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’re 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.

Hello, hello everyone. Welcome, welcome. Today we are going to be digging into a gut health training titled, why cutting out gluten and dairy didn’t heal your gut. So if you feel like you have tried all of the food eliminations, you’ve taken out dairy, you’ve taken out gluten, you’ve taken out sugar, maybe you’ve taken out soy, maybe you’ve done low FODMAP. The list goes on and on. You’ve tried a lot of these different food eliminations to hopefully heal your gut and reduce your digestive discomfort.

And it’s maybe helped you feel like a little bit better, but you’re still struggling with the chronic, consistent gut and digestive issues, then this is the training for you. So if you’re new here, my name is Hannah Ilward. I’m a certified holistic health coach and I’m the CEO and founder of And at Hanwee, we really help women overcome chronic digestive issues by taking a deeper root cause and functional approach to repairing the gut microbiome and repairing digestive function. So you can.

tolerate more foods with less pain and reactions moving forward. So instead of simply just removing foods and hoping that, you know, solves the issue, I see it like it usually doesn’t. So we want to dig deeper and understand what’s going on in the gut environment and repair from there so we can really get to the bottom of your chronic gut and digestive issues. So that’s what we’re really going to be talking about today. First and foremost, you’ve cut out gluten, you’ve cut out dairy, you’ve cut out sugar.

Hannah Aylward (02:16.238)

Maybe you’ve cut out soy, maybe you’ve tried lowering FODMAP, so you’ve cut out certain fibers, or maybe you thought it was lectins, or it was oxalates, or it was histamine, foods rich in histamine, right? The list goes on and on. And you’ve tried all of these things, but you’re still struggling with the chronic bloating. So you may wake up feeling bloated, you may wake up with a flat stomach, and then by the time it hits 4 p.m., you look four to six months pregnant with bloating. This is how I used to look.

And you feel like you’re eating clean, you’ve altered your diet, you’ve tried to optimize your nutrition, but you’re still struggling with this like chronic bloating, likely comes with like burping, gas, flatulence, all of the really fun stuff, right? All of that really fun stuff. And then probably also with constipation and or diarrhea, probably some low energy. Maybe you’re dealing with some thyroid stuff. These are deeply connected. Maybe you have some skin breakouts. All of this is connected, right? So you’ve tried making a lot of these adjustments. You’ve taken out the ultra processed foods.

Maybe even taking out the seed oils. Maybe you’ve, you know, decreased sugar, decreased alcohol, taken out gluten, taken out dairy, because that’s what you read everywhere. That’s what you read about. And when it comes to healing your gut, it’s like do the elimination diet and take out all of these foods and then increase fibers and increase protein and increase omega threes and all of that. And while all of that is totally helpful, we’re still not really

It’s kind of a surface level solution and we’re not truly getting to the real deeper root causes of the chronic gut and GI issues. So it’s not that you are doing anything wrong by trying to take out these foods and to get you feeling a lot better. It’s more so that you’ve been taught to focus on the wrong thing. So often in this space, we go to these heavy eliminations and then it’s like the carnivore diet has a moment and then it’s like the…

this other diet, plant-based diet, oil-free diet, this diet, right? And it’s like, we just remove more and more more and more and more out of the diet without asking, why can’t we tolerate these foods in the first place? Why do we need to eliminate all of these foods in the first place in order to feel normal? So I struggled with chronic digestive issues for like a good seven years. It was awful. And they ran my whole life. It was hard to like…

Hannah Aylward (04:21.444)

go about my life. I didn’t want to get dressed. I didn’t feel confident in my body. It consumed my every thought. So I couldn’t go a day without worrying about what I was going to eat and how it was going to make me feel and if it was going to cause a lot of bloating and gasp constipation or will I go to the bathroom this morning or if I travel, will I be able to wear what I want to wear? Do I need to pack extra outfits based on how my body’s going to feel? If I can use the bathroom, how I react to the food that I’m eating. I mean, it ran my whole life and none of it really made sense.

Right? Because I was like young and otherwise healthy and I ate really clean and I ate really healthy and I exercised all the time and I even meditated and I went to yoga and it was like nothing is matching up here. Why am I still struggling to feel normal? I’m eating healthier than everyone that I know. Like all of my friends are like, Hannah, you’re really on top of this, you know, it’s crazy. And I was watching people around me.

eating whatever they wanted and feeling normal. Yet I couldn’t even eat like a sweet potato without looking six months pregnant. So you start to really spin your wheels, right? And I was kind of convinced that if I just ate perfectly, if I really cleaned up my diet, that everything would go away and I would heal my gut. But that never actually happened. It really just drove me to this point of like massive food fear, hypervigilance, terrified to eat everything. And I didn’t eat gluten or dairy for a good solid like 10 years of my life.

not an exaggeration. mean, I wouldn’t have even like touched a french fry. I wouldn’t have touched a piece of cheese. And I did all that, but I was still not feeling great. So something wasn’t touching up because it was kind of helping, but it wasn’t really truly helping because I was still feeling bloated and constipated and gassy, right? So I had to learn a lot about the deeper roots of gut issues and gut dysfunction. And that’s really why I do the work that I do that I do today and why I’m even having the training in the first place. And this is a lot of

the women that we see and the clients that come to work with us, right? Like I would say our client is more advanced. They have already altered their diet. They’re not eating fast food all the time. They’re not drinking soda. They’re not doing X, Y, Z. They are exercising. They’re trying to do everything right. And they’ve taken out a lot of these foods and usually it just leads to more fear and living your life feels harder. You are afraid to go out to eat. You’re afraid to travel X, Y, Z, but it makes sense because you’re just trying to feel good. You’re just trying to get to the bottom of it all.

Hannah Aylward (06:38.916)

but we’ve been taught to kind of focus on the wrong thing. So I want to offer you in this training, you know, the, when we’re removing a lot of foods from the diet, it’s more so, more so short-term symptom elimination. And in a lot of the cases, it’s not even eliminating the symptoms. We’re just kind of like quelling them a little bit, right? So you feel a little less bloated when you don’t eat the dairy, but you’re still bloated. You know what I mean? So we’re really focusing on these short-term kind of band-aid solutions as opposed to fixing the underlying system.

