Hannah Aylward (00:05.88)
Welcome to the Nutrient Dense Podcast. I’m your host, Hannah Aylward, holistic health coach, functional gut health practitioner, and the founder of HAN. So many people are continuously failed by conventional and alternative healthcare. We are here to do it differently. Alongside my team of functional registered dietitians, I’ve helped hundreds of women around the world overcome their chronic digestive issues when nothing else worked.

I’ve learned a thing or two about what it really takes to transform your health from the inside out, and I’m here to share it all with you. Please keep in mind that this podcast is for educational purposes only and should never be used as medical advice. Now let’s dive in. Your transformation is waiting.

Today we’re going to be talking about why your digestion still sucks even though you eat clean, you’ve tried making alterations to your diet, you’ve tried incorporating more fiber, you’ve tried taking out dairy, taking out gluten, taking out FODMAPs, and you feel like you’ve got the nutrition thing down, you’re exercising consistently, but you’re still feeling chronically bloated, constipated, having a lot of food reactions, low energy, all of that not so fun stuff.

If that resonates with you, you’re in the right place. If you’re new here, my name is Hannah Aoward. I’m the founder and CEO of Han and at Han we help people all over the world overcome chronic digestive issues when nothing else has worked. And we take a root cause functional approach to doing so. So we’re going to be diving into why you are still feeling not so hot, even when you’ve tried really altering your diet, right? One of the first things that we go to do.

when we are dealing with chronic digestive issues is remove things from the diet. That’s often what we’re told. Maybe a provider recommended that, maybe a physician recommended that, like remove gluten, see how that goes, remove dairy, see how that goes. If you are on social media, you’re definitely getting that messaging, right? You’re definitely getting the messaging of taking out gluten, taking out dairy, reducing sugar, taking out sugar, maybe trying low-fod map. It can very easily get very kind of confusing, right? And overwhelming. The thing is, that

Hannah Aylward (02:12.94)
When I see clients, by the time clients come to us, unfortunately, they’re like deep in their journey. I wish they found this earlier, but by the time clients come to us, they’ve already kind of tried all this and it hasn’t really gotten them anywhere, right? Maybe it’s helped for a little while. It’s helped for a couple of weeks, maybe a few months. Maybe symptoms have gone from a 10 to an eight, 10 to a seven, but they’re still not feeling a hundred percent, right? They’re still feeling low energy. They’re still dealing with skin issues. They’re still dealing with this chronic bloating and these chronic digestive issues. And they’re like, what’s going on?

What’s going on? I’m trying everything that I can. You’re not alone in this. This is like the client that we help on a regular basis. By the time claims come to us, it’s very common that they have already tried many, many diet adjustments, right? So you’re not alone in this on this journey. It can feel like you are. It can feel very isolating and frustrating, but you’re not alone in this. And I was right there with you. So a little background to my story is like, I dealt with chronic digestive issues for a really long time and I was convinced.

that if I just tighten up my diet, if I never go to any gluten, if I never eat any gluten again for the rest of my life, if I never eat any dairy, if I eat absolutely perfectly, if I only whole foods, then all my digestive issues would go away. So that’s what I strived for, perfection, right? Okay, I’m gonna get in enough fiber. Okay, I’m gonna get in only whole foods. Nope, like I’m not gonna go eat out and then make my food at home, whatever. Very quickly that turned into having kind of a dysregulated relationship with food, right? You’re scared of lots of foods. You’re saying no to dinners out.

You’re saying no to all these yummy foods that you used to eat, whatever it is. And the thing is, is that I was doing this and I was still dealing with chronic bloating. I still dealing with bloating, even after eating healthy foods. I remember eating an apple and my stomach blowing up looking six months pregnant. And I was like, I don’t have time for this. And what the heck is going on? Because I also didn’t always feel that way. I used to be to eat apples just fine. I used to be able to eat all sorts of foods just fine. So I was like, what’s going on? I remember trying to

only eat cooked foods, no raw foods. I remember I tried going on a raw only diet. I remember I tried doing love VODMAP. I tried doing paleo. I tried multiple elimination diets. I think I lived on an elimination diet for like five years, right? Which is kind of difficult and just leads to this relationship with food where you’re like, if I go outside of the lines, I will get sick. And that’s a very negative relationship that can develop with food, right? So that’s what we want to avoid.

Hannah Aylward (04:37.422)
And why I speak out about this is because it’s often not necessary, right? That’s not what helps our clients truly, truly get better. It’s not eating a quote unquote perfect diet because you know what? It’s impossible. It’s impossible to do unless you literally make all of your food. And even in that case, you’re still getting exposure to other stuff because that’s the world that we live in. I am by no means undermining the power of nutrition. I think if you follow me, I speak.

A lot about nutrition. It’s a very, very powerful tool. And we’ll kind of dive into some of that today as well. But I just want to, I like talking about this because A, it resonates with many and B, had I known this, I just would have been a lot easier on myself. I would have been a lot nicer to myself. I was blaming myself for not being able to eat healthy enough. Why couldn’t I maintain it? Why couldn’t I never be okay with just like literally never touching a piece of bread again? Like it was like really, really striving for perfection.

which then negatively impacts your digestion because you’re in that fight or flight response. You’re scared to eat food before you even eat them, which down regulates digestion, then leads to more bloating and maldigestion. So it’s a really vicious spiral. And that’s kind of how a lot of our clients feel by the time they find me. They have a really dysregulated relationship with food. In full transparency, it took me a couple of years to really be able to eat food without fear. That didn’t happen overnight. It takes a little bit of rewiring and kind of re-learning.

But had I known then what I know now, I would have handled things differently. And that’s why I speak out about this. Yeah. So we’re going to get into some of the reasons why this is important. Some of the reasons why this could be happening, why you could be feeling like you’re doing all of the things you’re trying your best and it’s like still not working. You’re like, I’m a healthy eater. I don’t get it. What’s going on? Some of the root causes of that.

