This is the transcript of an interview hosted on Ruth’s Feel Better. Live Free. podcast.
Ruth Soukup: If you’ve listened to this podcast for any amount of time, you’ve probably heard me talk about gut health at least once or twice, and maybe a lot more than that. But there’s a good reason it’s pretty much impossible to talk about health and weight loss without eventually talking about the gut because it is so central to our overall health and how we feel.
But when it comes to actually healing our gut, there are no simple answers. In fact, it’s not just one thing, as today’s guest is gonna explain, it’s not even always just about the food. So let’s dive in.
Welcome to the Feel Better Live Free podcast, brought to you by FIUs. I’m your host, Ruth Sukup, and here we’ll talk about everything from the science of weight loss to practical tips for making your health a priority in the midst of a busy life. It’s a little bit nerdy, a little bit funny, and a little bit revolutionary.
So buckle up friend, because it’s about to get real.
Today we’re gonna be chatting with Hannah Ward, who is a woman on a mission to help people feel genuinely at home in their bodies by transforming gut health from the inside out.
Hannah has guided hundreds of clients to lasting wellness by addressing the root causes of their digestive struggles. As the founder of Hannah, a functional nutrition practice dedicated to natural heal healing, she empowers women worldwide to overcome chronic digestive issues like bloating, IBS, acid reflux, constipation, and more.
And like I said, if you’ve been listening to this podcast for any amount of time, you probably already know that I’m pretty much obsessed with gut health because it’s such a fundamental part of healing your body and feeling good overall. Suffice to say, I am so excited for today’s guest and so excited to be able to introduce you to today’s interview guest, Hannah.
A Word. Hannah, thank you so much for being here. I’m so excited to talk to you. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to dive in.
Ruth Soukup: Yeah, so let’s just start with kind of the broad overview. Who are you and how did you get to be doing what you are now?
Hannah Alyward: Yes. So my name’s Hannah Ward. I am the CEO and founder of Han.
And at Ham we really help women overcome chronic digestive issues. So things like bloating, constipation, IB slike symptoms, so bowel movement issues, urgency, lots of chronic bloating. Um, we’ll see even lots of like different skin conditions too. So chronic acne, eczema, a lot of that stems from the gut. We really just kind of dig deeper to take a root cause approach and address like repairing the gut through more of a root cause functional lens.
And I really got into all of this because, you know, I was struggling with these issues myself. I had, um, chronic digestive issues for years. You know, I would look like six months pregnant with belly bloating after eating healthy foods. I was eating very healthy, I was exercising regularly. I knew a lot about health.
I was quote unquote doing all the right things. I was. Like young, I was active. I I don’t really drink much alcohol. None of it really, you know, added up or was making any sense. And it was very confusing ’cause no one really knew how to help me. You know, it was kind of like, well, you’re young and you’re healthy and you’re on no medications, like, you’re, you’re fine.
And I knew deep down that something had to be off because I didn’t always, you know, feel that way. Then also I just, I was like, I, I should have more energy than this. I should be able to eat these foods, you know, without kind of like quote unquote paying for it for a long time afterwards. And it got to the point where I was really like skipping meals just so I could like button my pants and go out to dinner with my friends, or I was packing, you know, all my own snacks everywhere I went.
And it was, you know, I, I wanna be mindful of saying, like, embarrassing. I don’t think anyone should be embarrassed of what they’re experiencing, but. It didn’t, it didn’t help, right? So it was kind of like hitting my confidence. It was hitting my trust with my body. It was hitting how I showed up in the world.
Um, and it was really heavily impacting my life and my, my relationship. So, you know, I, I love the work that we do because yes, we’re addressing the gut at the root, but typically we’ll see it. It, it doesn’t, it’s not really about the bloating, it’s about like how the bloating impairs your quality of life and how it impacts how you show up in your day to day and your confidence and all of that.
And that’s what I really love helping women through. So yeah, I just was like, I have to dig deeper and I have to figure out what’s going on. And then I started seeing. That a lot of other women were struggling with it too. And it wasn’t just me. Women were trying loads of things and not really getting any results being told.
They just had IBS being told, you know, everything looks normal. We we’re not sure your colonoscopy’s fine. Um, and I was just like, we’ve gotta get these women some answers. So that’s how I’m here. Awesome. That’s
Ruth Soukup: amazing. So how did you ultimately like
Hannah Alyward: figure out what was the problem? Tons of research and then more functional testing.
So, um, like we love functional testing. I’ve got a team of functional registered dieticians and so we’ll run labs that you wouldn’t really like normally get at your traditional Western medical doctor’s office. Um, sometimes a functional medicine doctor will run them. You just wanna really make sure if you’re gonna invest in the labs like.
You’re working with someone who really knows how to work with the lab. ’cause they can get a little pricey. But I was, you know, I was kind of seeing that in the functional and holistic space, a lot of it is just like food, food, food, food. And obviously food is like so incredibly powerful and nutrition is, but there’s kind of this layer deeper when it comes to gut health.