Where is this food entering? Can you digest this food? What does your gut environment look like? All of these are the reasons why you are reacting to the food that you’re eating, right? So instead of focusing on restricting and removing more from your diet, I want you to focus on building resilience long-term and addressing these deeper root causes. So we’re not constantly removing more foods or eliminating more foods. And instead we’re looking at optimizing function so you can tolerate more foods going forward.

So hopefully that makes sense to you guys. So when it comes to actually restoring gut function and being able to tolerate more foods, when it comes to really truly repairing the gut, it’s less about eliminating a dozen foods or like 50 different foods, right? You get those long yes and no food lists. It’s less about that and it’s more about restoring function and repairing the underlying system. So this comes down to optimizing digestive function, rebalancing the gut microbiome.

your gut barrier integrity, mitochondrial health and function, eliminating heavy toxin exposure, and then also nervous system regulation as well. So let’s break down the real deeper root causes that we see in clients day in and day out. Cause we help, would say, I’d say on average we help 150 to 200 people a year in like intensive on our work. we’re running lots of labs.

And we’ve been doing this for many, many years. I mean, I’ve had this business for 10, like nine years now. So we’ve seen a lot of cases, right? So you pick up patterns and you learn a lot as you’re just like in the intensive work with a lot of people. So we see a lot of patterns and underlying common root causes in the women that we work with and then, and anyone will help anyone that needs the help. But we’ve seen mostly women, right? So when it comes to the hormone piece or the digestive function piece or the toxin exposure piece,

Hannah Aylward (08:55.452)

we really see all of it. So let’s get down to the real underlying root causes that we see kind of contributing to these chronic gut and digestive issues. So the term candida cleanse is a little like, I don’t know what that means fully. There’s a candida diet that makes the rounds. We never put anyone on an anti-candida diet. I will say that. There is a time and place for temporary restrictions to get you kind of feeling better throughout the day, but only while we address the underlying root causes. So

When it comes to something like the anti-candida diet, I have never seen a case ever in my, in all of my experience where someone has just followed the anti-candida diet and it’s actually gotten rid of a systemic candida overgrowth. I’ve never seen that. So you can take out, you know, sugar and things like that and fermented foods, and it may help you feel a little bit better, but it’s still not addressing why the candida is there in the first place and what actually caused that. And then also bringing down that fungal burden in the gut. I just don’t see it work. So.

There is a time and place for temporary restrictions, only when we are actually addressing the underlying root causes. So that’s what I really want everyone to understand. Don’t beat yourself up with these like heavy restrictive diets. And I say this, I feel like I say it like, you know, ad nauseum because I did that for years and years and years. It was like,

I need to eat cleaner. I need to eat better. I need to do more. I need to be better. And it was like, before I knew it, I was eating nothing. And I was scared to even go out and eat at a restaurant. And that’s just not a life that I want to live, right? So it never actually worked. And then it just led to a lot of food fear. And that’s not what I want for everyone. was when I learned that, I have all these underlying issues in my gut microbiome. I can address those. things start to make sense now. Now I can travel and go to the bathroom. Now I can eat out at a restaurant and I don’t look six months pregnant with bloating.

Everything changed for me. So that’s what I want for all of you I want that’s on the other side for each and every one of you the ability to go and live your life and enjoy your life Right. So it’s even in the case if a restrictive diet really works, it’s not sustainable. No one’s gonna sustain that so a I don’t see them working and B If I don’t want to follow anything where I can’t live my life and travel and do my thing, you know, so Anyway, that was my little tangent. Okay, so let’s get into these underlying deeper root causes so

Hannah Aylward (11:15.328)

There’s a couple here you guys and what I want you to know is that everyone’s gonna have varying root causes. None of the work that we do is cookie cutter and generalized. There are, we have systems and frameworks that we use to help get a client from point A to point B, absolutely. But a lot of the kind of magic in the work that we do is in the customization. So we run a lot of lab work with our clients and we customize, we build out customized protocols for each and every client and no two protocols look the same. And this is because

you can have differing underlying root causes. everyone, like root cause is kind of a trendy term today. And I’m here to tell you there’s never one root cause because it all works together. We’re usually looking at a couple things overlapping at the same time. And at the same time, you know, my underlying root causes may not be someone else’s underlying root causes. So just kind of know that too. This is why working with someone is just game changing. Cause you can.

you’re going to take away all of this noise and overwhelm and like research and you’ll just be able to customize it to exactly what you need for your body right now, which will be different than someone else’s. So I’m going to walk us through a lot of these underlying root causes. And I think we’ll start to get some light bulbs going off and you’ll be like, my gosh, that sounds like me. And also understand that you probably have a couple of things happening at once and you are going to get better quicker when we customize interventions based on what you are presenting with right now versus just like slapping.

on random supplements and restrictive diets, right? Okay, so the number one underlying root cause of chronic gut and digestive issues is going to be something like low stomach acid. So I talk a lot about digestive function, and I think this is really, really important to understand you guys. So if you are going to react to all of the foods that you eat, any foods that you eat, if you can’t actually digest them and break them down efficiently. So…

We digest our food through a few different things, stomach acid, bile, and pancreatic enzymes creation. These are like our main digestive juices. This is how we actually break down the food that we eat and absorb the nutrients from the food that we eat as well. Eating the healthiest diet in the world, but if you don’t aren’t producing adequate digestive juices, you are going to be reactive to these foods. You may have food sensitivities or intolerances. You may have bloating, you may be burping or gassy. You may break out with these foods. You may feel like you can’t eat dairy. sends you running to the bathroom, right?

Hannah Aylward (13:33.484)

When we have this underlying digestive dysfunction, you can react to all kinds of different foods, which is another reason why I love teaching this training because we go to vilify these foods so quickly. You’re like, I just can’t eat onions or I can’t eat garlic or I can’t eat dairy. It’s very rarely the food that’s the problem. It’s your inability to break down and digest the food efficiently and possibly that these fibers also overfeeding some of the bacteria already in your gut that’s causing a lot of this gas that’s being given off by these bacteria.

