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Are you having trouble losing weight? If you’ve tried everything, and still can’t seem to drop those pounds, it might be time to look into your gut health. Good health starts in the gut, and in today’s episode, we are exploring how weight is tied to your microbiome, inflammation, foods to eat and avoid, balancing hormones, how stress can affect weight gain, and more with Alexis Appleberry!
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We answer these questions:
– How does gut health affect your weight?
– How food, bugs, and toxins disrupt your microbiome?
– What foods will help promote a healthy gut?
– What foods should we avoid for improved gut health?
– How do we fix dysfunctional mitochondria?
– How can you make sure your gut is absorbing your food well?
– Why is the liver so important for gut health?
– How stress can cause weight gain?
– And more!
Still want to learn more? Schedule with Dr. Barter today!
Supplements:
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About Alexis:
My own healing journey began as a very young overweight single mom desiring to lose weight, resolve my nasty headaches and digestive issues. That led me to take a strong interest in human physiology because conventional medicine had no answers for me. I finally put myself through school, lost the weight, started working as a personal trainer and started my own business. After moving to Minnesota, I went back to school and graduated as Valedictorian at the MRI School of Minnesota. As my determination and curiosity grew to find answers to root causes I discovered Functional Medicine and had the good fortune to work for the most regarded functional medicine education company in the industry. Most of my functional medicine training was through Dr. Datis Kharrazian. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to learn from a published Harvard Research Fellow. His training allowed me to be knowledgeable enough to do one-on-one functional medicine training for other physicians in the Austin the Austin and San Antonio areas for 4 years. I most recently have earned my certification as a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner to broaden my knowledge and add to my clinical skills. I find nothing more rewarding than changing lives and having a personal connection with my clients.
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Subscribe for more gut health content and share this podcast with a friend! Take a screenshot of this episode and tag Dr. Ann-Marie Barter:
http://instagram.com/drannmariebarter
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Dr. Ann-Marie Barter is a Functional Medicine and Chiropractic Doctor at Alternative Family Medicine & Chiropractic. She is the clinic founder of Alternative Family Medicine & Chiropractic that has two offices: one in Longmont and one in Denver. They treat an array of health conditions overlooked or under-treated by conventional medicine, called the “grey zone”. https://altfammed.com/
Transcription:
Alexis Appleberry [00:00:00] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, alcohol tears down, the gut lining causes inflammation plus plus it slows down liver. So, you know, sometimes just putting somebody through a detox will help them lose weight.
Intro [00:00:14] Are you struggling with bloating, gas, constipation and fatigue, but don’t know what’s causing these problems? The Gut Health Reset podcast with Dr. Ann-Marie Barter dives deep into the root causes behind these issues that start in the gut. This podcast will give you the knowledge you need to heal your gut and reset your health.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:00:37] Today on the Gut Health Reset podcast, we are talking about how gut health impacts weight loss and how it might not be about calories in, calories out, how it could be more about gut inflammation, mitochondrial dysfunction, hormonal dysregulation and some of the things that can cause gut inflammation can be as broad as food or toxins or gut bugs. So what we’re going to talk about is how to rebuild your microbiota using diet and also how to satisfy your hunger by having the right microbiome, how to build back up your immune system and decrease inflammation. We’re also talking about the liver and that connection and touching again on short chain fatty acids. Thank you all so much for being here today on the Gut Health Reset podcast. I’m your host and back with us again is Miss Alexis Appleberry, who is a functional nutritionist who works right here out of my practice at alternative family medicine and chiropractic. So she is going to lead the way on this. And the thing that actually got her very interested in this topic was she struggled with her own weight issues, and that actually led her into investigating functional medicine. Hey, Alexis, it is awesome to have you back. I am super excited to talk about what we’re talking about today, and I think a lot of people are going to be interested in this topic. Don’t you agree?
Alexis Appleberry [00:02:22] Yeah, it’s a great topic. Yes.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:02:25] So today we are talking about how gut health actually influences your weight. So let’s just dove right into it, right? So how does gut health actually impact our weight?