So you’ll start reacting to all sorts of different foods if you have these underlying gut imbalances. And once I kind of. Figured out that I was like, oh, I bet you I have some of this, something here has to be present. Um, that’s basically causing me to react to these foods, especially like healthy foods, right?
Like I would look six months pregnant after eating an apple. I, I was like eating sweet potatoes. I couldn’t tolerate them, so it wasn’t just, you know, I took out gluten, I took out dairy, I took out sugar. I wasn’t drinking alcohol, and it was like this, this layer deeper. Then I ran some testing and I was like, okay.
Everything makes sense here. Um, I had some like mold toxicity and I also had a lot of gut imbalances, like slow stomach acid and gut dysbiosis and low gut immune function. And these things were contributing to me reacting to all of these foods, um, and feeling like constipated and bloated and all of that.
So it took a lot of research and honestly like a lot of trial and error, um, and learning from a lot of people in this space that were kind of doing different things. And then I, I was started to put it, put the pieces of the puzzle together.
Ruth Soukup: Interesting. So, I mean, I think there’s a lot of misconceptions about gut health, right?
’cause that’s what I’ve heard too, right? Just cut out dairy and cut out gluten and then you should be fine. And that’s what you’re saying is there’s all sorts of other things. So how, I mean, how do you even get started with understanding like what’s going on?
Hannah Alyward: Yeah, it’s a good question. And you know, I think the, like taking out gluten and taking out dairy and all of that, it’s, it’s stemming from like your.
Like elimination diet, right? Like a traditional elimination diet. And they have their time and place. I’m not here to like knock them. Um, you know, they’re, they are used as a gold standard in some cases to kind of like, see yeah. What food sensitivities do you have, right? Um, but I think that in this like wellness space, a lot of this information has just.
Been like sent out to everyone, like broadcasted on social media and all of that kind of stuff. So now people are doing these things that maybe don’t even need to be doing these things. Um, so yeah, I mean, I think when you’re just getting started taking some of these foods out of the diet to see if you feel any better, like.
It’s pretty low cost. It’s, it’s simple to do. So if you wanted to trial that at home first, like, you know, go ahead and do that. We just wanna avoid keeping those foods out like forever, right? Because that’s what can definitely happen. So by the time people come to work with us, I mean, they’ll be eating, like, some of them are eating like five to 10 foods.
They’re scared to eat these other foods. Um, so yeah, it’s, it, that can be a good place to start. But we also, you know, wanna ask like, why are we. Why do we need to take out these foods in the first place? Because that’s what we really wanna find out because a, a healthy and strong like resilient gut microbiome can tolerate most foods, and that’s what we want.
A few things here and there. You don’t feel great after eating, that’s fine. You know, I don’t expect anyone to feel great after like. Eating a whole pizza, but you know when you Right. Like something like that. Or you’re out. Yeah. You know, eating a bunch of food with friends on a Saturday night, whatever, a little bloating after that.
Okay. Um, but if you’re feeling like bloated, you wake up bloated, you’re bloated after eating, you know, a salad and stuff like that. Like there’s more for us to investigate. So peeling some of these foods can be helpful a little temporarily. Temporarily. That’s like un underline, underline temporarily, right?
Mm-hmm. Then, you know, to take it a layer deeper. This is where the functional testing, I think really comes into play. So we can see what is going on in the gut microbiome that could be contributing to why you are reacting to these foods. Um, and sometimes they’re not just like one food like gluten.
Obviously like the, the protein and wheat, but sometimes maybe you don’t tolerate fats very well. It’s not like just one singular food. It’s fats as a whole. So may that could include healthy fats. That could be avocado, that could be, you know, olive oil, it could be cheese, it could be, you know, fried foods, whatever.
And there’s an underlying reason for that, right? Being fat maldigestion, which then stems from the liver and gallbladder. So we come in and we would work on the liver and gallbladder. So then you can tolerate these foods once again. So it can be, you know, if you’re on this journey like o on your own, it can be a little tricky to pick up these patterns.
Um mm-hmm. But sometimes, you know, if you wanted to get started too with like, okay, cool, do I feel worse after I eat protein rich foods? Do I feel worse after I eat fat rich foods? Or is it fiber? Can I not tolerate fiber or rich foods? That can give us more insight as well.
Ruth Soukup: Hmm, interesting. So what are some of the surprising root causes to gut health issues that people don’t necessarily always think about?
Hannah Alyward: So many things. Um, now you me mentioned mold, which was interesting. Yeah. Tell me
Ruth Soukup: more about that.
Hannah Alyward: Yeah. Oh my gosh. We see so much of it. I, I wish we didn’t, I really wish we didn’t. I always say like, I never ever wanted to become, um, uh, a practitioner in the mold space. It was never a desire of mine. But we, like, if, if you’re working in functional gut health, you basically like have to know it because you’ll see it.
