so much of a deficit. I’m getting what I need. I’m getting the right foods, the right minerals, the right vitamins to build my hormones right to, to signal, um, to release inflammation so they lose weight, or at least they lose the [00:34:00] fat suit.
A lot of inflammation. They maintain their weight, but they notice that they feel better. Their sleep starts to improve, their energy starts to improve, their digestion starts to improve. Right? Things start to come back online and they’re just feeling like now they, they have more motivation to do other things.
Uh, or sometimes we will see that again, depending upon the type of dieting that they’ve done. When we bring carbohydrates back in, they get a little bit of uptick, a couple of pounds. We’re not gonna let them just gain massive amounts of weight in this process. But okay, if you’re pulling carbs back in and you’ve been on a keto diet or a really low carb diet, like my favorite is people who are like, oh yeah, I’m low carb.
I’m like, are you though? And what does that mean? Because there’s a big difference, right? Between keto and that being low carb. And then some people, if they grew up in the nineties like I did, I’m a eighties baby, but the nineties and the two thousands was fat free, right? So then they’re low carb and low fat, and now they’re high protein, and that’s what they think is the right answer.
And listen, I thought this for a long time too, until we really understand that when you [00:35:00] remove those fuel sources. Then your body is like, well, I gotta start convert my protein into glucose. And so sometimes we have to go through this phase too, where we’re retraining the body on, you know, kinda res sensitizing it to protein to do what it needs to do.
So there’s a lot that we look at, but definitely gotta look at your metabolic markers. You gotta look at your diet. A lot of I’m. Starting most of my people on a Mediterranean, a high Mediterranean diet with a lot of fruits and colors and antioxidants, things that they probably haven’t really gotten in adequate amounts in a long time.
And then from there, when we get inflammation down, we start to move into. Um, we use something called a carb pulse. So it’s a little bit different than you could say. It’s similar to carb cycling, but it’s not intended for carb cycling. The way athletes use it, it’s actually to shock the microbiome. Starve out bacteria, ’cause bacteria like carbs.
Uh, and then I. Feed it and put in eradication agents to kill it. So we basically starve it and then we call it out and we kill it. Um, [00:36:00] at the same time, we’re changing these energy pathways. We’re trying to force the body to get into the fat burning state. And then all the while we’re doing this, we’re tracking ketones, we’re tracking blood sugar, like we’re making sure that it’s working for that individual in the way that we need.
Then we’re moving into other dietary strategies if that’s not enough for them, and sometimes it’s not depending upon how dysfunctional the person you know is and what their history is with, again, very low dietary intake. Wow. That’s interesting that you do, it seems like, like I said, start kind of mediterraneanish and I guess like go more into like the tip, typical keto ish kind of.
With a person, right? If they don’t have a gallbladder, I’m not usually taking them straight, you know, keto that, um, high fat, it depends upon how they kind of tolerate. But yeah, we generally like to say about three days we stay in this high carb place and then switch to three days into that low carb, high fat keto.
Sometimes it needs to be [00:37:00] low protein, high fat. Um, and, and we’re again watching what their blood sugars are doing, and people sometimes start to find that, okay, I actually feel better being lower carb, and we might pull them out of that in a way that is not keto, but it could be, let’s say a hundred, 120 grams of carbs versus the.
2, 2 50 that they were eating before. Right. You know, because again, I think most people don’t realize when they say low carb even, um, that they really, unless you’re intentional and you’re doing keto and you’re in ketosis, uh, that there’s carbs coming from a lot of places or they think maybe they’re intermittent fasting, but I have this conversation all the time with people, your coffee in the morning with sugar and or protein or whatever you’re making this latte with.
Sorry, babe. Like yeah. You didn’t eat food, but you drank your calories, so you’re not in a fasting state. Right, right, right. That’s a big misconception. And I, I, I know Lori is gonna mo me to ask because we’ve had many of, uh, the [00:38:00] carnivore folks on the show. Yeah. Um, just get, throw your opinion on that because I, we had a fasting against, I wish that I had.
