This podcast episode features an insightful discussion about the impact of mindset on managing irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), as Atavia explores her personal journey with this chronic condition.

For full show notes and detailed information on this episode visit the website.

Atavia emphasizes that understanding and addressing the mental aspects of IBS can significantly enhance one's quality of life, particularly since stress is a major trigger for symptoms. The conversation delves into the connection between gut health and overall well-being, highlighting the importance of acknowledging how gut issues can affect mood, energy levels, and even hormone balance. Listeners will learn about Atavia's approach to fostering a curiosity mindset, which encourages individuals to examine their symptoms without judgment, allowing for better understanding and management of their condition. The episode also touches on the limitations of traditional medical practices in addressing subclinical issues, advocating for a more holistic approach to health that includes nutritional therapy and functional medicine.

You can connect with Atavia on social media and through her podcast

@atavia.minoudis Podcast :Gut Reactions IBS Podcast

Hey, everybody.

Welcome back to the podcast.

I have with me today a Tavia, and we're going to talk about her journey with ibs, irritable bowel syndrome, and a really interesting aspect about your mindset and how that will either make or break your journey with this chronic condition.

So welcome to the podcast.

I'm so glad you've joined me today.

Thank you.

I'm so excited to be here and talk about.

Yeah.

IBS and mindset and how you can live with IBS and not lose your mind, essentially.

Well, I don't know a lot about it, but I was telling you earlier about my son who had Crohn's and the surgery he had to have.

So I sort of understand just how debilitating and painful it can be and how we.

You really have to look at your diet and your stress and various things around that.

And so I guess if you're used to, like, eating whatever you want, drinking whatever you want, it would be difficult to be all of a sudden like, oh, my gosh, I have to give up.

What, Pizza or whatever.

There's always the good stuff.

Yeah, all the good stuff.

So, yeah.

So if you don't mind, just start with your journey, and let's go into what IBS is, and then we'll work into the mindset to help people understand how they can go on this journey without losing their minds.

Yeah, without losing your mind, because you don't want to do that.

So my.

My journey, I think, like most people in the health space, I got into this area by having my own health issues.

So I have always been a sensitive, sensitive, little delicate flower.

My mom would call me.

So when I was a baby, very fussy eater, got lots of tummy bugs.

All through my school years, I remember always having, you know, like, sicky bugs and stuff.

Yeah.

And then it got really bad in my early 20s when I had quite significant stress, a bit of trauma, and then basically developed a lactose intolerance.

I'd always been quite underweight because I could never really absorb any foods, and I foolishly tried to put on weight by drinking 3,000 calorie protein shake, except cow's milk three times a day.

Go harder.

Go home.

Right.

That's a lot of calories and a lot of milk, and it didn't do the job, but it did give me a lactose intolerance and basically just really irritated my gut.

And that was kind of the.

The moment for me where it was, like, the point of no return.

I've kind of done so much damage to my gut that I just had full blown ibs.

And something that people don't really talk about with IBS is how much impacts the rest of your body.

Has a huge impact on your mood, on your fatigue and your energy levels, even your hormones.

Because everything centers around the gut, right?

Like you synthesize serotonin in your gut.

You, you know, your gut microbiome can feed your metabolism, it can feed your energy levels, it can, you know, help you to process hormones.

So it's not just the gut issues, even though they're bad enough in themselves, but just your whole experience of living life can be exhausting and all the different areas that it impacts and then, you know, also having to run to the loo every five minutes or something like that.

You know, it's just quite a, quite a, like, laborious and frustrating condition to live with.

So eventually, after going back and forth to my doctors, like, I'm sure a lot of people can resonate with their health just getting the same thing of, oh, your labs came back normal, there's nothing wrong with you.

Oh, I've heard that once.

I've heard it a million times.

Yeah, me too.

Every client I've seen, clinic says the same.

I'm like, yep, honestly, we've all been there and continue to be there.

And I think I, I'm quite stubborn.

I thought, no, this isn't, I'm not living like this.