Um, it’s a big reason why people don’t get better. Um, it’s a, it can be a big reason for like weight loss resistance too. Um, complex hormonal issues, hair loss, like chronic fatigue. So there is a, there is a stat out there. I don’t wanna butcher it, but I, I think it’s like 90% and you can fact check me on this.
So, uh, you know, I don’t have the paper in front of me, but I believe it’s like 90% of people with chronic fatigue syndrome. Have high mold levels, like mycotoxin levels, um, really. Yeah, it’s a big, it’s a big number. So, um, you know, mold essentially, you know, it can grow in water damage buildings. We do get some exposure through food.
Personally, I’m not like super worried about small amounts of exposure through food. I, I don’t take the, like me and my team, we really don’t take the approach of like. Getting really nitty gritty to the point where you’re just like scared to eat anything. That’s not what we want, right? I want you to be able to like live your life happily and travel and do your thing.
So I’m not like, oh my gosh, never get a coffee out because there’s mold in it, right? But yes, we can get some exposure through food, and so we just minimize where we can, um, based on how things grow. So like coffee beans and how they’re stored, you know, with they’re hot and they’re humid and they can grow mold, um, corn, grains, peanuts, things like that.
But once again, that’s not really what I’m like stressing over because your body has these natural detox systems to like handle this on its own when you’re taking good care of yourself. However, if you’re like living in a. Mold ridden building. So you’re getting tons of exposure all the time that I would put in a different category that like really does need to be addressed.
So these mycotoxins put heavy burdens on your detox systems. Wow. Wow.
Ruth Soukup: So what other like underlying causes that you would maybe not think about are there.
Hannah Alyward: So we’ll see a lot of like gut dysbiosis. And dysbiosis is really just a fancy term for saying that there’s like an imbalance in your gut bacteria.
Um, there’s different patterns for this. There can be like insufficiency, dysbiosis where you don’t have enough of your good gut bacteria. And we, we honestly see that a lot too because as the diet has like. Westernized and modernized. You know, we’re getting less diversity in through the diet kind of naturally.
Um, so it is important to eat like lots of variety in your healthy whole foods to support your gut microbes. Um, but we can also see an overgrowth of more like dysbiotic, what we would call dysbiotic or opportunistic gut bacteria that can cause tons of symptoms like eczema, acne, chronic bloating, um.
Constipation, diarrhea, histamine overload it. It can really get a bit more complex, but so people can really understand it. We, we basically just have an overgrowth of not, not so good gut bacteria that are contributing to many different symptoms. So when we work with clients, you know, we wanna dig deeper into like, what even caused that.
But I don’t think we’ve ever seen a client that hasn’t had some bit of gut dysbiosis.
Ruth Soukup: Interesting. So what about like lifestyle factors, sleep, stress, how does that play into your gut health as well?
Hannah Alyward: Massively. Yeah. So I mean, stress is huge. And going back to what I was saying with like digging deep as to like why do we have this gut dysbiosis in the first place?
I think a lot of the time is. Because of the chronic stress that so many of us have endured. You know, like life, life hits us and it’s kind of like, um, a little tricky by nature. You know, it’s never, nothing really fully settles down for a long period of time and things happen that we don’t see coming.
And then we just have like, especially women, like type A women, perfectionist leaning women, um, very driven, hardworking women that maybe don’t like. Take care of themselves before they take care of everyone else, and they put themselves on the back burner. So maybe that looks like skipping meals. Maybe it looks like yo-yo dieting, maybe it looks like, um, over exercising, not getting enough sleep, you know, people pleasing.
I mean, there’s so many like directions we could take the conversation, but. All of those things are stressors not hitting your nutrient needs are stressors. Not eating enough is a stress, is a big stressor. Um, yeah, pulling out tons of foods is a big stressor. Experiencing chronic stress is a big stressor and essentially under stress, digestion is an afterthought, right?
So we’re not. Your body isn’t set up to properly digest your food. When you are experiencing a lot of stress, you’ll automatically produce less stomach acid, fewer pancreatic enzymes. Cortisol will increase, cortisol will cause issues with your gut lining. So I always say like stress doesn’t stay stress, right?
It impacts your body. It, it has a physiological impact in the body. And that’s when over time we’ll see stress cause a lot of gut issues.
Ruth Soukup: So, I mean, it feels like there’s so many things, right, that you, you, it. Like how do you even, how do you even begin? Like I just talking about stress makes me feel stressed out because as soon as we start talking about stress, I’m like, oh, I feel it.
I feel my cortisols going up. Yeah. And I think then like then you think like we like. This, it almost like I visualize this multi-headed monster, right? Or playing whack-a-Mole where you’re just trying to hit all the different things and you, how do you know you’re doing it right? And then if you are a type A person, you’re like trying to check all the boxes and not getting all the boxes checked.