Um. Thought of his name before we, I’m asking this question, but um, you know, you did mention fiber and like that’s one of, a lot of, a lot of these guys swear by the car, you know, or, and g guys and gals. Um, and you know, one of the first things that popped into our mind, so how do you, what about the fiber?
What about the fiber and. I, I wish I knew his name again, but whatever way he explained it was so clear and concise that it was almost like, no, you don’t need the fiber. Once you, once you have whatever the carnivore diet happens and does, its magic. Yeah. And they’re going regularly too. Um, just your quick opinion on that.
Um, ’cause I know that a lot of people are curious about that as well. I don’t like dogmatic approaches. Uh, first of all, I, I, I really, I think that we have to recognize. There’s a purpose and there’s a reason for a season. So from the carnivore aspect, I do [00:39:00] utilize it in some cases temporarily. Do I personally believe that it’s a long-term lifestyle diet for individuals?
I don’t. Um, I believe that fiber serves many roles in the body. And while you might be going to the bathroom, you know, maybe that works for you. Um, for a lot of people it sends them the opposite direction in terms of if you even listen to Joe Rogan, he covers this, um, the carnivore shits. Right. And so he even was talking about like keeping a few pieces of fruit in, uh, to, to kind of help with that.
But fiber serves a lot of different roles. Again, it sequesters toxins, it binds to things that like heavy metals and um, different things that we need to remove from the body. But in some cases, especially with. A person who is really, really severely compromised with their gut microbiome. Mm-hmm. Let’s say like they’re reacting to everything.
Mm-hmm. Carnivore can serve a purpose for a season because it removes a lot of these plant fibers in different compounds. And you’ll see people out there talking about, you know, [00:40:00] demonizing lectins and oxalates and all this stuff, and I just think that it’s a bio individual approach. And when we get into these dog magnet approaches, blanket statement, this is what everybody should do because it worked for me.
Mm-hmm. Negligent. Um, and so I will use it, but I think there’s a reason for a season. I believe in diet diversity. And by that I mean two things. One, if you are somebody who is eating, just let’s say a normal diet. You know, you have protein, carbs, fat, right? You wanna get some fiber, try to rotate your fruits and vegetables, try to bring things in that are in season.
Try to rotate your protein sources too. Like many people, I was just talking yesterday with, um, a client chicken that’s just like the go-to, right? Well, can we do other sources of animal proteins so that we get some diversity in the types of, you know, vitamins and, and things like that. Amino acids that are coming in through that.
So that’s one aspect. And to not overwhelm people. I say look at what’s on sale. ’cause that’s usually what’s gonna be in season. [00:41:00] Try to pick one new food in each maybe category. So a different seed that you haven’t had in a long time. Right? Basil seeds. Nobody uses basil seeds or here’s of them often.
Great for estrogen dominance, great for constipation. So instead of just always going to the chia seed for your chia pudding, right? That could be something and that can align with these high fat, you know, ketogenic diets as well. Right. Um, one fruit, one vegetable. Right. Just try to think diversity, because if we have a diverse microbiome, we have a lot of, um, more, we have more resilience for our immune system.
So that’s one way that I speak of diet diversity. Mm-hmm. The other piece is that throughout the year, kind of think about this in, if we called periodization, when we did a lot of like the macro, more like coaching, we would have our cut season, right? We’d have our reverse season, we’d have our vacation season, and then a coming back into it, kinda like football, right?
And so. Some seasons you might be doing carnivore, then you might be doing more Mediterranean, then you [00:42:00] might be doing, like I’m doing right now, a season where I’m intentionally going a little bit more into some fasting for autophagy. I’m checking my ketones. I wanna make sure that I’m getting into ketosis here, but I’m actually doing this with carbohydrates in the picture.
’cause I’m inflicting autophagy through fasting. So I, I like to have this variation and I find that it helps people if you can plan out your year. And you’re strategic and you know why you’re doing this, it helps them not burn out because when we burn out, we get the case of the efforts right? Yeah. Yeah.
And when we get the case of the efforts right, what are we gen to go towards? The quick, the easy, the fast, the inflammatory, the drive through, the hyper palatable things. Um, and I also think it keeps checks and balances that you have intention with what you’re doing. You are less likely to, for example, I, we just did a podcast and I was talking to my sister about this yesterday.