Alexis Appleberry [00:02:42] OK, well, that old concept that it’s just about calories in and calories out is really kind of old science. So we know that it has a lot more to do with other factors as to why people can’t lose weight. So your gut health can affect your weight in a couple of different ways. So maybe we can break down the first one. So the first one be gut inflammation. So if you have a gut inflammation, inflammation in itself can affect your weight because it has an effect on the cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, they produce too much insulin. Then you become insulin resistant that triggers your body to store fat, especially around your stomach. The other thing that inflammation will do is it will also have an effect on leptin. And leptin is the hormone that tells your body that you’re full. And then the third way that inflammation can affect your weight loss is because it also damages the mitochondria. Mitochondria make ATP if they can’t convert energy into food, they’re going to start storing it. So and then maybe we can backtrack a bit to talk about the things that cause inflammation and then how that inflammation can go systemic.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:04:07] OK, so let’s talk about the things that actually cause gut inflammation and how do we know if we have got inflammation?
Alexis Appleberry [00:04:15] Mm hmm. Right. So and the things that cause inflammation is going to go back to those five things. Foods, which is probably the most common bugs. And when I say bugs, I mean viruses, bacteria, parasites, toxins. Stressed. And hormones, so any of those things can cause inflammation if any of those things are off. But let’s take, for example, gluten. So each time that you eat gluten at terrace down the gut lining, even if you do not have an immune response to gluten, it’s still the most inflammatory food that there is. So this.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:04:57] But I just need a little bit of gluten.
Alexis Appleberry [00:05:00] Yeah, it just doesn’t work like that because because it triggers an immune response and that inflammation can last for an extreme case if you’re super sensitive up to six months, but it lasts for a long time. So you can’t just have a little bit of it. You know, you’re going to you’re going to really back up your progress that you’ve made from being gluten free for a week or two.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:05:23] Hmm. Mm hmm. And so we’ve we’ve talked about bugs in previous episodes and we’ll kind of link those below and we’ve talked about hormones and stress also in another episode. And so we will link those also below. So you said so some of the other things that are causing gut inflammation. So you said food and bugs are two things. What was the third one that I missed? Toxins, toxins, OK.
Alexis Appleberry [00:05:58] And, you know, pesticides, fungicides, so if you’re not eating organic, not only will they control cause inflammation, they’re also going to disrupt your microbiome, which is another thing that we’ll get into.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:06:11] OK, so let’s just dig into that. So how? I mean, because foods, bugs and toxins are all going to interrupt the microbiome, and we know that the microbiome is is a key factor in helping us lose or gain weight, et cetera, whatever we need to do. So how did those disrupt our microbiota?
Alexis Appleberry [00:06:36] There’s been a lot of science to back that up, so I’m sure you probably heard of the fecal transplants where they took the microbiome from obese mice and put it into the skinny mice and the skinny mice became obese, and then they took the microbiome from the skinny mice and put it into the obese mice, and they became thin. So we know that your microbiome is a key factor. So we know that if you have an imbalance in bacteria in your gut, if you’re eating a western diet, then you’re going to have an abundance of Bacteroides and that will cause you to gain weight if you’re eating more of a plant based diet. Those fibers and you’re going to have for kids and that will help you lose weight. And the reason why is because those foods create short chain fatty acids. So the microbes in your gut digest the fiber they produce, short chain fatty acids and the short chain fatty acids do a few key things. What they do is, first of all, they regulate your immune system, which is also regulating your inflammatory response. We already talked about inflammation. The other thing that short chain fatty acids do is they also trigger a hormone called p y y. That controls your hunger. The other thing, the short chain fatty acids do is that they also trigger something called lipoprotein like pase that helps burn body fat. And then the third thing is short chain fatty acids due to help us lose weight. They also trigger an enzyme called a antik. That is a master switch for your metabolism that’ll switch you from burning glucose to fatty acids, and that’s your existing body fat.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:08:29] And that’s a great tip and piece of advice. I mean, not as gold. So if we have weight to lose and we’re like, Yes, I really am trying to lose weight, I’m eating all the right foods, but I can’t seem to lose weight. What foods are going to promote this bacteria that we need in our microbiota?
