Chronic Bloating and Gut Issues: What Actually Helps with Karlee Close

0:00Thank you for joining us again. It was in without the guru. I am really excited about the episode today because my gosh, I am going through so much right now of what we recorded in this episode back in August of last year, 2025. My guest is Carly Close and she is a certified gut health coach and she is coming at it from her personal, lived experience. This podcast is for anybody that has ever experienced bloating, discomfort, diarrhea, gas, you name it and I'm holding both my hands up because at the time that I recorded this with Carly, I was feeling very, very bloated and my story is quite long and I think I might actually share it in another mini podcast, but just to make a long story a bit short, since this talk with Carly where I learned so many things

1:03that I just never even knew about before, including things like SIBO, which is small intestinal bacteria overgrowth and hey yo, here I sit today having done the test that she talks about in the episode and having been diagnosed with a mild form of SIBO. I do recommend that if you do have bloating that you also check with your healthcare provider and that you don't follow everything that Carly says without being sure that this is what is meant for you. So in no way is this meant to be medical advice. I just want to be very clear for that, but it is very, very, very informational and it could give you information about things that you had not thought about before. So for example, I just found out and it's quite funny because my osteopath laughed when I asked her about visceral osteopathy, which actually deals with the organs in your body and how they can be linked to the nerves in

2:08your spine and how this disconnect can also be causing issues. So having been diagnosed with SIBO and now I'm going through a protocol and yes, I did learn what the FODMAP diet is and yes, I am doing a version of it and I can agree with Carly that it is not fun and the SIBO tests that you have to do, everything that can go wrong could possibly go wrong with it. You can not put the little test tube in correctly. It could be punctured, you could not blow correctly, you could be inhaling air from the room when you breathe in and then breathe into the little equipment that they send and all of these things can skew the reading of the test, not to mention the fact that prior to the test, you have to eat such a restricted diet. Oh my gosh, after I finished the test, I was just

3:08starving. And of course, then I went and I ate a whole bunch of stuff. They were all considered low FODMAP, but they were stacked. So in other words, I had put maybe 10 low FODMAP things all in the same smoothie and whoa and behold, after that there was some serious problems with the smell that was emitting something. Some embarrassing things, but having said that, this episode is really an eye opener, especially if you just have no clue. It's at least at minimum a starting point. And of course, you can always contact Carly as we talk about in the episode, but there's so many things that are associated with bloating. It's not just one thing in your stomach. If anybody who has been on the health track, you know that your gut and brain are linked and that anything that's happening in the gut can be showing up in other parts of your body. So it's a bit systemic and stress is a major player in that. And I have my own story about stress, but like I said, I think I

4:10will share that and what's happening to me and what happened to me in a special podcast just to give my insights and what's happening to me so you could have something maybe a comparative note. But in any case, it is interesting and Carly is very, very clear in how she explains what happens to her. And I think that there is a point of connection where you can see, oh yes, this happened to me or no, I didn't have that symptom. And you can feel really feel for her. She's telling her story because poor girl, she went through this for so many years, so many years of trying to figure out what it was. And then she did. And so listen to the episode and find out which she did and how she found out how to heal herself and how she's now helping other people to heal themselves as well. So enjoy. Hi everyone and welcome back to another episode of Wisdom Without the Guru on your host Regina. So a couple of questions as usual for you before we start that are related to the

5:12content of the podcast. And this is something that's quite close to my heart because I suffer from this as well. So it's going to be very interesting to talk to this guest. So have you ever felt dismissed by doctors simply because you looked healthy? What do you do with conventional medicine doesn't have the answers and your body is crying out for help? What happens when a cycle of restrictive dieting actually hurts your health more than it helps? And think about this one. Do you think that foundational habits, simple things like sleep and maybe not so simple things, stress management could be more powerful than the latest supplements? What does a successful gut health transformation really look like, especially after years of frustration? My guest today Carly Close once followed all the right wellness trends, gluten free, dairy free, low fog map,

6:13et cetera, et cetera. But instead of getting better, she spiraled into chronic health issues. After years of restrictive diets, expensive supplements, numerous tests and dismissed symptoms, she found healing back in the basics. Now as a certified gut health coach and yes, there is such a thing I'm relieved to know. She helps women reclaim their gut health without the overwhelming. Welcome, Carly. I'm sure that there are a lot of people out there that are just going to want to know a lot of this information because I certainly do. Thank you so much. And I love those questions at the beginning. Those are very powerful questions and I'm excited to dive in deeper with you today. Well, I know that when I read your information, I thought, oh, yes, please let her come on the show because I have this problem. So many do. Oh, it's just really, anyway, let's get into it so we can find out how you got to be where you