So, but at the same time as you’re saying all this, like it’s all interconnected and that’s what I hear is just, it’s so, it’s such a holistic. Approach. So how, where do you even start with that? When it feels overwhelming of, I don’t even, I don’t know. I wanna, I wanna fix my gut. I wanna have a healthy gut.
I wanna lose the weight. I wanna do all the things for my body that I know is supposed to happen. But now there’s so many things I don’t even know where, where to turn and what to do.
Hannah Alyward: Absolutely. And I think I like to put stress in almost like different buckets. ’cause we’ve got like emotional mental stressors, then we’ve got physical stressors and then we have like environmental stressors.
’cause I agree. I mean, I think the topic of stress alone, it’s like people are like, reduce your stress. And it’s like, yeah, I, duh. Right. Like, I get it, but how do I do that as I’m trying to like function in society? So, you know, it’s really like what is causing the most stress for you in your life right now?
And that’s gonna be different for, for everyone. It’s different for me to you, maybe we have some overlap as like business owners possibly. But you know, everyone’s in their own experience. For some people it might be financial stress. For some people it might be their health. For some people it might be their relationship isn’t serving them anymore.
Right? So it’s like. If you take two minutes and get really radically honest with yourself, like what is actually causing you stress on a day-to-day basis and where can we take one step towards, you know, sort sorting that out a little bit. Um, for some of us, it’s like we’re on our phone too much, you know, so it’s like, can we have better boundaries with our phone?
That’s a super simple start. Um, but for a lot of women, I would say that we see like they’re undereating and they’re over exercising. And that would kind of fall into the like, um, physical stressor bucket, right? So that’s not really like I’m stressed at work or, uh, I lost a loved one or anything. That mental and emotional stressor, it’s more of a physical one.
So can we help you balance your blood sugar? Can we get you eating enough protein? Can we get you really fueling your body? Like. Not skipping lots of meals, making sure that you’re properly fueled to actually like increase your stress, your stress resiliency. So when you do encounter this stress, or maybe in another bucket over here, you kind of have these like raw materials, right?
Like you’re eating foods with magnesium, your blood sugar is regulated. Like these things are gonna help you tolerate these stressors a bit better. So. If someone is listening to this and they’re like, okay, literally where do I start next? You know, my first recommendation would be, learn how to balance your blood sugar and, and make sure that you’re eating enough food throughout the day.
Ruth Soukup: Hmm.
Hannah Alyward: So that’s step one. Yeah. That would be a big step one for, for me. Um, because without that, you’re gonna be fighting your body’s like own biology all day long. And what happens is. When your blood sugar levels go up very high, they’re gonna crash very low. And when they crash very low, your body’s gonna push out cortisol in order to raise your blood sugar levels.
Cortisol is that, that stress hormone that so many of us are familiar with. So you can be doing the meditation or the, you know, mindfulness practice or whatever, but if you’re not regulating your blood sugar, you’re running on these stress hormones without even. Like being aware of it, right? So can we get you eating adequate protein at each meal and a fiber at each meal?
Not going like, you know, six hours between meals or not skipping breakfast and eating for the first time at 1:00 PM and that kind of stuff, um, to help to regulate your blood sugar levels so you just feel more calm in your body and then you don’t have that, like physical stressor kind of exacerbating those cortisol levels all day long.
Okay, so step one, fix your blood sugar.
Ruth Soukup: Mm-hmm. Get it
Hannah Alyward: regulated.
Ruth Soukup: Yes. What’s step two? Are there more steps for managing stress overall? Just for, for like approaching gut health and, and I. Getting it fixed.
Hannah Alyward: Yeah. Yeah. So that’s a great place to start. Um, then I would say what we can also do is like learn to optimize digestion.
So I think there’s a lot of talk in the functional health space that’s like the gut microbiome and probiotics and all the bacteria, but before anything even makes it into them, like microbiome, most people are referring to the large intestine and all the bacteria that are in there when they’re talking about that.
We have to make sure you’re actually digesting your food well before the food even gets there, right? So under stress, we won’t digest our food as well. Um, so how can we help to optimize digestion a little bit too? ’cause that’s gonna really help to minimize bloating, minimize constipation, like that feeling of like really feeling full right after eating, gassiness, all of that.
Um, and there are simple strategies for that too, so we can, you know, take six 60. Belly breaths before eating each meal. That’s gonna help the body move into the parasympathetic nervous system response versus the sympathetic, which is that fight or flight state. We’re gonna digest our food and produce more digestive juices when we are in that relaxed state.
So before you eat, take a couple deep breaths, help your body like signal to your brain. We’re safe, we can digest our food. We’re not running away from any danger now. ’cause that’s how the body was designed to actually like eat and digest its food. Um, so don’t just grab a quick meal and eat at your desk.