Alexis Appleberry [00:08:55] Right. So our microbiota is comprised of the food that we eat. So if you’re eating plant based foods, you’re eating fiber. Then the bacteria in your gut is going to digest that you’re going to produce the short chain fatty acid plant based diet. That’s why so many people have really great results from eating mostly plant based diet for losing weight because not only have anti-inflammatory. But it’s full of that healthy fiber.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:09:25] Is are there any foods to really avoid when we are really building up our microbiota?
Alexis Appleberry [00:09:33] Oh, anything that’s inflammatory. So, you know, gluten, dairy, alcohol’s going to not only affect the liver and our metabolism, but it’s also going to tear down the gut lining. You know, anything, anything that’s really inflammatory foods, so sugars, refined carbohydrates, processed foods, none of those things have fiber in them. And those are those types of foods. They’re going to be feeding the batteries.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:10:02] Hmm. Absolutely. So. You also mentioned something that I want to circle back to, which I think was awesome, you talked about initially that the mitochondria can’t make ATP, which will also cause us to have some weight problem. So how do we fix dysfunctional mitochondria?
Alexis Appleberry [00:10:29] Well, you want to find the cause of why the mitochondrial dysfunction, which which is usually information, they want to find the source of the inflammation, but then you know, we can take some things to give the mitochondria a little bit of a boost like, you know, CoQ10, ACL, L-carnitine and a. But we really want to try to find the, you know, the source of why the mitochondria is functioning.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:10:57] Absolutely. And maybe B vitamins as well, because sometimes B vitamins have a big impact on
Alexis Appleberry [00:11:03] that, right? Right? Absolutely. So maybe we can circle back to that because again, if you’ve got inflammation and then the epithelial cells are not able to make the enzymes your digestive enzymes, then in turn you can have malabsorption and you have an attritional deficiencies. And if you’re not getting some of the nutrition that you need, you might not have a cofactors that your body needs for those anti-inflammatory responses. Mm-Hmm.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:11:31] Exactly. So if we’re not absorbing our food, you know, because I don’t know about you, but I see a lot of malabsorption and you mentioned with the pancreas, which I think is a pretty overlooked factor, you know, with stomach acid, for example, and also fat absorption, how do we make sure that somebody is absorbing their foods? And what are some? She notes that we would see that maybe they weren’t some symptoms that maybe would that we would see that they weren’t really absorbing some of the good nutrients that they’re eating.
Alexis Appleberry [00:12:10] Well, if they’re lacking HDL, maybe they eat protein and it feels like a rock in their stomach. So I’m sure you’ve probably had some patients say, No, no, no, you know, I don’t like protein and I kind of stay away from it. That’s that’s a sure sign there. And if they’re if they’re burping after they’re eating. So I can be an imbalance and bacteria that could also be if they’re not digesting their food well. And then if your stools are floating, that means you’ve got too much fat in your stool. And if your, you know, if you have a loose stools, so you know, it can be a look at symptoms like that and see if you’re not really digesting your food, as sometimes you can just see undigested food in your stool.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:12:49] Mm-Hmm. That’s a great test, and I want to move into a little bit because we mentioned gallbladder and you’re hitting a couple the hepatic system, liver, gallbladder region. And so I want to know why the liver is so important in our gut health.
Alexis Appleberry [00:13:13] Well, there is a connection between the gut in the liver. So if somebody has a leaky gut and those bacteria and those toxins are leaking through, they’re not going through the proper channels that’s going to put stress on the liver. And normally the liver are supposed to be metabolizing all of those toxins. But when the liver is stressed, it’s going to make them more fat cells to store the toxins, and that’ll slow down your metabolism.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:13:42] Mm-Hmm. What would we, you know, I would just want to bring up an interesting case. You know, I think a lot more people drank, you know, during 2020. And, you know, people just gained massive amounts of weight, but nothing changed in their diet. And I’m assuming that this would be a prime example of what you’re talking about.