Once again, number one root cause here is going to be, and not number one, like most important, just like on my list, and we’re going to run through a lot of them. So number one is going to be low stomach acid or hypochloridria. Why this matters. So stomach acid is needed to break down proteins and absorb amino acids. So proteins are made up of amino acids, right? We need adequate stomach acid to actually break down the protein that we’re eating. It’s also going to, I kind of…

refer to it as the conductor in the orchestra. So it instructs the rest of the digestive juices to be secreted and go do their job. So it’s going to impact bile flow and it’s also going to impact pancreatic enzyme secretion. So it’s kind of like one of these top conductors in the digestive process. If you have low stomach acid, you will likely feel like you’re burping within 30 minutes of eating. You may have things like recurring SIBO or small intestinal bacterial overgrowth that will cause tons of gas and bloating. awful. I’ve had it.

Truly awful. You’ll be so reactive to like everything that you eat. And you will also be at a higher risk of infection. stomach acid is kind of that first chemical barrier that we have to the outside world. And it’s going, it’s meant to be acidic enough to kill off pathogens that are riding into your body through the food that you’re eating. So if you have something like low stomach acid, you will be at higher risk for food poisoning. You’ll be at higher risk for something like a parasitic infection. So it’s very important to address.

if you do have low stomach acid. When it’s low, you’ll have a lot of bloating after meals. Usually we’ll see burping within like 30 minutes of eating. We’ll also see a lot of nutrient deficiencies. So you’ll have low iron is a big one, low B12, low zinc. And that’s because stomach acid helps you absorb these nutrients from the food that you are eating. You’ll also see likely see undigested food in your stool. So if you go to the bathroom, you can feel like your bowel movements are incomplete, which is like a horrible feeling, right? You’re like,

Hannah Aylward (15:53.486)

This didn’t satisfy me at all. And it can like hurt your stomach even more. I went through that for many years. So you may see, feel, and see undigested food in your stool. So a lot of like specks, your stool could even float sometimes. And it just doesn’t feel complete. Like it doesn’t feel like a good, healthy bowel movement. And then the other thing is you may have recurring SIBO or recurring dysbiosis. So you consistently have these microbial overgrowth in the gut that won’t go away. And low stomach acid can be a root cause of that.

Sometimes we’ll also see those presenting with reflux are burning because the acid is actually coming up the esophagus. What happens is if you don’t produce enough of it, it’s gonna kind of like sit on top of this mal-digested food and then that mal-digested food is going to ferment. It’s gonna push that acid up. So you’ll feel even like heartburn or burning in the chest cavity or in the esophageal tissue. We can even develop some damage there as well. So a big…

underlying root cause of reflux is lower stomach acid. It’s not the root cause in every single case, I will say, but it’s quite often a deeper root cause there because things are kind of coming up when they should be flowing down. You want to think of your digestive tract as like one long tube or hose really. So it’s going to come in your mouth, right? And it’s going to all the way down, going to twist and turn, and then it’s going to go out the other side. So think of it as just one long hose that twists and turns. If things aren’t moving through that efficiently,

We can overfeed these bacteria, these undigested food particles can overfeed the bacteria, and it can even push that acid up. And that’s when you get that really like painful reflux or burning. So these are some things to look out for. It’s very important to understand that if you have low stomach acid, the rest of your gut repairing journey is going to be harder. So you can take all the antimicrobials that you want. You can take all the L-glutamine that you want. You can eat all of the fiber that you want. But if you aren’t able to actually break down and digest the food that you’re eating,

you’re going to run into issues. You may feel a little better, it’s gonna come back. A little better, it’s gonna come back. There are various underlying root causes to low stomach acid. So something we see a lot is chronic stress, specific nutrient deficiencies, specific gut infections can actually damage the parietal cells that produce stomach acid. So we wanna take a more like holistic root cause approach and dig into all of that to see why you do have the low stomach acid in the first place and then optimize from there. But this is one of those reasons why.

Hannah Aylward (18:11.029)

You may have taken out gluten, dairy, sugar, soy, peanuts, loaf, FODMAPS, whatever. And you’re like, I’m still bloated. I’m still burping. I’m still gassy. I’m still constipated. Well, you may be looking at low stomach acid and likely some other things because they all kind of connect, right? If you can’t break down the food that you’re eating, your gut cannot repair. It doesn’t really matter how clean your diet is. You could be eating all organic, non-GMO, regeneratively grown. It doesn’t matter if you can actually break down. Okay. So that’s going to be number one.

Number two is going to be poor bile flow. And this is something that is very, very common, you guys. And this is something that was like, when I was first being trained in all of this years and years ago, it was not talked about enough. Like no one was really talking about it. And now we’re very much talking about it because it’s so important for hormonal health, estrogen clearance. You know, if you have hormonal breakouts and hormonal acne, bile is very likely playing a role.

I mean, bile is a really, really key player here. So when you’re not producing adequate bile or it gets a little sludgy and sticky, you’re going to be at a higher risk for something like SIBO or bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine. And you’re going to have issues breaking down and digesting fats and absorbing these fat soluble nutrients. And fat soluble nutrients are things like vitamins A, D, E, and K. So if you’re someone who gets tested and you get your blood work done and they’re like, you have low vitamin D,

And then they’re like, that’s the cause of all of your issues. It’s probably not, but it’s really the result of something else, right? Like what led to the low vitamin D? You’re either not getting it enough in your diet, you’re never getting sun exposure, or you can’t actually absorb the vitamin D that you are taking, which is very common. So a lot of times people will go in and the doctor will put them on high doses of vitamin D, which I wouldn’t necessarily recommend. And then they’ll come back and they’ll retest and their levels have barely changed. What’s up with that? I’m taking all this supplement. Same thing can happen with iron.

I’m supplementing with iron, I’m supplementing with vitamin D, my levels aren’t going up. This is an absorption issue largely. Sometimes it’s an iron recycling issue, but we have to ask why can’t you actually utilize and absorb the vitamin D that you are taking in? And one of those reasons can be poor bio flow. So I posted this on my stories, my Instagram stories last week, and I have a friend right now and she’s on the GLP-1, right? And GLP-1s can increase your risk for like gallbladder issues and pink, pancreatic issues.