And then also some of the things that we can then then do from there. So one of the things I talk a lot about is taking a root cause approach. This term is really thrown around less than right. And a lot of people think that they’re doing it and they’re not. A lot of people think that by taking out in quote unquote inflammatory foods, that that’s a root cause approach. And while it can be in some cases, it’s not in every case, right? We have to, of course, optimize nutrition. That is a foundation.

Hannah Aylward (06:54.318)
to the work that we do on my team. is a foundation, right? But it’s not the whole story. So when I say taking a root cause approach, we want to dig deeper into why you feel like you have to restrict foods, why you feel like you can only live your life while eating low-fat. Why you feel like you can only live your life without gluten, dairy, sugar, soy, corn, peanuts, whatever it is, garlic, onions, apples, any of these foods, because you probably could tolerate those foods at one point, right?

probably didn’t grow up with those sensitivities in some cases we do, but in most cases we don’t, develop over time because of the wear and tear that happens on the gut. And that’s what we’re really gonna be talking about today. So taking a root cause approach goes farther than just eliminating gluten and dairy. So I wanna make that very clear. That can be helpful in some cases, but we often see with clients once we repair the gut dysfunction.

They can tolerate dairy much better. I used to not be able to eat any of that and now I can and I enjoy it very much. And gluten is kind of a hit or miss for people, you know, so that one sometimes it can be brought back in sometimes not so much and that’s okay. But let’s dig deeper into this. So when I say root cause approach, here’s an example that I like to give. So if you step on a thumbtack, say you’re walking, you step on a thumbtack and you can take Advil.

to get rid of the pain, right? You can take ibuprofen, you can take Advil, you can take an anti-inflammatory drug to reduce the pain and the pain will go away, right? The thing is, is that it’s not gonna actually get fully better until you remove the thumbtack from your foot. You can take Advil, you can take one that might help over time. You might need to take more. You might need to take a few Advil over time. And then you may need other medications like antimicrobial medications and things like that because it may develop an infection.

It’s just going to get worse, right? Over time, it will get worse because we’re not actually addressing what’s causing the issue. So in the work that we do, we dig really deep, look under the hood with our clients to understand what is actually causing their bloating, what’s causing their IBS because IBS is an umbrella term and it gives us no information to what’s actually wrong, right? We help clients get rid of chronic IBS symptoms left and right, and it’s absolutely possible. So we dig deeper to understand why.

Hannah Aylward (09:10.924)
Like, why are you having these reactions? Why are you chronically constipated? Why are you using the bathroom once a day? It’s not, we can throw on peppermint tea, we can throw on peppermint capsules, we can throw on laxatives, we can throw on LinVest, we can throw on things like that, but we’re not actually dealing with any of the true issues by doing that, right? So we want to understand why do you even need those things? Because at some point you probably didn’t, and there’s likely some gut dysfunction going on. So.

I always like to use that kind of analogy so you can better understand the process that we take with clients. It’s not like one supplement, it’s not just taking a probiotic. It’s not just eating gluten free and dairy free. When you really want to repair your gut health, like sustainably long term and have the results really stick with you, right? Sometimes removing these foods can help for a couple of weeks, a month, and then it kind of comes back. And sometimes we’ll be really, really scared to even reintroduce these foods, right? We take them out, we’re terrified to bring them back in.

And when we do, we may react to that even worse. What I want to make very apparent as well is that restricting lots of foods all term will only decrease bacterial diversity over time. This is something that I really did not know when I was kind of in the height of my issues. I was just willing to do whatever it took to get rid of my bloating. And I was kind of convinced that like, if I just ate perfectly, it would go away. And by perfect, it meant like taking out all of these quote unquote toxic foods, right?

Which yes, there are foods that are more inflammatory. Absolutely. There are foods that are more supportive. Absolutely. I’m not saying that we want to repair your gut and you can just like go eat pizza and cake and slurp beef all day. That’s not what I’m saying. But there’s more to the story. By further restricting our food, by taking out fodmats, by taking out garlic and onions, by taking out apples, by taking out fruits because we have candida, whatever it is, by taking out

you know, quinoa, because we can’t eat grains, by taking out beans, by all of these foods that start to peel away when someone’s dealing with chronic digestive issues, we’re going to decrease bacterial diversity over time. What we do know is that bacterial diversity is important. Bacterial diversity creates more resiliency in the gut microbiome, which creates a healthier gut long term over time. Having a healthy gut is essential to really minimizing your risk for truly all disease. It blinks back to about 90 % of all disease.

Hannah Aylward (11:29.144)
So is that a big statement to make? Yes. Am I saying that by cleaning up your gut, can literally never get sick at all? No, but we want to optimize gut health to support a full body system health. It’s going to impact our energy, our skin, our hair, our nails, going to impact our hormones, going to impact our digestion, our weight, everything, our thyroid health, right? So it’s really important to to take a look here. We don’t want to be living on a restricted diet long term.

That sucks, right? That’s not fun. It’s going to impact your life, your quality of life, which I care about. know maybe other practitioners don’t care about, but I truly care about your quality of life. And I don’t want you to feel like you can’t go out to eat with your friends. And I don’t want you to feel like if you actually enjoy a slice of pizza here and there, you’re going to pay for it for a week. That’s how I felt. it just quite frankly sucked, right? And it really doesn’t have to be that way. So

really leaning on lots of restrictions to make it through is going to decrease your quality of life, which is important. And it’s also going to decrease bacterial diversity. Why does that matter? Why is decreasing bacterial diversity something we should really watch? Like I said, we know that bacterial diversity leads to healthier gut function, which leads to more health, better health overall. But our gut bacteria play specific roles for us, right? So they help us metabolize nutrients from our food.

They serve as a protective barrier against different intestinal infections. They help produce vitamins K and B. They help support hormonal health. They help protect other gut bacteria. So it kind of works as an ecosystem, keeping things in check. They help regulate inflammation. They affect our metabolism. They affect our insulin sensitivity. So our blood sugar, right? Our blood sugar management, which is then going to influence our hormones and our energy and our weight.