Alexis Appleberry [00:14:09] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, alcohol tears down, the gut lining causes inflammation plus plus it slows down liver. So, you know, sometimes just putting somebody through a detox will help them lose weight. Absolutely. Without changing anything else?
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:14:29] Absolutely. So. And, you know, I think when the liver gets overwhelmed, you can’t deal with all the environmental toxins that were exposed to day in and day out and everything gets backed up, and it’s just it goes back to your inflammation, comment that you have to reduce inflammation. Am I am I correct in assuming that?
Alexis Appleberry [00:14:53] Yeah, absolutely, because, you know, again, we have that inflammatory response that’s going to be doing the same thing is going to be damaging the mitochondria. It’s going to have an effect on our hormones and it’s going to cause insulin resistance. So all these things, that’s a great thing about functional medicine is that all of these things are interconnected.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:15:11] Absolutely. And I think, you know, we’re hitting inflammation home, right? Because everything is going back to this. What is the root cause of this inflammation? Let’s address this root cause. But how does the immune system inflammation in the gut? How are these all tied together and why is your immune system important in weight loss, for example?
Alexis Appleberry [00:15:40] Hmm. Well, if you have got inflammation, so again, let’s go back to gluten or maybe a bacterial infection and you have inflammation in the gut. Over time, you can develop leaky gut. So in our healthy gut immune system. So there are we know 80 percent of your immune system is in the gut. So within the gut lining, you have Secretary IGA. Those are immune cells that they envelop antigens or pathogens, and they carry them out of the system below the epithelial lining in the sub mucosa. That was that was where most of your immune system resides. And what it does is it reaches up to the gut. It samples the proteins and it decides what proteins to create an immune response to. Now, once those gut linings are open, then all of the undigested food, any of the bacteria and pathogens parasites. Now the immune system has access to all of that. It’s not supposed to be dumped in there that quickly. Now the immune system is dysregulated, and now you have an immune response. So those inflammatory cytokines go systemic. Now you have systemic inflammation. This is why when people have leaky gut, they may have aches or paint anywhere in their body. They might not have any gut symptoms. So they do not necessarily attribute the leaky gut to their aches and pains.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:17:12] So many people struggle with bloating, bowel issues, brain fog, fatigue. You might not even have any gut issues, but did you know the cause of it could be food sensitivities or gut infections? What I have done is I have brought a talented functional nutritionist into my practice. We have very similar training in the nutritional world. And her name is Alexis Appleby. She is awesome. So you can head on over to our website. &Lt. Alti Fam Fam Med Med and have a consultation with her and schedule so that she can help you get to the root cause of your problems. And I want to circle back because, you know, I’ve seen a lot of ever really, well, food sensitivity tests come in, you know, folks have run out on their own and they’ve run this ever really well, food sensitivity test, and it’s not correlated really to what potentially they have going on because when we run a stool test, right, they have leaky gut. They have pathogens. They have environmental exposure. And when we get this ever, well, test back, you know, you can’t eat broccoli, you can’t eat bell peppers, you can’t eat onions, you can’t eat cauliflower. And there’s like, you know, a ton of different foods on that. So what’s your theory on? You know, we talked a little bit last time about good food sensitivity tests and not so good food sensitivity tests. But how does that food sensitivity play in to a leaky gut and immune system dysfunction?
Alexis Appleberry [00:18:57] Well, if you’re not digesting your food properly again, then your body is supposed to break down your food into peptides, and when it doesn’t do that, it doesn’t recognize it. So that’s going to create an immune response. So that’s why you can come back sensitive to lots and lots of different foods. And again, when you have like, you get those tight junctions or open, then your immune system is hyper. It’s it’s overzealous. Then you start reacting to everything. So once we can fix the leaky gut, find the source of the inflammation, and then a lot of times food sensitivities will reduce quite dramatically.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:19:41] Mm-Hmm. Exactly. Exactly. Because it’s, you know, it’s we’re measuring the immune system in those. And so if you’re way high or way low, we’re going to definitely see maybe some false false, maybe positives.