Hannah Aylward (20:32.267)

It slows down your gut motility. I have more to say on that conversation, but her labs came back. went to her doctor, right? And she was having really loose stools and they were an odd color. They weren’t like a nice, rich, dark brown color. They were more of like a clay colored or a yellow color. And then she was also, she also had really low vitamin D. So the doctor put her on vitamin D without understanding that she has a bile issue. So the medication is leading to a gallbladder issue.

That’s why she has these chronically loose stools and that’s also connected to her lower vitamin D levels because she’s not producing adequate bile to absorb the vitamin D that she’s getting in through her diet. So all of these things are connected, right? We want to take a deeper root cause approach to repairing the gut and to your overall health. And a lot of people talk about that, but a lot of people don’t really do it. They’re just still, it’s like, your labs are low vitamin D. Let’s just give you vitamin D. Well, I want to ask why, why are your labs showing low vitamin D? Is it just a reflection of inflammation?

Do we have poor bio flow? Are you truly not getting any sun exposure? It’s like the dead of winter. Okay, that makes sense. Do you have the adequate co-factors that you need to use vitamin D and actually be able to utilize it? Things like magnesium are important here. So there’s a bit more to the story, right? If we really truly want to take a deeper root cause approach, but going back to bio flow, bio is essential for fat digestion. It’s essential for detoxification, especially things like mycotoxins or these toxins given off by mold, especially for estrogen. So it’s very important when we’re looking at

Once again, that hormonal acne piece or like PMS, clotting, fibroids, painful periods, cramping, that kind of thing. Acne plays a huge role in estrogen dominance and then also antimicrobial activity. So bile is antimicrobial in nature. You can think of it as this like soap, like sudsy substance that gets pushed into the small intestine to help kind of keep things relatively sterile. Now, if we’re not producing enough of that,

we’re going to be setting the environment for microbial overgrowth to take place in the small intestine. So when it comes to something like SIBO, which people are more familiar with, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, that can cause a ton of bloating and gas and reactivity. I’ve had it and it’s awful. You’re like, I’m eating healthy foods and I literally like, want to stick a pin in my stomach and just deflate it. That’s a very SIBO picture. It’s not always SIBO, but it’s a very SIBO picture. And I was there and it was like,

Hannah Aylward (22:52.069)

actually awful and I needed to unbutton my pants. Now, what a lot of people miss is that the bacterial overgrowth is not like the main issue. We have to ask what allowed for the bacterial overgrowth to take place in the small intestine and bile is a big underlying root of that issue, right? So our bile can get sludgy when we are having issues with detoxification, when we are exposed to a higher level of environmental toxins. So if we have lived in a house with mold exposure, that can play a big role.

We want to support the secretion of bile and thinning the bile so it can do its job and kind of protect us from bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine. It’s one of your body’s natural antimicrobials. And without this, you’re going to run into issues. You may have histamine issues. You may have fat maldigestion. Some of the common things that you’ll see with this are like if you eat fats, even healthy fats, and you have to run to the bathroom. If you eat fats and your stool is like floating or

you’re very gassy or maybe you’re nauseous after eating foods rich in fat. even healthy fats like avocado or olive oil or coconut milk or something like that, that’s a big sign as well. And or that hormonal acne piece, I would say that like really, really clues us in to there being a bile issue. But there’s a lot of things that we look for, that we look for there. So constipation, floating stools, like I said, hormonal issues, microbial overgrowth, these are all some signs that there may be a deeper bile issue at play. So

Once again, the issue here is not the fatty foods, avocado, olive oil, coconut milk, all of these like really wonderfully supportive foods. That’s not the problem. The problem is your inability to actually break down the food itself stemming from a deeper bile issue, which can also likely come from an environmental toxin issue, estrogen dominance, and then also low stomach acid. So these things are all connected, right? Okay.

So those are the first two root causes and then that kind of leads me into the third one that I wanted to cover with you guys. So the next root cause that I wanted to discuss was this microbial piece. We can lump it into microbial imbalances. When I say microbial imbalances, there are various microbes within your gut environment or your gut microbiome. So when we say the term microbiome, we’re really just talking about this community of trillions of different microorganisms within the gut.

Hannah Aylward (25:09.044)

When people say the gut, they’re usually talking about the intestine, small and large, but most of our bacteria are going to be in our large intestine. Just if you didn’t know that some people are like, everyone’s like gut health, gut health, gut health. But what does it even mean? What even is your gut? Right? Usually we’re talking about your intestines. We can also talk about your entire GI tract, your stomach, you know, your, these digestive accessory organs, like your liver and pancreas and gallbladder. But most people are talking about your intestines, specifically your large intestine when they’re talking about like gut microbiome.

because that’s where the trillions of microorganisms reside. Now, when we have imbalances in our gut microbiome, we can have fungal imbalances, we can have an overgrowth of archaea, intestinal methanogen overgrowth in the small intestine. We can have histamine producing bacteria overgrown. We can have fungal overgrowth. We can have overgrowth in the small intestine. We can have bacterial infections, things like E. coli, salmonella, helicobacter pylori. We can also have parasitic infections. Parasites are very trendy these days.

We definitely see them on labs. know, they’re not through cause for everyone, but we do see them. So all of these different microbial imbalances are going to cause things like bloating, constipation, gas, diarrhea, burping, and reactions to food. So food sensitivities are never the true cause of a gut issue. They’re more so the result of deeper gut issues. And same goes for, you know, the need for these restrictive diets. If you get to the point where you’re like, I can tolerate less

foods than I can’t, if that makes sense. Like I can’t tolerate more foods than I can actually eat. This is a gut microbial and function issue. It’s not a food issue because a strong and healthy resilient gut microbiome can tolerate most foods. So let that be clear. If you are like, I can’t eat this and then this and then this and then this and then this and this, there’s a deeper gut issue at play. That was me for many, many years. And I just stayed away from it all and it never really got any better. And then I had to dig a bit deeper, right?

Hannah Aylward (27:07.734)

We are big fans of eating enough protein over here on Team Han. Protein is essential for muscle repair, a strong gut lining, balanced blood sugar levels, and so much more. For most of our clients, we like recommending around 100 grams of protein per day to start, and adding in a good quality protein powder can be super helpful for hitting those numbers. It’s an easy add-in. You can throw it into a smoothie or even add it to oatmeal. Choosing the right protein powder can feel so overwhelming.

