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Wild Goddess and Naturopathic Doctor, Cassandra Wilder, is back today with guidance for anyone struggling with gut health, digestive issues, or bloating. Her last contribution on foods to balance hormones was such a great resource; I’m excited she’s sharing about her personal journey with gut health and finding nutritional balance. I met Cassandra at our Business and Marketing Retreat in Scottsdale last year, and she’s helped me navigate a parasite cleanse and continues to help women connect with themselves with her podcast. We’ve had wellness professionals, business coaches, personal trainers, and doulas at these retreats, and it’s so great to learn from people doing new things with the same mission of helping others. Our next Business and Marketing opportunity is in January at Namaslay® Studios. Spots are filling up already, so sign up soon! xo - Candace
Vulnerability is a powerful thing, and I'm feeling that deeply as I share a bit about my journey as I've healed my gut. As a Naturopathic Doctor, I've been proud to be a generally healthy person. I eat really well, I prioritize time to exercise, I make sure I'm getting enough sleep, and I surround myself with a supportive environment.
And yet, at the end of 2018 I started to notice some digestive issues creep up in my life. Over a few months, I began to experience a huge amount of bloat. As someone who has generally been lean throughout life, I was shocked to suddenly look 6 months pregnant. Below is a photo of me at the end of 2018.
While my diet has been healthy for the last decade of my life, a couple things may have contributed to my gut slowly breaking down over time. One, a few years ago I was hospitalized for a systemic kidney infection and was given intravenous antibiotics. While this procedure saved my life, I didn’t actively rebuild my gut afterwards, and therefore, I believe it was inevitable that at some point it would manifest into a gut disorder. Two, I traveled a lot in 2018 and ate a lot of processed foods on the go. While these foods were “healthy” and organic, they were still processed carbs and sugar. So slowly my gut health suffered and ultimately manifested into this chronic bloat that was painful to the touch and didn’t want to budge.
What other factors can negatively influence gut health? Here’s a list below:
High levels of stress
Sugar and alcohol consumption
Antibiotic use
Birth control
Processed foods
Lack of sleep
Cigarettes
Chlorine exposure
If you’ve had digestive disorders, you know just how frustrating it can be. Especially when we don’t know why something is happening, it can seem overwhelming. I’m grateful to share though that there are some solutions as well as what I learned on my own personal journey of healing.
What You Can Do to Support Your Gut Health
If you’ve been feeling bloated, tired or had any digestive disorders going on, here’s a few ways you can start to address what’s going on:
Notice if there are any specific foods that cause a reaction. When our guts are unhealthy, it is possible to develop food sensitivities. These sensitivities can be to just about any food, not just the big ones we tend to think of like nuts, dairy, gluten, etc. If you find there’s a specific food that’s really bothering you, remove it from your diet. After healing your gut, you may be able to slowly reintroduce it
Reduce your sugar intake. This is major because often when we’re experiencing a digestive issue, it’s due to an overgrowth of bacteria, yeast or parasites - perhaps even all of the above. When we remove sugar, we remove a vital food source for these things and may be able to notice a difference just from this shift.
If you choose to, you can get a stool test done to measure you bacteria and yeast levels in the gut. You can also measure parasites via a stool test, but it’s not always accurate since parasites can live in other parts of the body.
Address your gut health with some form of a cleanse.
After a cleanse, slowly reintroduce healthy probiotics and bacteria to rebuild the gut.
A cleanse may be the best option for those of us with a serious overgrowth of parasites, bacteria or yeast. While these things exist within all of us most of the time, problems can arise when there’s simply too much of them.
What I Did to Heal My Gut
This is specifically what worked for me. See this as a reminder that healing is possible and that with the right tools, the body has the capacity to come back to balance. What worked well for me was:
Removing processed sugars from my diet and adapting a more paleo-friendly diet with lots of greens and high quality protein
Cleansed my gut of excessive levels of bacteria and yeast with a supplement protocol that included herbs like black walnut, clove, artemisia and oregano
Boosted my immune system by ensuring I was getting plenty of Vitamin D
Increased my water intake to make sure my body was able to flush everything out
Focused on low intensity exercises that didn’t push my body into an even higher stressed state. I specifically focused on walks, gentle hikes and yoga.
After my cleanse, I increased my Omega-3s, healthy probiotics and herbs to rebuild my gut.
Over 6 months later, I’m really excited to see such improvements in my body overall. My energy levels have improved, and the bloat has decreased significantly. I’m still supporting my body with different foods and herbs, but seeing these photos together reminds me just how far I've come.
If you’ve been struggling with your digestion, know that you are not alone! While this has been an intense journey, it’s also been incredibly humbling. I truly feel that I can empathize with my clients on a much deeper level and be of greater support to them.
As you begin to support your body and offer it the tools it needs to heal, be gentle with yourself. Let go of the need to have expectations. Be patient with the journey. I truly believe that when we choose to support our bodies from a place of love (and not disappointment or judgement), we are setting ourselves up for success.
With gratitude,
Cassandra
If you’re as fascinated with gut health and the environmental factors that impact overall wellness as I am, tune in to the next episode of the Namaslay® podcast, coming out on Monday, for an interview with Dr. Neil Nathan on healing your body from toxicities! Drop any questions for Cassandra in the comments! xo - Candace