Alexis Appleberry [00:19:57] Right, right, right. Right. So it’s so again. So we’re trying to find the root cause. We’re not just looking at the food sensitivity just to say, Look, you’re sensitive to all these foods, let’s just remove all the foods. And again, that ties back to the microbiome. Right. So the less foods that you eat, the less diversity you have in your microbiome. And you know, that’s not only bad for your immune system. But again, if it can cause weight gain, that could be the reason why you’re having trouble losing weight.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:20:26] You have one of the best tips for incorporating new fruits, new vegetables into your diet. Can you go over that tip again? Because I just think it’s so cool?
Alexis Appleberry [00:20:39] Sure. Well, you know, I’m sure we’ve all had patients and you tell them to eat more vegetables, right? And if there are certain vegetables as somebody just doesn’t like, they’re probably not going to eat them. They might they might do it once or twice. So this is kind of an easy way to get down more diverse plant based fibers than just cooking them. So here’s what I suggest is to go to the supermarket, even maybe like a foreign market where there’s vegetables that you have never eaten before. So the ones that you’ve never eaten, those are better because you do not have the bacteria for those. So go pick five vegetables that you hate that you don’t like, but you never eat and put them in a blender. Try to make it taste good. You can put in and put in some fruit. You can put it with coconut milk if you have your favorite protein powders and might be sweetened with monk fruit. Again, we want to put healthy things in there and then blend it all up and then just even get down like a couple of tablespoons of that or a cup of that and have that once a day, twice a day’s better. And that will help increase your microbiome diversity. And the next week, you do the same thing over again, you put five new vegetables and you just keep rotating.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:22:02] That’s, I think, an awesome tip, because we are just creatures of habit and we go back to what we know. And I mean, myself included, so I have a really I eat a lot of just green vegetables, but I’m not eating as much of the rainbow. And so that’s one of my struggles. I mean, I struggle with it, too. And so I need to eat a little bit more of the rainbow with vegetables. I just go to Old Faithful and I think that that is just such an easy tip to really be able to bring different types of foods in.
Alexis Appleberry [00:22:36] Yeah. And another trick that I like to use is if I do not eat my vegetables, I will supplement with short chain fatty acids. So I’m kind of bypassing the process there. But I mean, if you really, really want to kick start your metabolism, you can do the veggie mash that I was talking about and then take the short chain fatty acids on top of it and then just see your microbiome diversity explode.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:22:58] And we talked a little bit about this in a different episode, but I just want to reiterate it because I’ve actually gotten some questions about this. So number one, what our short chain fatty acids and where do we get them either A.. And it sounds like with different vegetables, we’ll definitely feed them microbiota. But if we don’t want to do that, say and I can hear a lot of people out there saying, Nope, I’m not doing that. I’m not doing a vegetable trick. No, thank you. How do we supplement with them?
Alexis Appleberry [00:23:32] Right. So short chain fatty acids are produced when our bacteria digest the fiber that we eat. It’s basically their poop now, but they have a lot of different benefits, so they’re actually signaling messengers. But if you’re not eating the vegetable fibers, you can supplement with a short chain fatty acid supplement that has butyrate properly and acetate in it. You will find a lot of short chain fatty acid supplements out there with just butyrate because I mean, arguably it probably does have the most effect, but we naturally make the beta eight, eight and the acetate, so all three are important.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:24:14] Wonderful. And, you know, so I just want to summarize kind of what we’ve gone over, so we just touched on incorporating different foods into your diet to diversify your microbiome specifically, maybe going to a different type of supermarket, et cetera, and picking out vegetables that you don’t generally eat. And the other thing is we talked about how to supplement with short chain fatty acids if you’re not willing to do that. We talked about what is causing inflammation and how that has an impact on the microbiome. And those things are being, you know, no one got inflammation that leads to systemic inflammation. Mitochondrial dysfunction and this can come from foods, bugs and toxins. And also having a microbiome that is disrupted and making sure that we have the correct diversity of the microbiome is that is that correct?