Half of them are full of fillers and crap ingredients and the other half honestly just tastes bad. Equip Protein is one of my go-to recommendations for our clients and one of my personal favorites. We love it because it only has a small handful of ingredients. It’s 100 % carefully sourced, real foods, no additives, allergens, chemicals, fillers or other junk. It’s gluten-free and it contains 21 grams of protein per serving. Equip’s Prime Protein also offers

a complete amino acid profile. It’s also independently tested to make sure that the protein powder is free of harmful amounts of heavy metals and toxins like glyphosate, which is honestly super hard to find. EquipPrime protein is a grass-fed beef protein. So it is animal-based, but it’s dairy-free, unlike whey or casein protein powders. Grass-fed beef protein is packed with collagen, gelatin, and micronutrients that your body needs.

We also see that it’s typically much better tolerated in our clients with chronic gut and digestive issues over something like a plant-based protein powder. In addition, some of their flavors do contain natural flavors, but they’re distilled vapors from natural and organic compounds or fruits like vanilla, coconut, and strawberry, and are processed without any chemicals, fillers, binders, or artificial ingredients, which once again is incredibly hard to find. Personally, I buy both the chocolate and the vanilla.

flavors of the Equip Prime Protein, but honestly, they have like so many other incredible flavors out now. If you’re interested in trying out Equip Prime Protein, you can use the code HANNAHAYLWARDHHC at checkout for 15 % off, and we’ll pop that code in the show notes of this episode for you as well. So once again, you can go to equipfoods.com, choose the flavor of protein powder that you want, and then use code HANNAHAYLWARDHHC for 15 % off.

Hannah Aylward (29:24.674)

When we have these microbial imbalances, can just, the simplest way to explain it is we have imbalance in the gut microbiome. So once again, they can be bacteria, they can be fungi or yeast, they can be parasites, they can be more infections. They can also be low levels of our good gut bacteria. I got a client test result back this morning. She has no good gut bacteria left. That alone will cause a lot of chronic gut and GI issues as well because we need those good gut bugs to support.

gut motility, thyroid hormone conversion, support a healthy, robust gut barrier. So all of these things are connected. So when we work with clients, there’s different patterns that we’re looking for and no one presents the exact same way. We can have higher levels of histamine producing bacteria. We can have higher levels of gram negative producing bacteria. These bacteria that are producing lipopolysaccharides that are highly inflammatory, right? That cause a lot of anxiety. They cross the blood brain barrier. They can cause a lot of skin issues.

So there’s different presentations of these microbial imbalances that would cause someone’s chronic gut and digestive issues. But what I want you to really understand is that if you are looking at a lot of microbial imbalances, the food that you eat, like you’re gonna feel like you react to everything. And it’s really, truly frustrating. So frustrating. That was me. I was like, I’m reacting to everything. And then I would have like a good week.

And then I would react to everything again, or I would travel and then I like couldn’t go to the bathroom for seven days. And then I felt like I was going to die and explode. And it was like, then your mental health really takes a hit been there. And what was at the core of that? I was like, I’m just stressed. I just need to get back into my routine. I’m just going to like optimize my nutrition. I need to hydrate and all these things. Sure. That’s all true. But I had a ton of gut dysbiosis. And once I cleared that up, I kid you not, I no longer worry about this. I can travel, I can eat, I can like go about my life and I’m not.

terrified of being chronically bloated and constipated for like a week, which is really nice. Life is a lot easier on the other side. So when we have these microbial imbalances in the gut, we will feel reactive to all kinds of foods. You may also feel like, you know, I wake up on Monday morning and I have like a bowl of oatmeal with chia seeds and protein powder, whatever, and I feel fine. And then I eat the exact same meal for breakfast the next day and I don’t feel fine. I’m bloated, I’m gassy, I’m burping, I’m constipated or I’m to the bathroom. This is usually a microbial issue. It’s not the food.

Hannah Aylward (31:42.926)

You ate the food one day, you felt fine. You ate the food the next day, you didn’t feel fine. It’s not about the food at this point. It’s a deeper gut dysfunction and gut environment issue. So that’s what we really want to address. Poor drivers of things like microbial imbalances in the gut. So what actually causes this? Antibiotic use, birth control use of other medications, slow gut motility due to chronic stress, poor digestion upstream. So low stomach acid, poor pancreatic enzyme secretion, low bile flow.

nutrient deficiencies, mineral deficiencies, things like potassium that are going to influence your gut motility. even when we’re looking at, which I kind of alluded to earlier, even when we’re looking at microbial imbalances, whether it’s bacteria or fungi and yeast or a parasitic infection or a SIBO or whatever, the bacterial imbalance is causing the bloating, but it’s still not the deeper root cause. We have to understand what actually led to the microbial imbalance in the gut in the first place.

And that’s how we’re really, we need to target that. And that’s how we’re really going to get you feeling better. So the bloating, histamine issues, food, sense of these brain fog, these are all some common signs that you may be dealing with a microbial imbalance. And this is where testing is like game changing. As we have to get in there and we have to see what’s actually going on in your gut. So we can repair at the root cause level. I always describe it as like looking under the hood. So we want to look under the hood, peel the layers of the orange back and see what’s at the core. How can we address the function at the core?

and then everything starts to flourish from there. So if we have a lot of this dysbiosis, like you can’t restrict a diet your way out of this. You can’t anti-Candida diet your way out of this. You can’t low FODMAP diet your way out of this. We have to adjust the gut environment overall. Okay, the next underlying root cause that I want to review with you guys is going to be intestinal barrier dysfunction or something that you may have heard of like leaky gut. So people will call it leaky gut. When we’re looking at your gut lining,

You have a gut barrier. have an epithelial layer of your gut lining and we have a mucosal barrier to your gut lining. And then mucosal barrier helps to kind of reinforce that epithelial barrier. So epithelial is just cellular. It’s comprised of these things called tight junctions and they should be nice and tight. I like to use my hands here to kind of give you that example or you can think of if you’re listening to me and you can’t see me, think of like a brick wall where everything’s like it’s Tetrastin, right? Everything’s perfectly connected and there’s no gaps because the gaps would lead to vulnerability.