I'm going to teach myself.

So went and studied nutritional therapy, started learning about the gut and, you know, how the body works, and just became obsessed with it and thought, wow, I managed to pretty much reduce my symptoms to the point where I can live symptom free.

Why is everybody living with IBS and thinking that it's normal?

And as we were saying before, there's been a huge rise, it seems, in people with gut health issues.

And I'm just a massive advocate of, no, you don't have to live like that.

You should be able to live in good health and not have to worry about what your gut's up to every five minutes.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, while you were talking about the gut and mind connection and all that, you know, with the body, because I took a course with Dr.

Sean Talbot about the gut, the brain and gut connection.

Know, it's fascinating, but there are people out there that be like, oh, that's just hooey.

That doesn't really, that's not really a thing.

And I'm like, how can that not be a thing?

You know, so they, they just dismiss.

And some prominent People just dismiss this, you know, this, this gut and, and just how much your microbiome affects your entire life.

So that's just a little side note there.

So don't be sending me emails.

No, no, I think as well, like there's so much that there's evidence of this now because it used to be more of a theory, you know, more of a theory.

But actually you look at the studies, you can literally see how the different strains of bacteria are linked to, you know, synthesizing your serotonin, for example, or, you know, impacting your brain functioning or whatever.

But you can also see the vagus nerve.

Like when you're a fetus and you're, you're growing in the womb, you're just a bunch of nerve endings and a bunch of different cells.

As you start to elongate and become a baby, those nerves are still connected, they just elongate.

So some of them are in your brain and some of them in your gut, some of them in your, in your heart.

And something I found really interesting recently was doing a bit of research and there's some research that suggests basically your gut reacts quicker to stress than your brain does.

So you actually have, you know, your heart reacts quicker to stimuli than your brain does.

So actually we like to think that everything is in the brain and our brain and minds are a different entity.

But how can something that's inside your body be separate from the rest of your body?

That makes no sense.

It's all feeding into each other.

So, you know, if anyone wants to look it up, there's, you know, it's definitely an area of research that's getting more, you know, developed essentially.

And I think that's a really great thing because it's just, it's just showing us that more and more this is, this is actually the reality of the situation.

It's not just woo, woo, so just lots of questions.

So I'm going to try to write them down as I go.

Because one of the things you said which I thought was interesting about how if it's in your body, can it be disconnected?

Because I know with some of the not really serious health issues I've had, but like my Epson Barr virus has been reactivated a few times over the years and how I had, I went to a functional medicine doctor because they don't, they, you know, like one looks at your heart, one looks at your liver and one looks at your stomach.

But we're all connected like you said.

So if you're just looking at these things in isolation, how can we really figure out what's wrong with somebody?

So did you see a traditional medicine medical practitioner, or did you go through functional integrative medicine, or how did you finally get to a diagnosis?

Well, I.

I mean, I was diagnosed by my.

By my gp, because that just tends to be something they, you know, palm off of.

Oh, yeah, we don't know what it is.

So it's just ibs.

Right?

IBS isn't really a specific condition.

It's not like if you have X, Y and Z, then you have ibs.

It's A.

IBS is an umbrella term that comes.

Let's.

What is ibs exactly?

So let's just.

Let's tell people.

Let's encapsulate it.

So IBS is a name for a condition which encapsulates.

It's like an umbrella term.

So it covers loads of different symptoms, and those symptoms can be really wide ranging and they can apply differently to different people.

So within the diagnosis of ibs, you have different subtypes.

So you could be IBS D, which is diarrhoea, predominantly IBS C, which is constipation predominant, different types of ibs.

But basically what you need to know is that there are so many different symptoms of IBS and different causes for different people, but it doesn't fall into the clinical setting, so it doesn't fall into any disease state.

So, for example, with your son being diagnosed with Crohn's, that's an autoimmune disease that the medical field have recognized.

They need to work with.

They know how to, you know, approach it.

With ibs, it's like there's nothing specific going on here.

It's what we call subclinical, so it hasn't reached disease threshold yet, but there's something going on.