They affect actually how many calories we can absorb from food and they affect our thyroid function. 20 % of our thyroid hormone is converted by our gut bacteria. So when we’re just decreasing these good gut bugs, we’re gonna run into some issues, right? They quite literally help us have regular bowel movements, minimize inflammation, support metabolic function, and absorb our nutrients from food. Now, why is that important? Because the nutrients that we intake from food, if we’re not absorbing them,

Hannah Aylward (13:45.334)
We’re not giving our body the elements that it needs to fulfill all of the processes that have to take place to support our muscles, to support our skin elasticity, to support our our liberty, toxification, to give us energy. We’re not digesting and absorbing food properly. We’re going to run into a lot of issues, a lot of symptoms, thyroid symptoms, different conditions. Can there’s a nutrient deficiency component to these, right?

So we don’t want an issue with our gut bacteria and we don’t want an issue not being able to digest food because we’ll have more symptoms down the line. It’s very common for me to see in practice that we work with clients that, yes, they have really like lot of digestive issues like bloating after they eat anything. They’re looking six months pregnant with bloat. They’re reacting to both the foods. But what also comes with that is skin flare ups, acne, eczema, psoriasis. It also comes with chronic low fatigue. They’re like, I don’t, I’m just exhausted all the time. I’m dragging my feet. I’ve gotten to take a nap in the middle of the day, right?

So it’s going to lead to other symptoms as well. Maybe they develop thyroid issues, et cetera. Very long story short, we don’t wanna be minimizing and reducing the bacterial diversity within the gut microbiome. Our gut microbiome is home to trillions of different microorganisms, including bacteria, archaea, parasites, fungus, all the things. We want enough of the good gut bugs. That’s why probiotics are so hot, right? That’s why they’re so trendy.

Once again, it’s not all about probiotics. Probiotics actually don’t replete our gut bacteria. They’re transient, so they come in and then we poop them out. We’ve got to feed them the right stuff for them to actually take place. Hence, a very restrictive diet not being supportive of our health long term can help minimize symptoms. Short term, sure, but we should always have a plan to address the why underneath it all. Okay, so we really have to look at the gut environment in this case.

I’m going to break down what that even means. I kind of throw out the term the gut environment often, and it can feel very confusing sometimes because honestly, there’s a lot that goes into it. It’s really not just bacteria. When I say gut environment, I mean the environment in which the food enters. So when we feel like we’re eating really healthy, we’re eating like good quality protein, we’re eating healthy fats, we’re eating avocados and sweet potatoes and, and, you know, organic chicken and all of that kind of stuff. We’re eating fiber. We’re eating all of these good, healthy plant-based foods, whatever it is.

Hannah Aylward (16:02.69)
but we’re still having issues, it’s not a food problem. It’s a gut environment problem. We have to think of where the food is actually entering in the system because when we’re eating these foods and they’re really healthy, it’s like, why can’t we actually digest these foods, break them down and assimilate them properly? So we have to look at the gut environment. So let’s break down what that even means. Where is the food entering? And if there’s an issue with where the food is entering, we’re going to have an uptake of different symptoms, bloating, reflux.

constipation or diarrhea, stomach dissension, gas, right? All of the not so fun stuff. So a few things that I want to point out within the gut environment here. First thing is secretory IGA. So secretory IGA is really our gut immune system. These are like immune soldiers that come out and they help to regulate the environment within the gut microbiome. So they help us kind of weed off invaders.

keep things nice and tight in there, keep things nice and balanced in there, minimize overgrowth and keep the environment balanced. I said we’ve got trillions of bacteria, archaea, all these kinds of things. So we wanna keep this environment nice and healthy and balanced. We want an adequate good gut bacteria and we don’t want different gut infections and we don’t want to have enough, like not enough of the good bacteria and we don’t wanna have an overgrowth of things like fungus. When we see low levels of secretory IgA, which is something that we see on testing that we run with our clients,

we know that they’re going to be reacting to more foods. Their gut immune system is down, so they’re going to be more reactive to foods. They’re probably feeling exhausted and they’re probably having increased symptoms because that secretory IGA is an immune system response. They’re going to be more susceptible to different gut infections as well. So really optimizing this gut immune function is essential to overall lifelong gut health and minimizing risk of infection and regulating that gut environment.

we know that when that gut immune function is lower, we will see more food reactions. So once again, this is not a food issue. This is a gut environment issue. Can we bring in certain nutrition strategies to strengthen our secretory IgA, strengthen that gut immune function? Yes, but it is not only about the food that we’re eating, right? We can bring in other tools to bring up that level. We can bring in lifestyle strategies and we can really work to optimize that secretory IgA function. Okay. We’ll also see that

Hannah Aylward (18:22.254)
low in people with like kind of burnout. I want to say adrenal fatigue, which isn’t real if your adrenals don’t actually get fatigued. But when you feel like I’m really burnt out, like in my cortisol, low or I’ve just been activated for a really long time, I’ve been really stressed for a really long time. And we also see it with people that have had gut imbalances for a really long time. So when someone comes in to work with me and they’ve been struggling with their digestive issues for like 10 years, because that’s kind of on average people that CS will be struggling for.

everywhere from six months to like 15 years. When someone comes in with that, they’re probably gonna have decreased gut immune function because their body’s been fighting something for a really long time. So that’s part of the gut environment that I’m talking about here. The other thing is gut infections, pathogens, and imbalances. And I talk a lot about this because this is so important when it comes to food reactions. When we are having lots of food reactions and we are having a lot of bloating, a lot of constipation, maldigestion, we have to look at the gut environment

the environment of microorganisms within the gut microbiome. We have to look and say, is this stuff balanced? Are we dealing with dysbiosis? Are we dealing with overgrowth of not so supportive gut bacteria? Are we dealing with undergrowth of our good gut bacteria? We’ll see skin conditions pop up when we don’t have enough of the anti-inflammatory producing gut bacteria. We’ll see bloating, slow motility, constipation pop up when we don’t have enough of the good gut bugs. So we want to look at, we have an overgrowth of not so supportive gut bacteria? That’s going to cause a whole

coast of digestive symptoms like bloating, constipation, diarrhea, food reactions, reflux. And then we also want to look at, we not have enough of the good stuff? Because that can also cause a lot of symptoms. And this is why you guys, please do not go and just treat your gut on your own without having proper testing, without having proper guidance, because you can do more damage than good if you don’t know what you’re working with. This is another thing that I did not understand when I was in my journey learning all of this, right? I did not understand that by

by restricting my diet, by taking certain things to kind of get rid of overgrowth. What I didn’t even know if I had them was actually doing more harm than good because you can find a lot of stuff on Google, but it doesn’t mean that’s right for you, right? So I really recommend working with someone on this because they can customize exactly what you need based on what you need. They can customize what exactly a plan to what you need, right? So we want to have this data.