Hannah Aylward (34:04.534)

Now your gut barrier should be nice and tight. These tight junctions should be nice and tight and they’ll start to get leaky, hence the term leaky gut, when we have a lot of stress or inflammation contributing to that breakdown of that epithelial barrier. Weakened bucosal barrier is also going to support a weakened epithelial barrier of that gut lining as well. So these are just a lot of like, you know, fancy terms. In layman’s terms, your gut lining is weak. So you’re dealing with this leaky gut piece.

Now, when that happens, we’ll have these undigested food proteins and particles and potentially pathogens and things like that flowing through that gut barrier and then triggering systemic inflammation because your immune system is on the other side of that gut barrier. So we have to seal up that gut barrier in order to decrease things like food sensitivities and decrease systemic inflammation. And this is also why the gut plays a massive role in autoimmunity and also skin issues like hives and rashes and things like that, because gut dysfunction will trigger that systemic inflammation.

doesn’t just stay in the gut. It’s going to impact your body full system. It can look like headaches, histamine issues, can look like skin issues, autoimmunity, right? So we always want to dig deeper and look at that gut barrier. But we also have to understand what’s breaking down that gut barrier because it doesn’t just break down out of nowhere, which is why if you followed me for a long time, you know, I always say, you know, leaky gut protocols are very lazy. We don’t want to just slap L-glutamine on this issue or whatever, even butyrate. And these can be really helpful supplements, but we have to understand how did we get here?

Why do we need these things to seal up our gut barrier? And that is usually due to a microbial issue, which is usually due to a digestive issue, poor digestive function. So if you really want to take a root cause or approach, we have to like really peel the layers back. But hopefully this feels reassuring to you because if you feel like I’ve tried all glutamine, I’ve tried the low FODNAP diets, I’ve tried taking out gluten and dairy and like it’s not working.

It’s not that these things are necessarily even bad. We’re just kind of like missing the mark. It’s not comprehensive enough. We don’t want to piecemeal our way into this. It’s not working, right? So we have to really dig deeper and understand what is actually causing all of this. And that’s why I say, like, we take a root cause approach to a root cause approach. We don’t just go, oh, we have low vitamin D supplement. Oh, you have leaky gut supplement. We go, well, why? How did we get here?

Hannah Aylward (36:21.73)

And it’s good intensive work, it’ll change your life, you know, but it’s not as simple as slapping on one supplement or taking out dairy or whatever it might be. But usually, you know, my community is like, thank you, because I’ve tried all of that and it hasn’t worked. So you’re not alone if you feel like you’ve tried all of that. There’s still so much that we can do to get you feeling a lot better. Okay, so when it comes to intestinal permeability or that weakened barrier, right, these tight junctions become compromised.

allowing that partially digested food and toxins to enter the bloodstream, we’re getting that triggering of systemic inflammation. We’ll often have skin issues, autoimmune issues, inflammation, food sensitivities. And the point that I really want you guys to take away from this is removing the foods. You’re going to react to all the different foods. If you are dealing with increased intestinal permeability, you can eat the healthiest foods. And this is also why you can go for food sensitivity testing and you’ll get those results and they’ll be lit up like a Christmas tree. You’re like,

where you’re reactive or sensitive to all these different foods, you’re like, oh, no wonder I eat these foods all the time. No, the issue is not the foods. The issue is that we’re triggering, we’re triggering that immune system response constantly because the intestinal barrier is compromised. So the food is not causing this. The gut dysfunction is causing this. have literally seen, this was so early on in my career too, when I was like really still deeply learning. This was like 10 years ago. I saw someone get food sensitivity results. It’s sensitive to everything.

Lettuce chickpeas sesame all these like healthy foods. I mean no sense lettuce. Are we serious? I was like, that’s not that’s not true. That just cannot be true She wasn’t sensitive to that. She was living in mold. She had a big fungal overgrowth She had no digestion patterns. We fixed all of that. She retested the food sensitivities clear no longer sensitive to anything Okay, so the food sensitivities are not the root right there the response to the other issues that are present

So we need to support the microbiome, reduce inflammation, support digestive function to get you to the other side of this. But this is one of those clear examples of like, I’ve taken out all of these foods and I’ve taken out glutinidary and sugar and I’m still bloated and gassy. It’s not fixing the root of the problem. So hopefully that makes sense to you guys. The next underlying root cause you guys is going to be this impaired motility piece. You’ll notice that all of these things are connected, right? So there can be various underlying root causes.

Hannah Aylward (38:39.844)

And when we look at these various underlying root causes, we can see that this impacts this and then impacts this and then impacts this. So Western medicine likes to take all of these different things and put them in all these different buckets. Like you’ve got your specialist over here and your specialist over here and your specialist over here. And I understand why, because when people have really chronic health issues, like there’s no way that you can know it all. You know, I don’t profess to know it all. You wouldn’t want me performing surgery. I’m completely unqualified to do that. So it’s like, you have to have specialists in certain regards.

But at the same time, you have to understand that your gut is going to impact your hormones and your thyroid hormones and your skin and your hair and your energy and all of these things, your immunity and your cardiovascular health, all of these things, it’s going to impact. while we’re looking at deeper root causes of gut issues, I wanted to talk, the next thing I wanted to speak about was motility. So when we have impaired gut motility, we will have a lot of bloating and usually constipation, but not in every case is it constipation.

And impaired motility will also contribute to bacterial overgrowth in the gut, which we already talked about. That’s going to cause a lot of bloating and gas and even skin issues and thyroid issues and contribute to autoimmunity and things like that. So when we’re talking about impaired motility, motility is really just the rate at which things move through your GI tract. going back to what I said at the beginning of this training, when we’re thinking of your digestive function or your gut as like a hose, like a long hose, if things aren’t moving

through the hose at the rate at which we want them to, you’re going to feel bloated. You’re going to feel heavy. You’re going to feel gassy. That’s going to feed overgrowth in the gut. And you will also likely feel constipated, but not every slow motility case looks like constipation. So we have something called our migrating motor complex, and it’s a nerve regulated function in the gut that helps to move debris through the GI tract. So I always explain it as like a brew.