Okay.

Okay, so.

Okay, I get that now.

So how do they.

Okay, so it's just like you have all these symptoms, so you just.

You just have ibs.

That's just going to be like.

Like what it is?

Yeah, pretty much.

Oh.

We've ruled everything else out, and there's nothing.

You don't have a specific infection of H.

Pylori, which they know can be a precursor to cancer.

So, you know, they.

They.

They address that in the medical field.

You don't have Crohn's, you don't have ulcerative colonitis, you have no diagnosis.

So we'll just put it in the IBS pile.

And you don't have any autoimmune conditions going on.

Okay.

Okay, so that makes sense.

I Did not know that.

That.

That's something new I learned today.

Okay.

So.

So do.

Do certain food stress.

I mean, if it's.

I guess I'm.

I'm not a medical person, so I'm gonna try to understand this.

If it's just symptoms and they.

It's not really what they would call a disease like Crohn's or a condition like Crohn's or cancer or something, what.

What sets it off or.

Or what causes you to have the symptoms?

Because from what I understand, you know, like, you could, like, you're in the bathroom all the time, or like you say over there in England, which I think is much fancier.

The loo.

You're in the loo all the time, or you're sick to your stomach or you're constipated.

So what.

What sets that off?

What triggers those symptoms?

And that's a great question.

I don't know if I'm asking the right question or absolutely.

No, you are.

And I think it's a really a question that a lot of people have for ibs.

If you have IBS and you're listening to this, I'm sure you would have asked yourself this question.

It is not so straightforward that, as I say, every person's cause or trigger point can be different.

But generally, when I look work with people in clinic, we'll look at four areas.

So the four areas that we need to address are the gut microbiome.

So the organisms that live inside your gut, the different bacteria, viruses, all that stuff that we need in very specific levels, they all do very different jobs.

So one of them will be regulating your metabolism.

They all do very different jobs.

But if they overgrow and they become pathogenic, they can over overtake the gut and they can cause problems like bloating.

If you have an undergrowth of a certain bacteria, maybe this bacteria digests and breaks down carbohydrates, but you don't have enough of it.

And then you start eating lots of carbs, or you eat, I don't know, fodmap foods like garlic, but you don't have enough of the bacteria to break it down.

Then you get loads of bloating and cramps, and maybe you get constipation.

You think, what's going on?

So microbiome, gut microbiome is the first thing to look at.

Then we move on to food sensitivities.

Cause loads of people develop food sensitivities in adulthood, and they think, well, I'm not eating anything different.

I'm Eating what I usually eat.

Not knowing and not realizing that you actually probably will develop food sensitivity in your life at some point.

Oh yeah, boy, it messes with, not necessarily my stomach, but boy, with my sinuses.

It is, it just wrecks havoc.

Oh.

So I, I understand that as we get older we tend to, you know, have more of those sensitivities, which is.

Definitely not fun, without a doubt.

And it's always, always seems to be things that people love like cheese and gluten, like bread based products.

And they'll be like, damn, why couldn't it have been cucumber?

Like, it has to be something that I love.

I think that's just our body telling us, do we really need to eat cheese?

Is cheese.

I don't think we're supposed to because I don't have a sensitivity to like lettuce, you know.

Absolutely.

And we probably don't, we don't binge kale and lettuce like we do with cheese.

Let's be honest.

Probably like we have too much.

True story.

True story.

Yeah.

So that is another one is definitely sensitivities and like people understanding that, yeah, you do develop it.

And probably the foods that you love.

If you are obsessed with a food and you think, I just love eating that food, I just have a huge craving for it.

That can actually be an indicator that you have a sensitivity or an intolerance to it, literally.

Because when you eat an intolerance food, it creates a inflammatory response because your body sees it as like a threat.

So it increases inflammation.

And then to counteract that, your body then releases endorphins to try and calm that inflammation down.

So you think, oh, I feel amazing when I eat this food, I just want to eat it.

That can actually be an indicator, unfortunately, that you may have a sensitivity.