Alexis Appleberry [00:25:21] Yeah, absolutely. But sometimes just eating a healthy diet. Isn’t enough, because if you have another source of information, it’s not coming from your food. And we really need to find the source that information, so let’s say that you have a bacterial infection, so, you know, if you have a pathogenic bacteria, I think that somebody was asking whether or not bacterial infection can affect weight loss following it really depends on what type of bacteria we’re talking about. So if it’s something pathogenic, something like E. coli or Gerty or salmonella, you know, those things can cause, you know, some pretty severe diarrhea. Now, if you want to talk about just bacterial and balance like cibo, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth and those type that can actually cause constipation.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:26:20] OK. Yeah. Depending on which what, what you have cable wise, right, you have a bad saying or do you have a hydrogen group, right?
Alexis Appleberry [00:26:28] Exactly because it can cause constipation or diarrhea, or you could actually alternate between the two?
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:26:34] Absolutely. Awesome. And then we also talked about the foods that are going to deplete your microbiota. Specifically, we really hit on alcohol was the biggest one. And then also, you know how the liver is all is affected and how the liver gut connection kind of correlates back together. What did I not ask you about? That’s important for the microbiome and weight.
Alexis Appleberry [00:27:09] I think I think you touched on that pretty well, but maybe we didn’t go into necessarily how hormones can be affected by your diet.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:27:18] OK, do you want to touch on that?
Alexis Appleberry [00:27:20] Sure. So when you have insulin surges that can affect your estrogen, so your estrogen modulates insulin, it also modulates inflammation. So too much or too little estrogen can have an effect on your weight. So if you have, and inflammation will also impact testosterone. So because we know that that for men, if you have too much inflammation, it affects the lytic cells that make testosterone. And we know that testosterone is responsible for building muscle mass. And we know that muscle burns more fat. So making sure that your hormones are balanced in that you’re not having too much information that can actually have an effect on your weight as well.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:28:12] Mm-Hmm. Absolutely. Yep, very much agree. How would we know if we had too much estrogen?
Alexis Appleberry [00:28:24] So you have too much estrogen. Most of all, you might notice that you’re gaining too much weight, especially around the trunk area, but you also might be feeling moody, overwhelmed. You might actually notice that you have more information, so you might be getting more aches and pains. OK. And all in all. Also, for women, it’s very important for her cognitively. So maybe noticing that you’re you’re maybe not as sharp as you used to be or your personality could be a little bit flat.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:29:05] Hmm. Absolutely. All right. And then how would women notice, you know, if they had maybe too much testosterone?
Alexis Appleberry [00:29:18] Well, you can start to get acne or facial hair, so women that have PCOS have got an increase in testosterone, but that’s actually created because of the insulin surges. So that’s why balancing our blood sugar is really important for modulating those hormones.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:29:36] And on the flip side, with men, you know, because the biggest complaint with men generally is, Hey, I feel like I don’t have enough testosterone. I feel flat. I feel not as energetic as I once was. I’m craving more sugars. I can’t work out as long my stamina isn’t as long. So what are we seen with? What are some of the, I guess, a dish? Are there any additional symptoms that you generally see with reduced testosterone in men?
Alexis Appleberry [00:30:08] Right, so men are they have inflammation or they don’t have stable blood sugar of an insulin surges. They can start converting that testosterone to estrogen. And so then that’s when these men, you know, they start to have more of a personality like a woman, so they start to feel a little bit more weepy, maybe not as aggressive, not as strong. And, you know, then they’ll have more inflammation.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:30:39] And so the keynote is really to reduce the inflammation in men so that they can naturally make the testosterone that they have and not be converting into estrogen. So, yeah, I think that that’s that’s great. OK. Awesome. Well, is there anything else that we didn’t talk about? That’s important.
Alexis Appleberry [00:31:09] We could talk about stress and how stress can actually affect weight gain. OK, so we know we know that stress has a huge impact on the immune system. And when we are constantly in sympathetic mode, we’re in fight or flight. Our body cannot rest, digest and restore. And when our immune systems dysregulated again, that can cause inflammation, and that can be another key factor in optimizing your metabolism.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:31:43] Absolutely. Too much cortisol in the system, right? And so that’s going to what are you going to notice? Are you going to notice a lot more belly fat or what are you going to also notice if you have too high levels of cortisol?