Hannah Aylward (20:41.268)
It is a game changer when we understand what’s going on in your body and when we can make recommendations based on exactly what’s going on within your unique gut microbiome, not just the basic paleo diet that we don’t even know if you need, right? If it’s benefiting you, PS is probably not. If you’re on this live, then we can make so much more progress. Like you can take the period of time that you’re struggling trying to figure this out and you can literally compress it when you understand what’s going on with your body. Once again, wish I knew it because I struggled for

literal years and my quality of life severely decreased. we want to take a look at different gut imbalances. Gut infections, things like H. pylori infection, parasitic infections are going to cause loads of food reactions. We want to look at dysbiotic imbalances. We want to look at fungal overgrowth. All of these things are going to cause loads of food reactions and lots of digestive symptoms. Here’s the deal. You can’t just not eat sugar and have your candida overgrowth go away. I was just talking to a plant about this yesterday. She has

incredibly high levels of candida. And she was like, well, I know, you know, I did the candida diet before and I know I can’t stray from that diet. Like I can’t eat any sugar at all. There’s no room to go off of it. And I’m like, girl, it didn’t work like that. Your levels are still really, really high, right? You’re still in here working with me. This severe restriction of the diet is not necessary and it doesn’t work. It’s not effective, right? Like once again, proper nutrition is a part of this, but

taking out all of this stuff, it doesn’t even get the results that we want, right? So you really cannot get rid of a candida overgrowth by just not eating sugar. You can’t, we have to look at why did you get it, right? We have to look deeper to understand why you got it to make sure that we’re actually repairing that so you don’t just get it again, doesn’t just come back, right? You can’t eat your way out of an H. pylori infection. You can’t eat your way out of chronic, you know, severe dysbiosis. Like this isn’t something that can be rebalanced.

by just not eating gluten or dairy, it’s not gonna happen. So give yourself that like permission. Like I hope this feels like relief because it actually doesn’t require this chronic restriction super long-term. So what do you think of the environment? wanna look at the respiratory IGA, like I said, our gut immune function. We wanna look at different gut infections, pathogens and imbalances. We also wanna look at our digestive output. So let me break down what that even means for you. Digestive output is like all of our digestive juices.

Hannah Aylward (22:58.028)
We have the body creates different digestive juices to quite literally help us break down our food, absorb the nutrients from our food, and utilize these raw materials to help support our body’s function. So when I’m talking about digestive output, I need stomach acid, bile flow, and pancreatic enzymes secretions. So we need enough of all of these things to break down our food properly. For example, if you don’t have adequate stomach levels, if you’ve got low stomach acid, if you’ve got low pancreatic enzymes, then you will not be breaking down your food properly.

What does that feel like? Bloating. What does that feel like? Constipation. What does that feel like? Maybe even diarrhea. Things are flowing through because we can’t even break them down, right? We’ll see diarrhea with a lot of like bile issues. We’ll see diarrhea with different infections and things like that. But if you can’t break down your food properly, what happens is it basically you swallow your food and it’s just going to sit in the GI tract longer than we want it to. Your GI tract is basically one long tube.

It can feel really overwhelming, but think of it as just like one long tube that like twists and turns all around, right? Small intestine absorbs lots of nutrients, things kind of flow through. We’ve got peristalsis, we’ve got our MMC kind of supporting the movement of things through the GI tract. But if you’re not breaking down your food efficiently, then food is going to sit in that GI tract longer than we want it to. So think of something like a pond and think of a pond that doesn’t have any movement to it, right? It’s just like still water.

You know that film that starts to occur on top of the pond, that bacterial biofilm starts to grow on top of the pond because there’s no movement. Nothing is moving. Think of like a rushing like river or creek. You don’t see that kind of bacteria growth in rushing freshwater like that, right? Because we’ve got movement to it. So our digestive output helps things move through the GI tract and helps us break things down properly. If we’re not, if we’re lacking in these areas, things are sitting in that GI tract and that bacterial overgrowth is going to occur, right?

So when we talk about dysbiosis, like I mentioned just a few minutes ago, that’s important. But once again, we have to ask why, why did we get that? What, what led to that? So for not breaking down our food efficiently because of a gut infection, because of low stomach acid, because of nutrient deficiencies, because of chronic stress, then we’re going to end up with food kind of just sitting in the GI tract being mal-digested. And what happens is it’s going to feed bacteria. It’s going to ferment and feed bacteria.

Hannah Aylward (25:17.582)
Now, what do bacteria do? Lots of beautiful things. And also, they create gas. They create gas. So what if it’s gas? It’s bloating. It’s gas. It leads to constipation. It leads to these other symptoms. So things aren’t moving through the way that we want them to. Then we end up constipated. Then we end up with lots of bloating. And it just feeds this vicious cycle. So digestion is really a north to south process. And when we look at truly repairing someone’s gut health, we have to take a look at it.

from north to south. Starts in the brain, ends with that bowel movement, right? So we have to go in and look at where’s the breakdown in this chain? Is it nervous system regulated? Are we chronically stressed? Are we not chewing? Are we not producing an adequate salivary enzymes? When we swallow our food, are we just given our GI tract huge chunks or are we actually chewing to applesauce consistency? Then we have to look at how’s our stomach acid? Is our stomach acid there to help us break down proteins, assimilate our nutrients and protect us from different infections?