7:15are today so you could help people like me. That's good. So let's start out with where you grew up because you're Canadian. I'm always doing, I always interview the Canadians late the afternoon because it's early in the morning their time. When it's the Australians, it's the reverse. It's early for me and late for them. So it's always interesting coordinating. So anyway, Carly, talk a little bit about your childhood and the type of environment that you grew up in. The family structure that you had and the dynamics that we're going on and you know, some of the things that stood out for you when you sort of looked through the eyes of a child, maybe you did or didn't understand what was going on, you know, and taking into account, you know, where were your support structures, you know, who was that safe person you could go to or place that you could go to if you needed it. So I did have a good family life growing up. I did grow up in Canada. So I lived in a very small

8:15town called Water Down. It's not so small now, but back in the day, it was a pretty small place. One high school, you kind of go out and you know everybody. My parents are still happily married to this day. So I grew up in a loving household. I have a younger brother him and I get along well. Still, you know, we still hang out. I'm close now with his fiance. So the small family, we didn't have very much extended family growing up. My grandparents unfortunately passed early on. My parents' siblings weren't, they weren't close. So I didn't have a lot of extended family, but we had a very tight-knit close family. It's funny because my last name is close. So she's close family. And yeah, we'd go on like a family vacation once or twice a year. I had a good upbringing for sure. What stands out in relation to gut health and how I ended up with all my

9:15symptoms, we didn't eat super well. And this is to no fault of my parents, but unfortunately foods that are promoted as healthy are not. And these quick options seem like a good idea. They're easy to get, you know, food into your picky child. Me and my brother growing up were both quite picky, which did not like a lot of vegetables or fruit. It was like carrots and cucumber, was the vegetable we would eat. We would eat one type of apple. So there wasn't a lot of variety that we were willing to eat. So as the years went on and you know, I go into elementary school, high school, and then university, I started leaning towards like the sugary cereals because that's easy. It's quick. It tastes good. Lucky charms. Fruit loops. That was a lot of my breakfast. The quick, easy toaster strutles. And my mom didn't know, of course, that it was damaging my house, you know. She also had a gluten and dairy sensitivity, probably in her like 40s. She was diagnosed.

10:22So she was kind of trying to do her own thing, trying to figure out like what to feed herself, and then trying to feed me and my brother and my dad something different. And it was just like, here's something that you'll eat that seems relatively good. You know, we'd have tacos. Tacos aren't the worst thing for you, or we'd have like pasta with chicken in it, you know, very basic things. But when it was up to myself, to feed myself, breakfast and lunch, it was what's quick, what's easy, what's already done for me, what can I shove in the microwave. So I was very unhealthy growing up. But if we're just talking about childhood, I played sports growing up. So I played baseball my whole life. So I was active in that regard. But I didn't like go to the gym or anything in high school or like work out outside of that. I just played baseball in the summer. I mean, there wasn't a lot of stress in my family, like, you know, every family bickers from time to time. But overall, it was a very loving, supportive household. Like, my parents supported my transition into this job even now to this day, even though I went to school for something completely

11:23different, I always felt supported by both my parents. I felt loved, you know, like it was a very supportive and good environment to grow up in. It was more so the food side of things that probably did a little more damage to my health unknowingly. None of us knew. Now we do. But we didn't know that back then. Well, you sound very typical of, I say, most people growing up, I mean, I grow up, I'm obviously older than you. But, you know, I had the same thing we ate out of a can. A lot of food that we were fed at the time, where I was born in the Bahamas. We have to import a lot of food. And so food is quite expensive and you don't get a lot of very fresh fruit and things because not a lot of stuff like that. Vegetables grow in limestone soil. So I had a very limited diet as well growing up. But I remember, you know, picking up cans of chili and dumping it on bread and that was dinner. So, or eating hot dogs for dinner or something like that. I think that even now,

12:25things are still like that. People are in a rush and they just get what's convenient and they don't know any better. I mean, with the internet now, things are getting better and so you're learning more and more and more and probably your parents know now that maybe that wasn't the best thing. And hopefully they're eating better. Yes, much better. I've definitely taught them and all of our eyes have been open for sure. Now, you're quite tall. You're taller than me. I'm five foot 10 and she's taller than me. How tall are you? I'm about six feet tall. Yes. So, in centimeters, people in Europe that is, I'm 178 centimeters. So, she's obviously a lot taller than me. And you said that when you were younger, you also got bullied a bit because you were thin. Yes. I mean, I was always very tall. I mean, girls also grow faster than boys, typically. I don't you hate that. Back then, it definitely got to me more so when I was a kid than it does now.