Alexis Appleberry [00:32:00] And to high levels of cortisol, yeah, you’re going to start gaining weight and especially in your gut area. Mm hmm.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:32:06] I just find. And we talked about a little bit of this in the past, but I find folks that come in and that are under a chronic amount of stress just don’t respond as well the protocols, they take a lot longer to respond. The healing takes a lot longer because just the constant stress the detox pathways are a little bit are impaired, more so and they just don’t feel as good going through the process.
Alexis Appleberry [00:32:38] Yeah, you know, stress has a huge effect on our immune system, and that’s why we talk about how important the gut is because 80 percent of the immune system is in the gut. So, so much of what we’re seeing today is really a reflection of being stressed out, you know, an immune system that’s, you know, that stuck in sympathetic mode.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:33:04] In my own personal experience, I I’ve run with a pretty high level of stress and I was exposed to mold years ago and living in that high stress state. I’m still testing for mold on some of my labs. About a year ago, that was still disrupting my mitochondria, and I have not lived in a moldy house for five plus years. And so that’s how long it took for my body to reset when I lived under constant stress and forget my microbiome because I was flatlined because I ran through that. So I mean, I think that that’s a real correlation to exactly what you’re saying and in my hormones also were just flatlined as I was going to that. And the big thing that I needed to change was my stress levels. And I think that that that had made that did make the biggest impact on all of it. Yeah, it can take quite
Alexis Appleberry [00:34:06] a while to get your immune system calmed down, even when people have multiple food sensitivities and we put them on a diverse diet and we take care of all the underlying causes, it can take about six months, sometimes sometimes even longer to get the immune system calmed down. And we know that people that have got, you know, adrenal fatigue, it can sometimes take a year, you know, to boost that back up. So it’s really important that you stay on top of your stress. And you know, when we talk about stress, it’s not just necessarily from environmental things or emotional stress. It can be physical stress as well.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:34:44] Mm hmm, exactly. Mine was all of the above. So that’s what a picture shows you and I was eating the right diet. I don’t drink alcohol, et cetera. The kind of list goes on and on that me doing all the right things. But stress was definitely the big barrier in my own health, and I can see that over and over and over again because it’s not something that you can you can cognitively see on a daily basis. You’re like, OK, I’ll get through it, OK, I can do this. I can just add this on the plate and get through it, but it’s just slowly tearing you down. And so I think that that’s a really important message to to gently shift the lifestyle if you’re struggling with this.
Alexis Appleberry [00:35:27] Yeah. Well, as humans were great at adapting to our environment. That’s what we do. And it becomes normal for us. Yeah. You know, until until until somebody can actually pointed out and can recognize that if you don’t have any time for yourself or you’re doing nothing and you’re just taking care of yourself, you’re stressed. Hmm. So I recommend that my patients that are really stressed out and you take a one day and you just do nothing, you just you just take care of yourself. And then on a daily basis, trying to implement things like yoga and meditation, you know, reading something positive, taking that time, just calm down and rest and restore making sure you’re in good relationships. You know, positive affirmations will help calm you down, and then you can put your body back and parasympathetic mode and it can rest and restore and digest. Yes.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:36:26] Awesome tips today. So thank you as always for coming on sharing your amazing knowledge and insight. And I think that this is just been a very enlightening episode. I think that folks will get a lot out of this. So thank you so much for being here today.
Alexis Appleberry [00:36:46] Yeah, it was my pleasure.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:36:47] Awesome. And thank you guys so much for being here with us listening and supporting us. We love to have you. We love your feedback on additional things that you’d like to cover on the podcast, so please subscribe. Say hello and always let us know what you want to hear more of. Take care. But by the.
Dr. Ann Marie Barter [00:37:08] Thank you for listening to the Gut Health Reset podcast. Please make sure you subscribe, leave a rating and a review. More people can hear about the podcast and hey, take a screenshot of this episode and tagged Dr. Ann Marie on Instagram or Facebook at Dr. Ann Marie Barter. And for more resources, just visit Dr. Ann Marie Barter.com.
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