You can think of it as like a broom that sweeps debris through the GI tract to prevent from things like microbial overgrowth from taking place. If you have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or SIBO, you likely have a motility issue. We have to ask why, what’s contributing to this motility issue? But breakdowns in your migrating motor complex will cause bacterial overgrowth and a lot of burping and gas and bloating. We want to make sure that things are moving through the GI tract how we want them to.

Hannah Aylward (40:59.074)

Too fast, you can’t absorb the nutrients from your food. You have diarrhea, you have low energy, you need to like extra hydrate more nutrients because you can’t absorb it. Too slow, we’ll end up with toxins going back into circulation, excess estrogen, inability to detoxify mycotoxins, things like that. Constipation can lead to things like acne because things aren’t being excreted out at the pace at which we want them to. You literally remove toxins through your sweat, your urine and your stool.

So if you are dealing with constipation, I’ll be doing a whole training on constipation next week, you guys, so stay tuned. 12.30, same day next week, we’re gonna be talking about the underlying root causes of constipation and some hacks and tips to support you there, because it’s such a big deal. And people, we see so many women that struggle with chronic constipation, and they’re just handed laxatives or Linz-S or whatever the heck, and it’s so disappointing to me. It seems like it’s the only solution that they have sometimes.

But we have to dig deeper and understand why, and we have to get the bowels moving, or it will cause bigger issues down the line. That’s not to scare you, but it’s a big thing, and we need to really take it into consideration. So slower gut motility can be contributing to something like this. It’s going to lead to bloating, constipation, bacterial overgrowth. It’s largely driven by gut infections, undereating, too much snacking, disrupting the migrating motor complex, chronic stress.

and different things like that. Sometimes we have a structural issue at play. So you can have like scar tissue, adhesions, you have a hiatal hernia. Sometimes there’s more of a structural issue contributing to the slower gut motility. More often than not, that’s not present, but sometimes that can be playing a role because it’s like a kink in the hose. Things can actually move through at the rate at which we want them to because there’s a built up tissue, like I said, adhesion scar tissue could be from a surgery, an organ removal, a C-section, things like that.

And that’s what we’ll also see in severe endometriosis cases. We’ll have this structural abnormality. So things can’t move through the GI tract at the rate at which we want them to, if it’s really heavily inflamed by those endometrial lesions that we have. It’s kind of a much more complex topic, but we can have endo lesions even attaching the rectum to another area. And it’s just kind of a nightmare, but that’s more of a structural thing, right? I would say that’s less common.

Hannah Aylward (43:18.052)

than this like digestive function piece that would then contribute to slow gut motility. So just to recap all of these, guys, these underlying root causes and the reasons why you have removed gluten and dairy and you don’t feel any different or maybe you feel like 10, 20, maybe 30 % better, but you’re like, I’m still bloated. I’m still gassy. I’m still burping. I’m constipated. I feel nauseous. I have reflux, whatever it might be these underlying root causes, right? So number one, something like low stomach acid, number two, poor

poor bile flow. And then the third one that will lump in there that I didn’t like teach a whole section on would be low pancreatic enzyme secretion. These are all connected. Then we have microbial imbalances as well. So dysbiosis patterns, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, fungal overgrowth or candida, certain bacterial infections, certain parasitic infections, any microorganism microbial imbalance that is impacting the overall balance of the gut microbiome will cause a lot of bloating and gas and constipation.

And then we have that intestinal barrier dysfunction, weakened intestinal barrier function, or leaky gut is what people will call it. And then we have that impaired gut motility. So things aren’t flowing, moving through the gut at the rate at which we want them to. That case, you’ll usually feel like you get full really quickly or you are constipated or you just feel like you eat and then you’re like, it takes you a long time to get your appetite back. So you might eat and you’re like, I’m full for hours, right? Things aren’t being digested efficiently and they’re not moving through the GI tract efficiently.

that will then cause that overgrowth picture in the gut microbiome. The other thing that I have to note here that does play a massive role is going to be nervous system dysfunction or dysregulation. So this is a big piece that people overlook. However, nowadays nervous system regulation has like made its rounds on social media and apparently it’s the root cause of everything. I think there’s a balance here because chronic nervous system dysregulation will lead to gut issues over time.

That’s just how it works. So when we are actively in that fight or flight state, when we are chronically stressed, we are going to produce less stomach acid. We’re going to increase cortisol. Cortisol is going to wear away that gut barrier. We’re going to set the stage in our gut for microbial overgrowth to take place, intestinal permeability to take place, and maldigestion to take place. So is nervous system regulation a really important piece of this puzzle? Yes. No question. Is it the only root cause of chronic digestive issues?

Hannah Aylward (45:43.573)

No, because it doesn’t just stay stress, right? Stress will cause issues in digestive function and gut barrier permeability in gut motility. So it’s like this mental and emotional stressor becomes a physical issue. So when we’re looking at getting someone better, we have to address both of these things. I hope that makes sense, but let me know if you guys have any questions on that. So nervous system is regulation. If you’re chronically in this sympathetic dominant state, this fight or flight state,

You’re setting yourself up for subpar digestion. So it has to be addressed when we want someone to get better and stay better. Very much key to staying better is regulating your nervous system. And it’s not about never feeling stressed again. That’s not a regulated nervous system. I think that’s a big misnomer. It’s not about never feeling stressed or never feeling overwhelmed because we will all feel that way. I mean, unless you’ve got some solution that I haven’t found yet. I definitely feel stress a lot of the time, right? So it’s more about

how quickly we can reconnect to safety in the body versus just never feeling stressed. It’s like, cool, if this stressful situation made me feel stressed and it would have taken me out for a day, can I now have it take me out for like an hour? Like how much quicker can we get back on the horse? How much quicker can we re-regulate and decrease the stress? Not that we can’t express the stress or feel the stress or feel the frustration or the grief or the anger or whatever. It’s more so about how quickly we can re-regulate and access safety in the body.

That takes a lot of consistency and practice, especially if you’ve had like a lot of childhood trauma or many traumatic events in your life or really big stressors that have consistently been hanging on. It’s a huge part of my story. Like lots of childhood trauma, walking on eggshells, not safe in the home, very dramatic, know, lots of things involved. We don’t need to get into it. But that, I mean, my nervous system, all it knows is fight or flight. All it knows is chronic stress and perfectionism and go, go, go.