Yes, precisely yes. Asking for a frontier. Right. And so it’s like when we widen the lens, we can see why so many end up with gut issues. I mean, we’re like, you know, shoveling whatever we can into our mouths in between meetings, right? And so many of us are doing that. I’m not immune to that. I, and I am a very honest with my clients.
I’m like, listen, I’m in this with all of you guys. I don’t struggle like I did before, but you know, life happens to all of us. Um. So Yes. And being present with your food. I mean, even cooking your food will help because you’re like smelling it. You’re, as soon as you smell the aromas from the food, your body literally starts producing more digestive issue, um, digestive juices to break down your food.
So you can think of when you ever walked into like a yummy Italian restaurant and you walk in, you like smell the garlic and you can like smell the garlic bread and the tomato sauce and all of that. And then you’re like, Ooh, I’m ready to eat. Like I’m hungry now. That’s your body, literally like smelling the food.
You haven’t put anything in your mouth yet, right? And it’s going, Ooh. We’re priming ourselves to actually digest our food properly now. So some of this stuff is really like innate, right? We’ve just gotten a bit far removed from it.
Ruth Soukup: Well, it is, I mean, it is interesting when you think about it because it’s not just like hearing you talk about this.
It’s not just our culture of eating standard American diet, which is in and of itself not great because of all the crap that’s that’s in our diet. But then if you think about how far removed most of us are from preparing food and, and making it ourselves and cooking and taking time to cook a meal, it’s like grab it and go, what can I make that’s quicker?
Put it in the microwave or whatever, and then you’re missing out. That as well. It’s, that’s really interesting. Which I’ve never, I’ve never actually heard anybody say, take deep breaths before you eat before, like, and that will aid in your digestion. I mean, it’s so simple. Like, if you think about it, like that’s a very, there’s a lot of te things that people tell, like, advice we get on this podcast where I’m like, yeah, I’m never gonna do that.
But that’s something that it’s actually pretty easy to do. So I could add that into my routine. But yeah, it’s, it’s just, I mean, you don’t even really. Like, think about how much our current. Life, the, like, the way of life and the way that we live our lives is, is contributing in a way that’s not even necessarily food related.
It’s just like the busyness of life. Interesting.
Hannah Alyward: Absolutely. Because I do, I do think that people are more aware of like the food that they are eating nowadays too. Right? So as time goes on, I mean, people are getting increasingly, increasingly aware of like, oh, there’s a lot of. You know, crap in our food, we need to really pay attention to this and all of that.
Um, but the conversation can definitely go deeper. I mean, I can really, really go off on this and even when we think of, you know, most of us just like sit inside all day, you know, and we weren’t really ever meant to do that either. A, we were never meant to be sitting all day. Um, b we were never meant to like be inundated with artificial light, literally all day long, you know, so another.
Thing that you can do that’s free, that’s gonna take 10 minutes, that you can literally start, like today or tomorrow, is getting some sun exposure. And you don’t have to be baking in the sun. But like first thing, when you wake up in the morning, step outside, open your blind, step outside, like drink your morning water, your coffee, or whatever you’re, you’re having.
You know, with exposing your, while, exposing your eyeballs to the sun, that’s gonna support your circadian rhythm, which will support your sleep later that night. It’ll support a healthy rise in cortisol. Our cortisol should be going up first thing in the morning, um, that helps like give us energy to wake up and get the day going and all of that.
Which will then help with, you know, us winding down at night too. But you know, we can’t really expect the body to feel great when we’re like, wake up, we look at the phone, we never go outside. We’re taking five steps all day and then we’re like rushing in between everything. Right? So simply just stepping outside and getting that sun exposure first thing in the morning, and then if you can at night too, like sunset, um.
Time so your body can sense like your, your eyeballs can brain can sense those different like light rays that’s also gonna help you wind down at night. So there’s so much amazing, like free stuff that we can start with.
Ruth Soukup: Yeah, like nature. That is interesting. So I don’t know if you even know the answer to this question.
It’s kind, it’s kind of unrelated, but I have, I have been curious about this, ’cause I’ve heard this about the circadian rhythm and going outside and how important that is. Especially first thing in the morning. And I do, like, I go for a walk usually with my dogs as soon as the sun comes up at seven. But I get up.
At like four, right? Mm-hmm. Three or four in the mornings usually. And I’ll work for a few hours and then go for my walk. And I’m just curious, like what does that do? Does that It is a,
Hannah Alyward: yeah.
Ruth Soukup: A bad thing.
Hannah Alyward: Hmm. I mean, I don’t wanna say it’s a bad thing. If that’s like what works for you, then that’s what works for you.
You know? I think as if you can get outside as soon as the sun does come up, that’s gonna be helpful. Um, do you feel well rested when you’re waking up that early?
Ruth Soukup: Yeah, I mean, I’ve always been an early morning person. Like I don’t even set my alarm. I just wake up every every day. So that part isn’t, that’s not really the issue, but, um, but I have been curious about that.