Are we pushing out enough pancreatic enzymes? we pushing out adequate bile at meals to help us break down fats and absorb fat soluble nutrients? All of this to say, this is like Digestive Health 101. This is like how digestion works. So all of that to say, y’all can see that it’s not just the food, right? It’s not just because you ate a sweet potato that you’re bloated. There’s going to be a breakdown in this chain that we have to work to identify. And that’s what we do on my team in order to help you actually get better long-term.

So low digestive output, stomach acid, bioflow, pancreatic, and ventricles secretion is going to lead to maldigestion, which is going to cause nutrient-efficient bees, which will then lead to liver detox issues, thyroid issues, skin issues, all of that. And it’s also going to lead to digestive symptoms, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, burping, all of that really, really fun stuff that we have to deal with. So we’ve got secretory IgA, gut infections, pathogens, and imbalances, and then that low digestive output.

The other thing is going to be that gut lining, right? So our gut has a lining, it has an ecosylamine and an epithelial lining. So we have to take a look at that gut lining. How’s that doing? If we have an issue with that gut lining, if that gut lining that is semi-permeable in nature, because it has to be, because it absorbs our nutrients, thank you very much body. If that is leaky, if those tight junctions along that lining get leaky, then we end up with potential parasites we end up with.

Hannah Aylward (27:39.528)
undigested proteins and things flowing through that gut lining that’s too leaky and triggering our immune system response, which is then going to lead to more food reactions, food sensitivities, and it’s also going to lead to systemic inflammation because that’s how the body works, right? Over 70 % of our immune system exists in our gut. So when we have something that is activating and triggering that immune system, not because of the food, any food would do it with a gut lining issue, right? Any food would do it with a gut lining issue, could do it with a gut lining issue. So it’s not about

taking on all these foods, it’s not really gonna do anything. We have to look at how, in what state is that gut lining at, right? Like how’s our gut lining doing? If that is leaky or increased, the intestinal permeability is increased, then we’re going to have more reactions and more immune system, like triggering systemic inflammation. What can that look like? And feel like in your body, bloating, rashes, migraines, joint pain, right? The list really goes on and on because it’s going to say, hey body, time to pump out some inflammation, something’s going on.

We’ve got something coming in, entering a space where it shouldn’t be entering, send information, let’s, it’s doing that to protect you, which is great, until it’s not, until it’s happening every day with every meal over time. And then you’re just dealing with issues very long-term, right? So we’ve got to take a look at that gut lining as well, triggering that immune system response, leading to different food sensitivities. Once again, it doesn’t come down to just getting rid of these foods. We’re not doing anything by doing that.

We’re not doing any good by getting rid of these foods. We’re not healing the gut lining. We’re not dealing with these gut infections. We’re not supporting, you know, digestive output production. All we’re doing is taking out foods and hoping it works. And it usually doesn’t, right? So that’s super important here.

Hannah Aylward (29:22.924)
If you’re ready to finally get to the bottom of your chronic digestive issues and say goodbye to the bloating, constipation, and food sensitivities for good, I’ve got the perfect thing for you. On January 29th, I’ll be teaching my signature Good Gut Formula Masterclass. In class, you’ll learn my three-phase Good Gut Formula that you can implement ASAP to transform your gut health, overcome your digestive issues, and start to regain your freedom. In class, we’ll be covering

my exact step-by-step formula that I use with all of my clients to transform their gut health and repair their digestive system for good. We’ll also be talking about the critical factors contributing to bloating and digestive distress that no one talks about. And I’ll be unveiling the biggest myths around digestive conditions that keep most people totally stuck so you can stop wasting your time and finally start seeing results.

This masterclass is a must attend if you feel like you eat clean, but you’re still struggling with these daily debilitating digestive issues. If you’ve gotten the testing done from your provider and everything always comes back looking fine or normal, but you feel far from normal. If you’ve tried taking the probiotics, the enzymes and the other gut health supplements without any relief. If you struggle with a long list of food sensitivities and reactions and you’re afraid to eat anything anymore.

And this class is for you if you are ready to take your health into your own hands so you can finally feel good in your body and get your freedom back. Spaces are limited, so make sure to secure your spot in class now. You can find the link to sign up in the show notes below.

Hannah Aylward (30:59.682)
The other thing is nutrient deficiencies. So our body is going to require like all of these different nutrients in order to fulfill its processes, right? Our thyroid needs really juicy nutrients like selenium and iodine and these different nutrients to actually work, right? Our liver needs different nutrients in order to do its job. We’ll see tons of symptoms come up when we have sluggish liver detoxification. Sometimes like there’s like this narrative where it’s like your body detoxes all the time. You don’t have to detox.

which like has some truth to it, but if your body doesn’t have what it needs to actually detox, if not, it’s not doing it as efficiently as we want it to. We are inundated with toxins all the time. You can’t really control it. To be honest, you can do your best. You can minimize where you can, but you want to strengthen your body’s ability to properly detoxify as much as you can because if you try to control the toxins, I believe it’ll just, you’ll just drive yourself nuts. You know, there’s like stuff in our environment everywhere. With that being said, we want to optimize those pathways.

liver detoxification is a nutrient dependent process. It requires tons of different nutrients. If I could share my screen, I would pull up a little graphic here of liver detoxification pathways and all of the nutrients that are required to do so. Let me tell you, juice cleanse ain’t doing it. It’s not doing it. Once you actually understand what is needed to detoxify, you’ll be like, wow, this, did not, I did not know this. The list of nutrients that are required is long, right? Different things. So

There’s liver detox pathways as well. want to optimize both. We want to optimize phase one and phase two. And then we want to make sure that things are able to move out, detoxes are able to move out through things like bowel movements. So if we are having issues with constipation, we’ll literally be full of junk, be full of toxins. So it’s really important to make sure that we are having daily bowel movements that are easy to pass because that’s how we get rid of excess hormones. That’s how we get rid of mycotoxins. That’s how we get rid of excess junk.

that does end up in the body through our water system, breathing in different air, eating foods that have weird stuff in it, all the things, right? Different pesticides, herbicides, things like that. So that’s super important. But these nutrient deficiencies can also lead to digestive symptoms. So this thing is a bit more food focused, right? But it’s not, you don’t get rid of this just by taking out more foods. We have to look at what nutrients are required and how do we make sure that we’re getting in enough of the good stuff, right? It’s not about just taking out all these foods.