Oh, wow, that is very, very interesting.

So you work with individuals to help them create a mindset around dealing with this, this journey on ibs.

What, what does that entail?

What does that look like?

I would think that dealing with IBS even, I mean, even if you're dealing with it before diagnosis, when you get a diagnosis, it's kind of like, oh, well, that's a relief.

At least I know where I could start with something.

But how, how does this, how does this affect people's mindsets?

You know, just their day to day life, their well being.

And how, how do you work with people on this journey so they can have some relief with this, with this condition?

Yeah, great question.

I mean, we look at the causative factors and try and figure out what's going on first of all, so we can find some relief.

But a big part of that is managing your mindset.

Because when you live with any chronic condition, really, but something like gut health, that, like I say, does have an impact on the rest of your body, it can be really frustrating and it can feel relentless and feel hopeless.

And when people get a diagnosis of ibs, sometimes you'll feel relief, but sometimes it kind of makes it worse because then you're just told by the physician, yep, this is just something you live with.

So then I have people coming to me saying, this can't be my life.

Like, I can't live like this forever.

This can't be real.

And no, you don't have to live like that forever.

Absolutely.

So your mindset when you're dealing with any chronic condition, but definitely something like ibs, which can be triggered by stress really easily, is essential because if you approach it with a mindset of fear or frustration or overwhelm, you're just going to feel, you know, completely overwhelmed and hopeless.

Right.

And that's just going to impact your day to day quality of life.

Every time you have a symptom flare up or a bit of bloating, it's going to feel, you know, 10 times the impact that it is because you're thinking, oh my God, I'm always going to feel this way forever.

So what I do when I work with clients in clinic is look at, okay, your body's not trying to do that.

It's not trying to screw you up, it's not trying to ruin your life.

Right.

It's just trying to tell you something, that something's not right.

So let's start working with your gut to figure out, okay.

What you're trying to tell me here.

I'm listening now.

Okay.

It's not you versus your gut, it's you working with your gut.

So we adopt a couple of different approaches to do this.

And the first one is curiosity mindset.

So moving away from judgment and frustration and overwhelm and, you know, wishing that it wasn't a certain way to, okay, what is my gut trying to tell me right now?

Or if you have a flare up of bloating, okay.

Instead of just getting super frustrated and annoyed thinking, okay, what's, what's different in the last hour, two hours than the past few days?

If you can't think of anything, okay, maybe let's rewind a little bit further.

What's been different the past 24 hours?

And I do this Myself sometimes where I think, well, how is my bloating just triggered?

And like, you know, I'm an IBS specialist.

I shouldn't be feeling like this.

And then I'll just sit, approach it with curiosity, and think, oh, yeah, I've been really stressed.

Or I did a load of traveling.

I didn't eat very well.

Of course this is going to be, you know, a trigger for me.

So that just helps you to identify the triggers, and then that just calms your stress response down, which in turn calms your IBS symptoms down, because stress is a huge trigger for ibs, and it just makes you more.

You can be.

You can live with that condition, understanding it and understanding why it's happening, that just takes so much weight off your shoulders, because it's not you trying to find your way out of a maze, so to speak.

You kind of understand it, and then you can see that there's a path forward and that you can influence your gut.

Well, I think, too, you know, I was listening to you.

I think, too, that if you can go back and just either keep a mental log or a written log about, okay, this, you know, I was traveling a lot this week, and then 24 hours later, I've got these symptoms.

And then I would think that you could, hopefully, next time that comes up, you could negate some of that by thinking, okay, last time I traveled, you know, you know, like, last time I ate cheese, you know, that I had, you know, wondering why my sinuses are going crazy.

So I think that's.

That's super, super helpful.

And then, you know it's going to end as well.

Right.

If you make the decision, because I work with people all the time who think, yep, I know this is going to trigger me, but screw it, I'm on holiday, I'm eating the cheese or whatever, then you can make an informed decision of, okay, I know what's going to happen, and I know eventually it will go, so I don't need to worry and get.