’cause I don’t even know how I would sleep in, right? Like, it’s so ingrained in me to get up like, so, so natural. I mean, maybe eventually I, if I just force myself to go back to sleep or something. But I’ve wondered like, is that actually, is, there’s, so there’s. For years, right? Everybody’s like, you gotta get up early, you gotta get up early, you gotta get up early.
And that was never hard for me. But now I wonder like, is it actually, is that actually a healthy habit to be getting up so early before the sun spending time, you know, three hours in front of the computer before I actually have like natural light? So I was just curious if I, it’s like I said, it’s totally off topic.
If you don’t wanna answer it, you don’t have to. But I’m just curious if that, if that makes the difference.
Hannah Alyward: Yeah, it’s a good question. You know, I’m trying to think if I know, like, the exact data to like, support what you’re asking me. No, I mean, I, I don’t think that immediately getting screen time, first thing in the morning is ideal.
Um, my bigger question would be like, how do you feel? You know, like how, how are your hormones? How’s your energy? How’s your digestion? If all of those things are feeling pretty fine, then. I think we probably have our answer. ’cause that’s the other thing. I mean, there can be data to back, like honestly anything.
And at the end of the day, the real question is how do you feel in your day to day? And if you, if something’s off, then let’s shift something. But if not, then. Great. Well say I feel pretty
Ruth Soukup: good. So
Hannah Alyward: yeah, there you go. I’m not sure, but I do spend a lot of
Ruth Soukup: time thinking about health stuff and talking about health stuff.
So I’m probably not the, I’m probably not the average person, so maybe all the other good stuff that I’m doing is like counteracting this one thing that I’m doing. That’s. Really bad for me. I don’t know. Maybe I need to test it. Find out.
Hannah Alyward: Yeah, you could always test your cortisol levels and see what they are when you wake up and then, you know, an hour and a half after, like we could test your cortisol awakening response and essentially see like what your.
What your levels look like first thing in the morning. But then when we test cortisol, we wanna do like a four point test typically because your levels change all throughout the day. So it’d be a saliva test for anyone interested, um, not a blood test where we’re getting like one single shot in the blood serum.
We’d wanna do saliva and check it throughout the day to see, ’cause it should kind of like peak in the morning and then slowly go, you know, subtly go down throughout the day. So, I mean, if your cortisol curve is also looking good, then I mean, I wouldn’t really be too worried. Huh. Interesting. I don’t think
Ruth Soukup: I’ve ever had a cortisol test.
That would be, that would be interesting. Yeah. To find
Hannah Alyward: out
Ruth Soukup: because Yeah.
Hannah Alyward: I’ve always been scared to test my cortisol. No, I get it. I, I hear that my, one of the women on my team is using a, um, continuous glucose monitor right now to like check her blood sugar levels. Yeah. And I was like, let me know what you find.
I was like, I wanna do one too, but I’m too scared. I don’t wanna know. Like the, because the stress, the stress will bump up. Yes. Blood sugar like I was saying, and I was like, you know, I don’t, I don’t know if I wanna know that. Of course, you know, ideally I do, but I’m resisting it a little bit for that exact same reason.
I’m like,
Ruth Soukup: sometimes, sometimes it’s easier to live in our, in our bubble.
Hannah Alyward: Yeah. I’m like, if you find out anything that like is new that we didn’t already know, let me know. But other than that, I think I’m good.
Ruth Soukup: That’s hilarious. Okay, so, so far we have. Stabilize your blood sugar. Mm-hmm. Then age your digestion.
Take deep breaths, cook your food, do whatever you can to stabilize your parasympathetic sys system. Is that what you said? Mm-hmm. Para sympathetic nervous system to make you feel calm before you eat, so that you’ll digest your food better.
Hannah Alyward: Mm-hmm. What? Yeah. Another great thing that we can do is like get in some daily movement.
So like your morning walk is a perfect kind of example of that movement. I mean, obviously it has so many incredible benefits, but a lot of people are also, you know, they’re constipated ’cause they’re, they’re sitting down all day and they’re not moving their body, you know? Um, so getting in some gentle daily movement.
I like to say movement versus exercise because sometimes I think when we’re like talking about exercise, we like stress ourselves out that it has to be perfect and we’ve gotta get in an hour class. Six days a week or whatever. It really doesn’t need to be like that. I just want you moving, I want you like getting up from your desk.
I want you going for a walk or dancing in your kitchen. I don’t really care what it looks like. Just move your body, um, each and every day. I mean, it’s been shown to like increase levels of good gut bacteria. It supports gut motility, can help get the bowels moving. So that’s another like really, um, wonderful thing that you can start, you know, tomorrow.
Ruth Soukup: Is it So do with movement. And I agree. I totally agree with you. Like with not calling it exercise. ’cause I, I think I have, I’ve had this conversation before and in fact my sister-in-law just this weekend, she texted in our little sister’s group chat and she’s like, I just. I feel like I’m not doing enough right now.