Hannah Aylward (33:24.134)
In the work that I do with my clients in my Healing Guts and Shaking Butts program and in my one-to-one program, I am very often saying, hey guys, we got to eat more. We got to get enough of the good stuff here because our body needs these nutrients to actually do its job. When we start to peel all of these things away, we are going to be at a higher risk of nutrient deficiencies. We know that a low-fod-map diet creates many nutrient deficiencies, right? We know that taking out all of these foods will create nutrient deficiencies.

which then doesn’t leave your body with the nutrients that it needs to fulfill the processes to keep you healthy. Does that make sense to you guys? So it can very easily just be this like downward spiral of elimination that’s actually not serving us long-term at all. It’s creating nutrient deficiencies and it is reducing our bacterial diversity. So it’s kind of just making things way worse. Once again, I wish I knew that when I was in the thick of it and that’s why I share it with you guys. Okay. The other thing that we have to look at that really doesn’t have anything to do with food

is our thyroid function and our cortisol levels. So our thyroid kind of sets the metabolic tone and pace for the body. When we have a sluggish thyroid, when we have something like hypothyroidism, we’re going to have slower motility. We know that hypothyroidism is linked with a higher risk of SIBO or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth that will cause so many awful digestive symptoms, chronic bloating, looking like really descend belly, all of that kind of stuff, right?

So our thyroid health is really important when it comes to maintaining optimal digestive health. It’s going to heavily impact our motility. The other thing, like I mentioned before, is our bacteria can support that thyroid hormone conversion. So that’s also important. But the thyroid, if sluggish, is going to lead to stuff sitting in that long digestive tube longer than we want. It can lead to things like constipation. It can lead to slow motility, which can then lead to bacterial overgrowth because things are sitting in the GI tract longer than we want.

which will then cause lots of digestive symptoms. So we have to really look at our thyroid function, which really comes down to, we getting in enough of the nutrients that we need to support our thyroid function? It’s not about just eliminating all these foods. We need a lot of good vitamin A in the retinol form to support healthy thyroid function. You know where you get that? Dairy. So by taking away a lot of these foods, we can very easily run into problems.

Hannah Aylward (35:44.778)
So I think we get the gist of that already. The other thing that I want to mention here is cortisol levels. So I talk a lot about stress and how stress impacts our digestion. Now, I don’t really think stress is going to ever go fully away, at least not in my life running a business. It’s just like not going to happen. With that being said, we can work on building resiliency. We can work on having better perspective of the stressors that come into play and we can work on minimizing it as much as possible, right? But there will always be stress that pops up in our life. We’ll get stuck in traffic.

We’ll get life throws with curve balls, right? So it’s about really optimizing and building stress, resiliency as much as we can. And also like maintaining healthy boundaries, saying no to stuff that you do not want to be doing and you’re doing it anyway. Right. And different patterns like that. But having higher cortisol levels is going to slow down digestion because when we’re in that fight or flight response, when our body is activated, when we’re in that sympathetic nervous system response, fight or flight, right out of that rest and digest response literally says the word digest.

So when we’re stressed, digestion is going to slow down. Blood flow is going to go away from the GI organs, it’s going to go into the big muscles because the body is ready to run, which is amazing. Hi, thank you body for doing that. Thank you for having this reaction and being able to get me out of a dangerous situation to be able to protect me when I go to step off the sidewalk, but a car is coming around the corner and I have to jolt back. Thank you body for having that response. However, the body doesn’t know whether you’re stepping off the sidewalk and you’re going to about to get hit by a car or a bear chasing after you.

Or you have an inbox full of emails or you’re stuck in traffic or you’re stressed because you got in a fight with a friend or whatever it is, right? The body doesn’t really know the difference. So we really have to make sure that we are taking a look at these stress levels and lowering them as much as possible. What also can come into play here is physical stressors. So of course we’ve got mental and emotional stressors. We’ve got financial stress. We’ve got

losing a loved one, we’ve got a busy work day, we’ve got different things like that, right? An inbox full of emails, getting an email from your boss that you’re like, crap, you know? We’ve got stressors like that. We also have physical stressors, which includes nutrient deficiencies. Can you see how inadequate digestion will lead to more nutrient deficiencies and then that will cause more stress? So it’s not a coincidence that you’re having all these chronic digestive issues and you’re also feeling stressed and you’re also feeling exhausted, right? You go hand in hand and it becomes a vicious circle.

Hannah Aylward (38:01.934)
if we don’t take care of it, a vicious cycle if we don’t take care of it, right? So stress is going to create nutrient deficiency. We’re not going to digest our food properly because blood flow is going away from those GI organs. Cortisol is also going to lower the amount of stomach acid that is produced and it’s going to slow down motility. We know how important that is. So that will also cause digestive symptoms over time, right?

Going back to those stressors, I talked about those mental and emotional and then physical ones, physical ones, nutrient deficiencies, not eating enough, not eating enough. How easy is it to not eat enough when you’re taking out a lot of foods? I’m pretty sure when I was in the height of my digestive issues, I was skipping lots of meals because I was terrified. I was terrified to eat foods. I was terrified that I was going to react to what I was going to eat and that it was going to take me down for the rest of day. I didn’t have time for that. Right. It’s so easy to not know what to eat.

or to not be hitting your nutrient needs when you are dealing with these chronic digestive issues because of that icky relationship with food that starts to develop and because like you feel like it doesn’t matter what you eat, you react anyway. So why would you eat? Right? This is a very common story that I hear from clients. They’re like, I don’t know. I’ve started kind of skipping meals and I’m scared to eat. So I just like stopped eating as much and different things like that. And then when we peel away certain foods, we’re also not going to hit our nutrient needs. Right? Some people are like, well, I digest protein very well.

We need protein, the body needs protein. We want to get in enough protein per day to support our body’s needs. When you don’t feel like you can digest it very well, we’re probably looking at low stomach acid, right? Why? Because low stomach acid helps us break down protein. So there’s another piece to it that a lot of people aren’t seeing when they just go to take out these food groups, right? I don’t eat beans. I can’t digest them. Well, why?