You're like, yep, that's me.

But you know that.

Okay, I know my sinuses will be blocked for a couple of days, and that's a choice I made.

And.

Cool, I'll live with that.

And then it will be fine in a few days rather than is this coming up and it will never go away.

And, you know, it feels less scary because you understand the mechanism behind it and why it's happening.

Good point.

Excellent point, actually.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think it's so important for people to have that autonomy over their bodies and not feel like things are happening to them, but understanding why things are happening and that you do have an influence with it.

Because then, like I said, it just puts you back in the driver's seat.

And to that point, something I always talk to people about is radical acceptance as well, in terms of not wishing that it.

Wishing it wasn't as it is, or, you know, desperate to not have any IBS anymore or whatever health condition it is, but radically accepting the reality of your situation.

Right now I am in this state, you know, whether that's my IBS is, you know, the worst it's ever been.

And that doesn't mean accepting that's the way it's always going to be.

But as soon as you accept that's your reality, you can then look at, Right, what do I need to do?

What's the next three steps?

For someone whose IBS is completely out of control and they nothing's working for them, no hacks are working for them.

You can think, okay, this is a reality of my situation.

I probably need to work with a specialist.

If it's a case of all my bloating always happens when I go out drinking and then I go to bed late, then that puts it up to you.

Right.

You can radically accept that.

I know when I go out drinking and go to bed late, I bloat the next day and it's uncomfortable.

That makes it up to you to decide whether you want to accept that or not.

Right.

Do you want to go out drinking and going to bed late, or do you want to prioritize your gut?

Yeah, it just means that you can accept the reality of your situation rather than fighting against it, which, again, just is a nicer place to live mentally.

Yeah.

Well, it's also, you know, taking responsibility for yourself and your health, like you said.

Yeah.

I mean, it is your choice.

And so you just have to sit back and say, well, like you said earlier, this is a choice I've made and I'm going to live with it and understand that I've made this and then not, you know, two days later be crying in my suit because what have I done to my.

Well, yeah, it's, you know, you.

You accept responsibility for the actions that.

That you take.

Absolutely.

Yeah, absolutely.

And especially as we get older and we do realize, you know, I remember stuff I did in my teens and twenties, and I didn't have to have a second thought about my health.

And now I go to bed past 11, I'm like, Whoa, I'm tired the next day.

You know, it's just being aware that our bodies change and that we need to respect our bodies.

Because I think something that I definitely experienced in my teens and twenties was taking it for granted and feeling a little bit entitled, like I should just be well.

But actually, that's not how your body works, especially as you age.

Like, it will tell you when you are doing things that it doesn't appreciate.

And actually that's a really good thing because if we just did whatever we wanted all the time, we would suddenly develop disease.

Right.

So listening to those symptoms is a warning sign.

Thanks, buddy.

Okay, I hear you.

And let me just adjust it and take care of you, because this is the only body I've got.

I've talked to a few podcast guests and we talk about that when we get into our 50s and 60s in particular, because when I was in high school, I tried to gain weight.

So just like super, super, like anorexic, thin.

I wasn't anorexic, but I was so thin.

So I would like eat Mountain Dews and eat Musketeer bars and drink Mountain Dews.

I had Coke and nacho cheese Doritos for breakfast, you know, and then when I, you know, hit 45, I was like, what the hell have I done?

You know, so let to be a lesson to you kiddos.

And I tell my granddaughter that all the time.

That's going to catch up with you when you're 45.

But she's 17, so, you know, but it's so true, you know, if I could go back and know what I know now, I don't know that I would have.

I probably would have found a healthier way to gain weight because I think that has caused some real issues for me.

I don't have a lot of health issues.

I've got diverticulitis and EBV that keeps reactivating, but which I attribute it to my lifestyle before, well, back when I was a youngster.

So, so true.

And definitely, I don't know that they really focused on a lot of that back in the 60s and 70s when I was growing up.

But then again, we did not have.

Well, you know, we did not have the processed food we have now, you know.

