[00:00:00] Vesna: Well, welcome to the Peak Revival Podcast. My name is Vesta. Today I'm gonna talk about why it's
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[00:00:04] Vesna: not just bloating. There's something else going on there, and a lot of women think that it's just basic bloating, but I'm gonna talk about what it is.
[00:00:12] So one of the most common symptoms that I hear when women come to see me or in my programs is they feel bloated, distended. Their belly pops out like they're six months pregnant. by the end of the day, their waistband around their pants or the skirt is so tight, it's digging into them from morning to night.
[00:00:28] They look completely different in their waist, There's a lot of reasons for this, and I have talked about fixing gut health on other podcasts, but today I am gonna go deeper into what is at the heart of some of, or a lot of bloating and intolerance to food and particularly, um, fructose and FODMAPs and what kind of testing you can do.
[00:00:48] So right now I am on the most boring diet. For me, that is no bananas, no fruits that I love, no garlic to cook with. no smoothies, no herbal [00:01:00] teas, no spices in food to cook with. It's just so bland, but it's a necessary part of. This test that I'm doing. So it's, it's got a purpose. It's only short term.
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[00:01:11] Vesna: but what I'm doing is a SIBO test and honestly, it's one of the most important tests for women, and it's one of the things that women miss or is missed most often.
[00:01:19] So SIBO is small intestinal bowel overgrowth. So it's an overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestine and it creates symptoms like bloating, distension, it can be nausea, it can be IB slike symptoms. constipation, a lot of gas, diarrhea, it can lead to a lot of side effects, not just those obvious ones that I just mentioned.
[00:01:39] So women feel like it's just bloating or it's belly fat, right? Women will say, look, I think I've just gotten fat around the belly, but actually it can be neither. It can be inflammation and bacterial overgrowth that has not been properly checked. And even if you go to a GP and get a blood test, you're not gonna know whether you have this or not,
[00:01:57] There is this very specific breath test, and [00:02:00] even with that, most people get that wrong as well.
[00:02:02] So the test that I'm on now is a SIBO test. I'm doing a low FODMAP diet, which is very boring, but it's only for the test. And then as soon as the test is done, I can go back to eating my normal foods. Now, one of the things that I see is a lot of women come into my community and they're like, oh, does this program work for low FODMAP on a low FODMAP diet?
[00:02:21] And they stay on a low FODMAP for way too long, only meant to be short term, and it's really only meant to be while you're getting treatment because a lot of the reasons. for this FODMAP diet is because the underlining problem is sibo. until you dress the sibo, if you're just cutting out those foods, you're not addressing the bacterial overgrowth, right?
[00:02:39] You're just stopping feeding some of those sugars for the overgrowth, but it's still there. And so therefore, women go back to eating normal foods and then they feel really uncomfortable, so they go back to low fodmap. But the problem with low FODMAP is that long term, it actually, is harmful to the microbiome 'cause it doesn't allow for diversity, so it damages the [00:03:00] microbiome.
[00:03:00] Okay? So it's very, very. Much a short term thing while you are undergoing treatment. So FODMAP diet in itself is not a treatment, right? It's just to relieve symptoms, just like taking a patadol for a headache, So you need to check placebo, and if it's left untreated, it'll lead to fatigue, brain fog, hormonal issues, deficiencies in your vitamins and minerals, fat soluble vitamins.
[00:03:23] It can reduce fat absorption, calcium absorption, lead to osteoporosis, a lot of your minerals and vitamins.
[00:03:30] and b twelves, like it's very important, factor in absorption of nutrients. So if it's there. You could be eating well, taking your supplements, but actually you're not absorbing them. The other thing that it can lead to is leaky gut.
[00:03:43] I've talked about that in other podcasts, thyroid issues because of all that inflammation and just whole body inflammation. Right? So whether it be in your joints and your muscles, wherever. Okay. Because it increases that inflammatory response, it can really create any symptom in the body. So [00:04:00] when you order a test kit, you can order them online, and a lot of them are just one.
[00:04:05] Breath test where it should really be three breath tests to really diagnose a sibo. Now I'm gonna say straight up that this is something that you really need to see a practitioner about because you're not gonna be able to diagnose it yourself. You can get the reports, but you have to do multiple tests to be certain, because if you just do the lactulose test, it may not show up sibo, but the other two, it will definitely confirm if it is.
[00:04:30] And so this is why it's important to do. The plethora of tests and trust me, I would recommend that this is something you not rush like I am currently doing because I'm going to the US and so I've gotta get it done. And I didn't realize I ordered extra tests, one for lactose. 'cause I do believe I'm lactose intolerant.
[00:04:49] you can't do them every day. You've gotta build up to it. Then you can only do one every second day, and it's, and then when you do the test takes three hours. So it's very, very time consuming and, [00:05:00] uh, I'm regretting leaving it to last minute and rushing through it now, but it's a really detailed test.
[00:05:04] Now I can tell you. That women have come through our programs and when we've spoken, we're like, you definitely sound like you have sibo. They've got chronic years of gut problems that they've seen. Every specialist for nothing. Helps. They go get a test, they got sibo, And then they know now what the pathway is to recovery, right?
[00:05:24] So as soon as that is resolved, you are gonna absorb your nutrients. You are not gonna have that bloating and that gas and that constipation or that diarrhea, you're not gonna react to those foods anymore. So you can expand your diet, start to refe your microbiome and really change your gut health in the long term.
[00:05:41] And I guess the key thing is really start to absorb those nutrients. Get rid of the fatigue, get rid of the brain fog, help with the hormones, help with thyroid function, restore the rest of the digestive system, reduce inflammation. There's just such a huge impact to it. like I said, we see a lot of it, and a lot of it's just [00:06:00] undetected. I do believe that it's because information isn't so available out there, it's not so much talked about because it's so specialized and you do need a practitioner to review your results. But in saying that, I wanted to do a podcast because I know that women have a lot of chronic gut issues, and I also wanted to alert you to the fact of you want to get this checked because even though as I'm describing this whole process, I'm not enjoying it, I'll be honest, but it's a very necessary test because if left untreated or left undetected.
[00:06:29] You know, I could have it myself because this year I've been in surgery and on medication and on antibiotics, right? If it's left unchecked, it can go on for years. Creating deficiencies and inflammation for me and creating problems that I could have. Prevented if I just got it checked, So a bit of pain in the beginning, bit of inconvenience, but necessary in the long term.
[00:06:51] And so if you have chronic gut problems maybe you've done a stool test and that microbiome test, but this is you know, more important than that, [00:07:00] this is where I would start. If you've got a lot of that bloating and a lot of foods that you can't eat and that you can't tolerate, and just chronic gut conditions such as the bloating, the gas, the changes, kind of the IBS type symptoms.
[00:07:11] Right? Really important to do a SIBO test. You can order it online, but I do recommend a see practitioner. You can reach out to us. We do offer it in our programs in a sense that we'll review it for you, but it's not something that we just exclusively have just to do that test. Maybe we will, we'll see, because it's definitely gonna be more demand,
[00:07:27] This episode is really just to say if this is you, look at getting your gut checked for sibo. Do the test so you can address what is at the heart of the problem and not restrict your diet and not avoid foods that are very much essential for the microbiome. I hope this was helpful.