Why can’t we digest them? That’s what we have to get to the bottom of here because they’re a very healthy food that we want to be eating. They’re great for a good gut bugs. They’re great for supporting bioflow, for helping us excrete excess estrogen and hormones and things like that. So we want to make sure that we can eat these foods or it will become a stressor on the body. And then it becomes this vicious cycle, right? The other thing, a big stressor that I see is over exercising. We just get

Hannah Aylward (40:16.696)
thrown these messages, you guys, get thrown these messages that we got to work out five, seven times a week that we’re doing, we’re doing hit five times a week. We’re doing CrossFit, we’re doing Orange Theory, doing all these really intense workouts, which maybe would suit better for a man’s body, but in a menstruating human body, it is not supportive. It is too stressful. We require different things at different times of the month based on where we’re at, right? That’s not taken into consideration very often. And there’s a lot of diet culture messaging saying,

that we need to exercise every single day, that we need to count our calories. So there’s a very common narrative, a very common story of under-eating and over-exercising that then will cause digestive issues down the line. That was a huge part of my story. I had a very dysregulated relationship with food. I was terrified. I didn’t like the way my body looked. I was really trying to control things. I was under-eating, over-exercising. I would go run six miles every day.

It just wrecked my hormones and my gut health. was not supportive. And then I started reacting to all these foods. So then what? Then my relationship with food gets even more dysregulated because I’m scared to eat different foods at this point, right? Because they’re giving me so many GI symptoms. So it was just this downward spiral. So we’ve got to take a look at stress cortisol levels when we are looking to optimize digestive function and digestive health as well. Once again, it doesn’t really need to be perfect.

My digestion is doing pretty good right now and I maintain a pretty decent load of stress because I’m an entrepreneur and I’m helping, you know, we’ve got 50 plus clients in our circulation at a time. So it’s, it’s just a lot, you know, and then I’m a human in 2023, of course. So there’s a lot going on. It really doesn’t need to be perfect. We just need to have tools to better manage it and we need to get better at developing boundaries and we need to support our body’s physical needs as much as possible to take that stressor out. Right.

getting enough sleep, eating enough food, not over-exercising, and then of course more of the mental emotional stuff. So it’s also pretty common to see when we get in the thread with our clients and we’re like, how do we think that this happened? They were like, you know what? I actually had this job for the last like three years that stressed me out so freaking much. And then all my digestive issues happened. And I’m like, yeah, that’s definitely part of the story. And you want to know why? Because high cortisol is going to…

Hannah Aylward (42:33.07)
down regulate digestion in a myriad of ways. You’re going to produce less stomach acid. And we also know that cortisol is going to wear away at that mucosal lining within the gut. It’s just a downward spiral, right? So addressing stress is part of the solution, but it’s really also important to remember that stress doesn’t stay stress because of what I just said. it’s often, we’re very often, I get very angry because a lot of the clients that work with us are like, well, my doctor just told me it must be stress. I’m just stressed.

Right. When my doctor found out that I was planning a wedding, he was like, like you’re just stressed. Meanwhile, she has SIBO, you know, so stress doesn’t stay stress because of the physiological impacts that stress has on the body. Stress management is part of the answer. It’s part of the solution, but it’s not the full solution because stress over time, higher cortisol will get degradation of the gut lining. We’ll get suppressed immune function within that gut. We’ll get higher risk of dysbiosis because lower.

because stomach acid levels are lowering. So stress over time actually becomes physical. It becomes a physical imbalance, nutrient deficiencies, mineral deficiencies, things like that, which is then it’s just a spiral. Right. So a lot of people are like, I don’t know if it’s my anxiety or if my anxiety is calling my gut issues or if my gut issues are causing my anxiety. Right. That’s very common. And it’s really both. It’s very often both anxiety is triggering some gut issues, but gut issues can also trigger anxiety.

because of how stressed out it makes you, right? So there’s a lot at play there. So we’ve got to take a look at cortisol levels when we are addressing the gut and taking the stress off the body as much as possible. And then of course, thyroid function too. Then we have nervous system. It kind of ties in with what I was just talking about. So I’m not going to go too into it, but just to recap, we know that when the nervous system is in that fight or flight response, so we’ve got two different responses, a couple of different responses. We can go fight, fight, freeze, can go fawn.

but we got a parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system response that can occur and that will be in. The body has to be in that parasympathetic nervous system response to heal. Let that sink in for a second. The body has to be in the parasympathetic nervous system response to repair and heal. You literally cannot repair and heal when you are chronically in that fight or flight response. So we have got to look at our nervous system.

Hannah Aylward (44:54.74)
when we are taking a look at our digestive issues and our gut health long term, it really cannot be overlooked. The thing that I see the most is that, and this is why I have this live guide. This is why I’m teaching this training is because when you read all these articles and you follow all these people on Instagram, you follow all these people all over the place and all these functional medicine doctors and all the things are telling you to just take out inflammatory foods and never eat, never eat seed oils and never eat gluten and never eat dairy and never eat sugar.

which is all like can be helpful. Like I’m not acting like it’s not helpful at all. But when you’re getting all of this messaging nonstop and then you’re just going in, okay, I’m never going to eat this. I’m only going to eat these clean foods. How do you think your nervous system feels in that, in that energy, right? That relationship with food gets very dysregulated. And then you end up existing in this fire flight response when it comes to every meal, you don’t feel easy. You don’t, you don’t trust your body anymore. You don’t feel like comfy cozy when it comes to making a meal. You’re like over controlling.

you’re aiming for perfectionism, what is that doing? That’s putting your body in that stress response. What’s that doing? It’s literally negatively impacting your digestion of that meal. We also know that when we eat foods that we don’t like, like when we’re eating a meal that we don’t enjoy, our body does not produce the enzymes that we want it to produce to help us break down the food. Isn’t that kind of a new thing? Like I think the body is just so incredible. So this really, really easily becomes this really negative spiral. So we really want to take a look at

not deeming food that’s good or bad, not taking out all of these foods, but working on our relationship with food and our nervous system response to meals when we’re eating them and to our digestive symptoms and all of that and to our life. Like, how are we feeling in our life? Do we wake up and we feel like we’re stressed from the moment that we wake up? Do we feel like our stress levels are uncontrollable? Like, how can we rebalance this as much as possible while also building resiliency, right? Because stress is not going to just go fully away.