And I’m like, and she was an athlete and I, and I was an athlete, right? Grow in high school and I was ba I played basketball and you used to like three hour practices where you’re just killing yourself and it’s awful. And, and so my whole like idea of exercise is that it has to be miserable or it doesn’t count, right?
If we’re not like basically dying by the time we’re done, then you didn’t get a good workout in. And I think she, like, she has that too and, and it’s such a hard thing to get past it and realize that actually just going for a walk in the morning is fine, right? Like I walk, I do like 10 minutes around my property with holding my cup of coffee.
I’m wearing boots and my pajamas half the time because I’m like still couch. It’s still a walk. So it just is not like. I think that has helped. But is there an ideal, like if you can get past this idea that it has to be exercised and hardcore for it to count? Is there still an ideal amount of like number of times you should walk?
Is one time in the morning enough? Should there be an evening walk? Should there be a midday walk? Is there a certain number of times, like what is the, what would the ideal number be? Or is that even a thing?
Hannah Alyward: Yeah, it’s a good question and I do think it can vary a little bit, like throughout. The different phases of life.
Ideally I would like to see people walking like 20 to 30 minutes each day. Um, but you can also break that up. You know, you could do your 10, 15 minutes if you made it 15 minutes in the morning and then you do 15 minutes in the evening, then there, there you have it, you know? Um, and then, you know, if we really wanna take it a, a step farther, so.
I really do love strength training. This is more formal exercise, right? Like a workout. Um, but what’s nice is you really don’t need to do it like seven times a week to get results. You can do it like two to four. Four would be like, you know, you really got your practice going. I. Times a week for like 30 minutes.
And that can be so beneficial for building muscle, which is just like, it’s so important as we get older. It helps supports like bone density, it helps keep us strong, it helps prevent us from like breaking our hips. Like it’s like way past just body composition. Um, the benefits are astounding and so, so important like.
It makes me emotional when you think about it. I’m like, every woman needs to be strength training, you know, just a couple times a week, um, to build that muscle. And it also can really help with insulin sensitivity. So, you know, that also we, a lot of women struggle with that, right? Insulin sensitivity, which can then, if we have insulin resistance, we can gain weight and we’ll feel more sluggish and have more brain fog and all of that.
Um, and then we’ll see hormonal issues with that. I mean, insulin is a hormone, but we’ll see even more issues with that. So the, when we start to build this strain. Strength and build muscle. This muscle almost acts as. Like a sponge for our blood sugar. So you can tolerate more carbohydrates, you can tolerate, you know, you shouldn’t feel like when you go eat out on a Saturday night and you’re like celebrating with your friends that then you eat a meal that maybe isn’t like, you know, ideal for your lifestyle, but then you put on weight from that immediately.
Like you shouldn’t feel that way. Right. We should have more metabolic flexibility than that. Mm-hmm. You should be able to have like a donut on a Saturday morning every once in a while and not stress it. Yeah. Right. So, but when you, when you feel like, like if women say. Oh my gosh. I look at a donut and I gain five pounds.
Right? That’s like metabolic. We have like metabolic um, dysfunction there, right? That shouldn’t really be the case. So a great thing can be building that muscle through strength training to help with that insulin sensitivity, and then your body can really just like tolerate this stuff better. So it’s pretty amazing for like full, full body benefit.
So ideally, I mean like when we’re. Working with clients, I’m like, ideally we would have everyone walking for a little bit, right? Not too too long. Doesn’t have to be like crazy fast or anything like that. 20, 30 minutes a day. And then doing strength training, like if you’re brand new, start with two times a week.
If you’re in the middle, start with three times a week, you know? And it’s got ebb and flow with how your life is going in that moment in time too. But that would be like ideal. I love it. So any other steps that we missed with how to heal the gut? Those are, I would say like those are great places for people to start.
Um, and then for anyone who is. Wanting to take it the next layer. Like you’re like, wait, I’ve done, I’m already doing all of this stuff. Like I eat really healthy and I have all these practices and I’m still dealing with the bloating. That’s where the functional testing is, just like, it’s a total game changer.
Um, so we run functional stool testing with our clients and that really shows us like what is going on in your gut microbiome, so we’re not just trialing like. A probiotic or an enzyme, or let’s try collagen or whatever. Like we can really target in to, in, for like what your unique microbiome needs right now.
And we can see people get better, like so much faster with that. So that would be the last thing, not a, not the starting spot for people, but the more advanced people. Yeah.
Ruth Soukup: That so. The gut or the stool testing is so fascinating to me, but it also scares the crap outta me. Like literally, or maybe not literally because I haven’t done it, but how, like, how does that work exactly?
Is that a weird question? Like I I’ve do you do, do you go somewhere and give people your poop? Like this does, this sounds so such a, this is such a silly question probably, but it does freak me out. So how do you, how do you test this?