Yeah, we had candy bar.

Like, you know, you had a choice of, you know, Coke and Dr.

Pepper and Mountain Dew or, you know, three candy bars and, you know, four different types of chips.

And it was just not something we did all the time.

We didn't eat out, we didn't eat fast food, you know, but today it's just such it's so prevalent.

I mean, it's just like that's, that's, you know, probably for the majority of us, 85% of our diet every day.

Yeah.

You know, even as 100% and it's almost like the default now of, you know, that's the norm to eat fast food and to eat those, you know, ready made meals and things like that.

But it's also looking at it as stacking factors.

So something I say to clients that I see in clinic and to people all the time about their health is your current state of, your health is a reflection of everything that's happened to you up until this point.

Everything you've experienced, everything you've eaten, even before you were born, to be honest, because you know, your genetics and stuff.

So even before you were conceived.

So everything that you do leads to place, you are now.

But that means that you can make informed decisions moving forward from now because everything you do from now will feed into like how your health is in the next year, the next five years, next 10 years.

But we just forget that and we again just think, why is this thing suddenly happening?

But then you look back at your health history, you know, like you did, and it sounds like we had quite similar experiences of desperate to gain weight, not really sure how to do that, and then making, you know, poor decisions unknowingly and then getting, you know, bad results from that.

Well, I also had a lot of trauma in my life in my young life too, so.

Which I know that you alluded to when you first started talking, so that it combined with, you know, this crappy diet I had till I was about 45 or so, really.

But you know, back to the mindset of it, you talk about a curiosity mindset, which I love, that's just figuring out, you know, how to negate some of these things the next time they come up.

And if I'm traveling, how can I, knowing, knowing that I was bloated really badly when I traveled last time, what can I do to negate some of this stuff?

And then the radical acceptance, if you choose to do this, this is going to happen.

So you're just going to have to, to deal with that.

So what are some of the other aspects of mindset?

Well, I think it's just taking the judgment away, isn't it, from it.

So in terms of a curiosity mindset, it's just removing the emotive, like the emotion, the emotional driver of it.

So it's not so emotionally fueled.

So you're not in that state of stress.

And you're not in that state of frustration.

You're thinking, okay, you're looking at it from a neutral mindset, which does two things.

First of all, it makes you be able to see more clearly, more objectively and more rationally because your, your logical part of the, of your brain can function when the emotional part is, is quieter rather than if you're in a state of stress, you're less able to see clearly.

Right.

But also what it does is it changes your physiology.

So it takes you out of, you know, the classic fight or flight response.

It takes you away from that into the resting state.

And we know with ibs, and to be honest with probably, I would say most or if not all health conditions just exacerbated by stress.

But because, I mean, stress can change your gut microbiome in a matter of hours even because the cortisol can really decimate your, your gut microbiome.

So it can go and kill off a load of beneficial bacteria.

It causes an inflammatory response.

So any kind of health condition can be negatively impacted by stress.

So it's not just a mindset in terms of how you think of it.

It has an actual impact on your body and your physiological response, which just, you know, reduces your, your chances of your symptoms getting worse, essentially.

So you may not know the answer to this, but you were talking about cortisol levels and stuff, and then how you went to the doctor and all your labs came back fine.

And I've had that experience too.

Why do you suppose that with all the autoimmune things that are coming up, diabetes, chronic conditions, blood pressure, gut issues, why a lot of traditional practitioners are still just going, like, with that one set of tests, let's test your cholesterol, let's test your iron.

Let's test your, you know, like, Steve has transfers myelitis, he's having some problems with joints, and he went to his neurologist to get to figure out, you know, like, is this another autoimmune response coming on?

Are you having another autoimmune system?

But it's like you have to go, you, you really have to advocate for yourself, which it sounds like you did a lot of, a lot of advocating for yourself.

But I'm wonder wondering why we, we have to go so above and beyond, and God bless the medical profession, you know, what would we do without them?

But I think a lot of times in my experience, I felt like I was being gaslighted sometimes.