in order to benefit our gut health long-term. When I take clients through When Healing Guts and Shaking Bats program, I have one-to-one calls with them in the program. And what I hear the most often is, wow, the module and the lessons on stress really impacted me. I did not understand how much this, much of a game changer this was. I did not understand how much this was impacting me. And I have needed to make adjustments in my life to benefit my overall health going forward. Stress is just like this term that gets tossed around and it can feel very…

Hannah Aylward (47:19.214)
elusive. It’s like, yeah, stress, you got to minimize stress. And it’s like, what does that even mean? And how do I do that in my life? How do I actually just minimize stress when I’m trying to work and pay my bills and eat healthy and exercise and do my laundry and get my oil changed? Y’all, get it. I mean, being a human in this world, requires quite a bit. it’s like…

How can we build resiliency while also minimizing the stressors wherever we can in order to repair our gut health and also everything? Because stress is going to wear away your adrenals and it’s going to cause hormone about this and it’s going to cause thyroid issues too. So it plays a role. Now, after saying all of that, it’s not about taking out more food. It’s not about just eliminating all of these different foods. There’s so much more to the story that’s really essential when we want to properly repair our gut function.

The other thing that I just, it’s like little honorable mention is that I will say when clients come in to work with us, they say, I’m eating a really healthy diet. And we are like, okay, let’s take a look. Let’s take a look at that, right? No shame or judgment. And I would say 95 % of people that come to work with us are not eating enough. They’re not hitting their nutrient needs and they’re not eating enough. They’re not eating adequate carbohydrates. They’re not eating enough fiber. They’re not eating enough protein.

We recommend that our clients get in at least like a hundred grams of protein per day. And I would say most women come in eating about 50, not nearly enough, right? We need protein about their blood sugar. We need protein to support our gut lining. We need protein for muscle repair and metabolic function. It’s so important. So sometimes when we feel like we’re eating this clean diet,

It’s not balanced and it’s actually not what we need, right? We’re, it’s leading to a lot of nutrient deficiencies and we’re not giving our bodies the raw materials that it needs. So I would say at the beginning, when we started working with clients, I wouldn’t go in as much. wouldn’t have to do a food blog because I was like, you know, most of my clients come in already eating a healthy diet. That’s like who we help. And then it became apparent pretty quickly that we actually really need to take a look at what they were eating on a daily basis because they weren’t eating enough and they weren’t, they weren’t hitting their nutrient needs.

Hannah Aylward (49:28.652)
And that’s really important to support gut function, but also immune system support, help your body feel safe. Your body’s gotta feel safe to heal. So if you are skipping meals, if you’re eating one egg for breakfast, it’s not nearly enough, not nearly enough. You can take out all the gluten dairy that you want, but if you’re not eating enough of the good stuff, you’re still not going to get anywhere. My approach to it is quite different. I don’t want you guys to take on a bunch of stuff. I want you guys to prioritize getting in enough of the good stuff.

And how much easier does that feel? How much better does that feel in your body when we’re not like, nope, you can never eat this ever again. Like it’s just unnecessary. It doesn’t work. Like clinically speaking, it doesn’t work. It doesn’t lead to good outcomes. So we just don’t do it. We just don’t have our clients do that. So sometimes when we feel like we’re eating a clean diet, there’s more to the story there too. So it’s really, it really helpful to work with someone who knows how to do that. Who knows how to help you and get you eating actually like a, like a proper diet, right. And hitting your nutrient needs, getting in and up.

So that’s kind of what I have for us today. So just to recap, you guys, we want to take this root cause approach. We want to look at our gut environment. So when I say that, I’m talking our gut immune function, different gut infections, pathogens and imbalances, dysbiosis, fungal overgrowth. We want to take a look at our digestive output. Are we able to properly digest our food? If not, that will lead to tons of symptoms and issues and then overgrowth down the line. We want to look at our nervous system.

We wanna look at our gut lining. We wanna look at repopulating our gut with enough of the good gut bacteria. We wanna look at nutrient deficiencies. We wanna look at our thyroid function and our cortisol levels. All of this comes into play when actually looking to sustainably repair your digestive health. And it goes way, way farther than just taking out gluten and dairy. So in my Healing, Deaths, and Shaken butts program, we walk people through this process. We utilize functional stool testing and we utilize customized protocols. We take a look at your health history, your stress timeline.

all of these different areas of your life. And we walk you through my step-by-step process to actually thoroughly repairing your digestive health. It’s a multiple phase process. It is not one probiotic. There’s so much more to the story. It’s really not just taking a probiotic and to really not just cutting out gluten and dairy. There’s so much more to really repairing your digestive health. So we walk you through that process in my Helen Gutten, Shane Gabbott’s program. In this program, we utilize functional stool testing.

Hannah Aylward (51:55.18)
We assess what’s going on, what imbalances you have present. How is your gut lining? How are your gut bacteria? How is your gut immune function, right? Are you digesting your food properly? Do you need help with that? So we dive into all of that with you, build out customized protocols, also address nutrition foundations, balancing blood sugar, also address adrenal health, also address upping your mineral status, also address opening up your drainage pathways so you can actually get rid of the toxins that you want to get rid of. Also address liberty toxification. It’s a multi-pronged process.

So anyone that’s out there that’s selling you like one colon cleanse, it’s just like, it’s like laughable, honestly, save your money, save your time, save your sanity. It takes a bit more than that. What I will say is that what I hear from clients is they’re like, I would do this 10 times over had I known how much it was going to help me. It took a lot of effort and I would do it 10 times over and it’s worth 10 times the investment because of how I felt on the other side.

Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Nutrient Dense Podcast. If you found this episode valuable, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and come back next week for a new episode. See you then!