And there’s a good piece of that because I’ve built all of this. So we help a lot of people and you know, I’ve been running this company for a long time and there’s a bad piece of that because I’ll easily burn myself out and then I’ll feel it. It’s part of what led to my chronic digestive issues. Right. So we want to work on regulating the nervous system. It’s going to impact everything positively, but it’s not the only, it’s not the only thing, right. But it is true that when we are chronically stressed, we will

Hannah Aylward (48:02.978)

decrease, we will produce less stomach acid. We will produce fewer pancreatic enzymes. It will impact our gut motility and it will increase gut permeability. So there is a direct connection with our nervous system and our digestive function and our gut health. Digestion is a nervous system regulated process. It starts in the brain. So understand that it’s not just about probiotics and bacteria. It starts up here.

And if you’re regulated and you’re in that parasympathetic state, you will digest everything better. If you’re chronically stressed, you’re going to set yourself up for subpar digestion. Digestion is a nervous system regulated process. People definitely don’t talk about that enough, which is another reason why taking out gluten, taking out dairy, throwing out glutamine, throwing probiotics out, it’s not going to fix the issue. We have to take a more functional, holistic, like truly integrative approach to repairing the gut at its core.

If your body doesn’t feel safe enough to repair and heal, it will struggle too. So we want to really support this from all angles while being able to like still live our lives, right? Cause most of us can’t quit our jobs and drop all of our responsibilities. At least I can’t. So it’s a balance, right? We want to learn how to self-regulate. We want to build resilience and we want to optimize digestive function to support our body more holistically. Mindset does play a big role in that. So when we’re looking at stripping all of these foods away from the diet,

whether it’s gluten, dairy, soy, sugar, FODMAP, selectins, blah, blah, These elimination diets more long-term are going to backfire because A, they’re not addressing the root cause of anything. That’s only gonna get worse, not to scare you. I don’t think to do scare tactics, it’s like not helpful for anyone. But if you’re not addressing the root, it’s very likely just gonna get worse, right? It’s the same thing as like, if you have a budget and you’re like overspending and then, but you just focus on making more, but you continue to overspend. You’re just gonna be like running.

you’re on a hamster wheel, you know, it’s like you’ll never get ahead type of deal. It’s like we have to look at both pieces of this. So we don’t want to just ignore the root cause and then just pull out more and more and more foods, hoping that’s going to repair things. Cause it’s very, very, very likely not. If it did, you probably wouldn’t be watching this, right? You probably wouldn’t be listening to this cause you’d be feeling a lot better. wouldn’t care anymore, but you’re here with me and I love, I love that you’re here with me. So we just have to dig a bit deeper, right?

Hannah Aylward (50:21.197)

Over time, these elimination diets can also reduce microbial diversity, which will cause issues because a healthy, resilient gut is a diverse gut microbiome. It’ll increase food fear. That was my case. I was terrified to eat like anything. I mean, I wouldn’t have even eaten one french fry for like a decade. And I really lost out. I really lost out on some good experiences there. And it doesn’t build resilience either. And it just kind of is like another, it’s a really like a more…

surface level band-aid, more natural band-aid, but it’s not actually addressing anything. So the goal is not to avoid these foods forever, it’s to repair function so you can tolerate these foods again with less flare-ups and pain and bloating. I’m a walking example of that. So many of our clients are walking examples of that. We’ve helped them be able to eat fermented foods again, tomatoes again, onions, garlic, apples, dairy, all of these different foods when they couldn’t eat any of this. I mean, we’ve seen people come in and they’re eating

They can tolerate like three vegetables. And by the time we’re done working, they can tolerate 15 vegetables. And while that still feels, you know, restricted for some of us, that’s massive, massive improvement. Your gut is like a muscle. can rebuild tolerance, right? But if you don’t go to the gym for a long time, then it’s going to get harder. You’re going to, it’s going to weaken. It’s going to lose strength, right? So we have to slowly rebuild tolerance while addressing these underlying root causes. So overall, when we’re looking to

support someone in overcoming their chronic digestive issues. We have to restore digestive capacity. We have to rebalance the gut microbiome. We have to repair and rebuild the gut barrier. We have to regulate the nervous system, replete a lot of nutrients and support mitochondrial function as well. And detoxification, because a lot of us just like are slow detoxers, do genetic things and overburden of toxins in our environment and all that kind of stuff. And that’s how we really are going to be able to get someone feeling better. So your body is not broken.

It’s not that you will never, you’ll be dealing with these chronic digestive issues forever. We just have to dig a little bit deeper and repair things more systemically, repairing function and repairing balance in the gut microbiome. So then you can eat more food. So if anyone’s interested in learning more, I developed something, my gut health root cause assessment quiz. And we’ve had like, I don’t even know. think I looked at the number the other day. It was like 17,000 people taking this quiz, which is crazy. And you can take this quiz, just send me a DM with the word quiz and I’ll have my team send you the link for it.

Hannah Aylward (52:42.535)

but it’s like two minutes and it’s based on our assessment that we use with our clients. So it’s not testing, right? But it’s a really good, simple, quick assessment for you to take that can give you more insight into your underlying root causes of digestive issues. So just go to my profile and send me a message with the word quiz and I’ll send it to you. And with your results, it’s gonna tell you your result and you’re also gonna get a whole PDF breakdown with a bunch of education on how to get better. What are best next steps to take from there?

I have literally had people take this quiz and they say, I took the quiz, it said Candida Overgrowth, and then I went and tested and I have Candida Overgrowth. And I’m like, yes, yes, you do. I told you. So it’s legit. Like the quiz is legit. It’s not a substitute for testing. You know, we want to always overlap it with testing, but it’s a really good place to start and you’re going to get education and best next steps with your results. So just send me the word quiz and I’ll get that over to you and you can take that and start from there. And then next week we’ll be doing

I’ll have another live training. I’ll be going live at 1230 PM EST next Tuesday as well. And we’re to be talking about the main root causes of constipation because that seems to be something that my community struggles with so much is this chronic constipation. And there’s various underlying root causes to chronic constipation and the solutions depend on the root causes, right? So we’re going to talk about that root causes and solutions to chronic constipation. So make sure to meet me back here this time next week. We’ll talk soon. Big hugs each and every one of you.

Bye guys!