Hannah Alyward: No worries. It doesn’t need to scare you, but yes, it is a stool sample, right?
So we use, um, essentially we send testing kits to our client’s home. So you just perform it at home and it’s very, it’s very like, simple. I say it’s simple, but it’s not the most glamorous. So yes, you’re essentially like, you know, pooping in like a tray and then you’re like scooping it and putting it into this vial and sending that in.
So. It’ll only take about three minutes. But yes, I, for me, like this is my job, so we, I never actually received the sample. The lab gets the sample, right? People are like, am I sending it to you? And I’m like, no, no, no. You’re not sending it to me, not touching your poop. I’m just getting the lab result. Right.
Um, but to me it’s like second nature. I’ve, but I, like, I love this test. I have. All my friends have done this test. My family members, it’s, I think it’s so important for like preventative care and everything ever. So I’m like, everyone I know and love, I’m like, you need to get this test. Um, so, but I, I had my sister do it once and the first time she did it, she like came out and she was just like, Hannah.
That was a lot. And she was like, you need to be warning people about this, because that was like very personal.
Ruth Soukup: It I know. I, that is, is is such a dumb hangup because I really have been so curious about it, but I’m also like, I don’t, okay, I’m gonna get over the fear though ’cause I get, I am so curious. I think it would be so interesting and fascinating to find out exactly what’s going on.
Like I think my gut is pretty healthy at this point, but it’d be nice. It’d be nice to know for sure. So. Yeah. And it, and you can, and so you can do that. So tell us a little bit about how we, how we contact you and how we get to go test our poop.
Hannah Alyward: Yes. Um, I know, oh my gosh. I get texts from friends being like, I wanna send you my poop.
I’m like, okay, no, so you’re nothing is me. Um, but, but yes, so we work with clients. I’ve got a group program that’s called Healing Guts and Shaking Butts. We try to keep it fun and, um, we also have one-on-one programs and in each and in. Both programs, we always run functional stool testing because that’s going to inform like your entire plan.
So it’s not like a generic, everyone’s gonna do this. We personalize a lot of stuff for you. Um, so, and then in those, you know, different programs, I don’t need to get into like specifics, but essentially you p you pair with a practitioner and they’re gonna look at your lab results and build out protocols from there that include things like nutrition, targeted supplementation, lifestyle adjustments, things like the deep breaths and that kind of stuff, and the circadian rhythm work.
So we pull all of this in. So even though we’re focusing on gut health, we’re really like optimizing full system health, um, because that’s how the body works. Every system influences one another, even though, you know, western medicine likes to put them all in different buckets. So, so yeah, we, you know, we help hundreds of clients in these programs every year.
So if you wanted to get testing and work with a professional through this. Like we, we’d love to help you. Um, my website is just hannahaylward.com/. And then my Instagram, you can find me at hannahaylwardhhc. Um, and then we’ve got a free, like root cause quiz too. That can be a nice place to start for anyone that’s like interested in taking the next step.
I, it, I base it off our like, digestive health assessment. So there’s questions in there that will give you, you know, some good information about what could be going on with, with your body. Of course, testing is like. The more official step, we always want the data to verify, but the quiz is a nice starting point, and then you’ll get like educational videos from me and next steps to take and all of that with, with your answer based on what you get.
So that can be another like, um, good place to start for people.
Ruth Soukup: Oh, perfect. Well, we will make sure to link to all of that in the show notes. So if you wanna get your poop tested or you just wanna take the quiz, either way, if you’re scared like me, take the quiz first, and then maybe you’ll want your poop tested.
Um, but Hannah, I feel like we could talk about all of this for much longer, but we are out of time. So thank you so much for being here today. Any final, final thoughts?
Hannah Alyward: Oh my gosh. Final thoughts would just be like, remember that you deserve to feel really good in your body. And I think people kind of throw that around and you’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But I think that women specifically as well just normalize feeling like, eh, okay. We’re just used to kind of pushing through and feeling okay, and just know that you, you can feel better than that and you, and you should, and you’re, you’re worth taking that time and investing in yourself, whether it’s like financially, but also just like your time and energy and all of that.
And don’t normalize, just like pushing through the day. Um, you can feel a lot better. So I hope that lands for someone. So true.
Ruth Soukup: I hope so too. All right, Hannah, thank you so much. Thank you. Alright guys, that about does it for this episode. Remember that you will find the link to Hannah’s website as well as all of the other resources that we talked about in the show notes.
So be sure to check that out. And if you know anyone else who might be interested in this episode, anyone who is dealing with gut issues or bloating or digestive issues or constipation. Please be sure to send it their way. Then be sure to subscribe to the podcast to be notified of future episodes, and I will see you back here for another new episode very soon.
The post How to Heal Your Gut Without Needing to Give Up on All The Foods You Love with Hannah Aylward appeared first on Thinlicious.
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