Decision fatigue is real for people and I know that, um, many people who, you know, work and have kids and all the things can relate to this, but like, I don’t know [00:43:00] how you are. I have a thousand tabs in my mind open at all times. Oh yeah. So I start my day with a good amount of willpower. But I make so many decisions throughout the day.
At the end of the day, I, whatever. If the plan isn’t there, I don’t care. Just, yeah, grab some tacos, order the pizza, who cares? I don’t have any mental energy capacity, emotional capacity to, to give to that. But if you have a plan in place and you’re in the season and you’re strategic and you just know what you’re doing, you don’t even have to think about it.
Right? And so then you can also. On the side of confidence, stand firm in knowing that like what you’re doing is right for you. You feel good with it. You’re proud of yourself because you’re not deviating all the time. You don’t have to entertain these thoughts. Like that little voice inside your head who’s constantly trying to, Eliza Schlesinger had a really funny comedian.
Um. Show about this. I forgot what she called her, but it’s like the little voice inside your head. It’s like, yeah, just one more drink, one more drink. You know? And then she talks about, then she’s just like, ripping the town, um, or the [00:44:00] dance floor part, right? Because it’s these voices, this negotiation that we have and we are our best rationalization.
You know, like we are gonna totally talk ourselves into the thing that, uh, is easier, that sounds better, or whatever. So I just think that there’s a lot of. Reasons that that can benefit even beyond health. Um, you know, when you make that decision, you kind of plan out your year and say, okay, this is the time that I’m gonna be really focused and dialed in and this is what I’m gonna be doing.
And then on my vacation weeks, I’m gonna go and enjoy and be a normal human being, right? Have a couple of drinks, drink my water, and you know, all the electrolytes and things too, and still nourish your body in a way that you feel good with. But if we burn out, most people just fall off the cliff of the mountain and then that’s when they just notice that they feel horrible and then they really struggle to get back to it.
So I like that, um, for both health and just mental aspects. No, I love it. I think that’s well said. Um, yeah. Listen, Liz, you’ve been fantastic. I know Lori’s going to be absolutely [00:45:00] devastated that she wasn’t here, so I hope that we could do a part two because I know, listen, I had this whole list. Of things if you can see that we talk about that.
Yeah. Uh, we got about three of my questions. We absolutely can. I’d love to meet her and in the meantime, I think I’ve got homework to do. I’ve gotta find out about the THC and the mushrooms and all that stuff. Oh yeah. We’re correct in thinking that it’s, I for sure. It’s gotta be less than alcohol, but what are the impacts?
I’ll have to do some homework on that. Alright, good. I’m glad that I, um, sparked some of that into, you know, your world and, um, yeah, we’ll definitely do this again, but before we do that. Um, just if you can just share all your social media handles, your website, all the ways that we can keep up with all the great stuff you’re doing out there, and, uh, anything else, uh, that we can keep up with.
Sure. So, at the Poop Queen on Instagram, uh, I do have a TikTok. I’m not on there, so I’m, I’m in my dms on Instagram if you wanna message me there. Uh, you can. So [00:46:00] that is my main, you know, social media channel. But of course we have a podcast. That is the Health Revival Show, and that’s on all platforms, including Spotify, with video, YouTube, things like that.
I do have, our website is fit mom life.com and I do have a free Constipation cure guide, so you can go to fit mom life.com/liz, LIZ, and you can grab a copy there. I’m in the middle of updating the Kids Constipation Cure Guide as well, so that’ll be back out soon for people. Um. Let’s see. I think that’s it.
Facebook, you know, it’s just at the poop Queen everywhere. If you, if you look me, you’re gonna find me. Uh, but Instagram is really my personal jam. That’s where I’m in my stories. You’ll get to see my boys and the babies sometimes. Uh, and I do a lot of q and as on there as well. Awesome. Awesome. Again, appreciate you jumping outta the show.
I’m looking forward to having you back and have a great rest of the day. Thank you, sir. You too.