Like, your labs came back fine.

There's nothing wrong with you.

Well, then why do I feel like all the time, why am I.

Yeah, we'll just exercise more.

Well, I'm too tired.

I mean, you know, it was just like this constant battle until I finally found a functional medicine doctor that was like, well, I know what's wrong with you.

We're going to test your this, this, this and this.

And I'm like, I didn't even know those tests existed.

Yep.

And you pay a fortune because the insurance doesn't cover it.

You know.

Anyway, that's just a rant.

No, I think that's a really good point.

And, and you've kind of answered your own question there in terms of the test, because a lot of people don't know it exists.

But in terms of the gaslighting, I actually did a specific episode on this because it is so common and it's so common, especially in women, because a lot of our issues can be caused by hormones.

And, you know, we do still live in a patriarchy and our hormones aren't really taken into.

They aren't taken with as much serious as they should be.

Yeah, but basically, if you look at the medical profession, we're kind of asking them to do the wrong job when it comes to what we call subclinical issues.

So where something isn't in a disease state, but there is an imbalance or a problem of some kind, which, like you're describing in with ibs, we're asking them to do a job that isn't theirs because they work with disease.

Once there's no disease, that's where their remit ends, basically.

But they don't tell us that.

I don't know if they just don't know that, but they don't tell us.

Okay, well, you know, who would help you with this?

A nutritional therapist or a functional medicine practitioner or some, you know, somebody like that who's a holistic practitioner.

But they don't know these things and they only.

They can only test for disease state.

So in the nhs, obviously, and I'm guessing where you guys live too, you know, in America and wherever, you know, your listeners live around the world, they only have a finite number of resources and of money they can spend on testing.

I guess I shouldn't be spending on them.

No, no, I think it's a really fair point because if we were just told that we would understand it if they were like, listen, this is how no one really gets told.

How does the medical profession work?

We just assume that's who we go to when there's a problem, and then they're like, no, there's nothing wrong.

I feel like the dialect, it should be changed from there's nothing wrong to there's nothing in disease state that I can see here.

Oh, but that doesn't mean there's nothing wrong.

Right.

Oh, I love how.

Yeah, that's.

That's a perfect way to frame that there is something wrong.

Yeah.

To the level of.

If we could get.

If we could get all the doctors to say that, that'd be great.

But I just don't think they are.

But they're also trained in different ways.

So when I look at people's lab results, we, for gut testing, we look at so much more.

We look at loads of different types of bacteria, parasitology, loads of different things.

They don't test for that at the NHS because it's not a prerequisite to disease and so it's not on their radar.

But also the levels are so different.

So when you get tested for iron, I have my iron tested and they said, no, it's all come back normal.

I said, okay, great.

Can I have a printout?

The range that they looked at was between 10 and 300, and mine was 11.

And they said, is that not going to be having a negative impact?

They're like, no, it's in range, but it, like, to us, we're like, well, of course that's going to have an impact.

But to them, they're like, yeah, but it's in range.

So why is it.

That would seem low, though.

That would seem low.

It's very low.

Yeah.

It was dangerous to 300.

That's quite a range.

Yeah.

And I mean, for a lot of people, it may not be that severe.

It might be in like 200 or something.

That's still maybe not optimal.

But the reference ranges they use in medical fields is very different to, you know, what holistic practitioners will use.

So to them, it might come back quote, unquote, normal.

But to be optimal, you don't want to be normal, you need to be optimal.

Right.

For your body to function optimally.

Oh, gosh, that's a great point.

So how do you.

How do you work with individuals?

Do you do online or you a clinic or.

I do all of my clinics online.

I do have one in person, but I hardly ever go there anymore because everyone does things online, post Covid, which is easy for me.

But, yeah, I see people all over the world, I see everybody online and do a clinic virtually, which is good because I think it allows people to get access to that care without having to find someone local.

And travel and everything like that.

Yeah.

Well, that's great.

So is there anything else that you would like to talk to us about the mindset or how individuals can, you know, and I think that.