13:28Like now, as an adult, I like being tall and it's got its benefits for sure. But yeah, growing up, like elementary school, I was much taller than my friends, all the boys in my class. And I've always been very thin too. So, I was a lanky tall girl and you know, we all have our glow up ears. So, I had braces. I had like frizzy hair. This was before hair straighteners were really a thing. You know, like I started using one probably grade eight, but I didn't know how to use it. So, it was, I want to say typical bullying. I feel like everyone gets bullied a little bit, but mine was more targeted towards I was very tall, lanky. I wouldn't say I was even bullied because of like having braces because most of us didn't have braces, but you know, that also contributes to your own self-image. You're like, I'm this tall lanky girl with braces and frizzy hair. So, yes, I definitely was picked on a little bit as probably elementary school. I would say by high school, that was kind of no longer a thing, but definitely elementary school. I was

14:30singled out for being tall and skinny, which was out of my control. So, kids are ruthless, honestly. You decided to go on to university and pursue a degree in math and education. Why ever did you do that? I hear the word math. I'm more so cringing at the education piece because in my 17-year-old brain, actually my dad kind of convinced me to be a teacher because I've always been very good at math. I'm a logical girl. Believe it or not, math was one of the subjects that came quite easy to me. So, we're usually drawn to what we're good at. So, I was good at math while I was like, okay, I have to decide what to go to university for. And when you're a kid, you don't understand what jobs are out there, right? It's not like I understood what a dad analyst was or what a finance person does or any of this thing. It's like, what kind of job is math, right? So, my dad would thought I would be a good math teacher. He thought I would like that kind of career. I don't know why to be honest because I do not like that. I did go to university,

15:37but I was 17 and I was like, yeah, sure, summer's off sound great. So, I'll be a teacher. So, I was just true. Yeah, I did a dual degree in university for math and education to become a math teacher for high school. And I didn't mind the math part, but I hated the education courses. It really was not my vibe. I don't like teaching children who don't want to be there. If you've ever tried to teach like 15-year-olds calculus, they don't want to learn. They don't care. It's just hard. I mean, I'm sure there's one or two there who are interested, but the other 28, they don't want to be there. So, it was exhausting. I did not enjoy it. I knew, honestly, probably after first year that I did not want to do it, but I was like, well, I'll stick it out and we'll see. So, I did do five years in university for that degree. I completed it. I did my placements in high schools teaching. So, you're not much older than the students, in fact. No, not at that point. That makes it even more

16:41difficult. Yeah. I was teaching grade 12 math at one point, and yeah, I was like 21-22, I believe, at the time. So, some of them were 18. I've been told that I look young too. People often think I'm younger than I am. So, I probably looked pretty similar in age to them, and I'm trying to teach them, and you know, they don't want to listen. They don't want to be there. So, I did not use that degree. I did end up using my math degree to become a data analyst, but that was short-lived as we will get into, I'm sure. You also said that your unhealthy eating habits continued into university. So, talk about what is the healthy eating habits of a university student in Canada? I can tell you, mine were, and they were atrocious. It got much worse in university, because now I am living on my own, because when I did live at home, my mom would at least make us a decent dinner. You know, like I said, the tacos or the chicken, my dad would barbecue sometimes. So, at least I had that, but

17:46I didn't know how to cook, honestly. So, when I went to university, I was just looking for what is easy, what is quick, what tastes good, and it's hard to believe, but I truly did not know that these foods were unhealthy, because as I mentioned, I have always been thin. So, I didn't think I was putting on weight from these foods, and it's kind of drilled into our brains if you're overweight, you're unhealthy, if you're not, you're fine. And I even had doctors tell that to me. So, I didn't think anything was wrong with my diet. I thought, oh, I'm just one of those lucky people who can eat whatever they want, not gain a pound, get me, everybody hates me. It's all who can eat whatever. That changed quickly. Yeah. So, I was eating craft dinner, pogo sticks. I was still eating the sugary cereals for breakfast. I would put like chicken strips in the oven that would have already been like, you know, made for me. I just heat them up. A harvies was the restaurant that we would go to. It was on campus, like a burger place. I would eat there, weekly in my roommates would get

18:48a cheesecake every Thursday, and we would play cards and eat the cheesecake together. That was our Thursday. And then also, I was drinking. So, I was going out drinking with my roommate. I wouldn't say every weekend, but, you know, at least a couple times a month. Sometimes more than others, we live next door to a group of guys that we became good friends with. So, we would kind of have our own little parties and drink and go to bed at two, three in the morning, and then get up for my 8am math class. So, yeah, there was... You're just a typical student. Yeah, and that's the difficult part, is that it is typical, right? Everybody around you is doing it. Everyone is eating the foods. Everyone is out drinking. Like, you are the weird one. If you're making yourself like this five-star meal and you aren't drinking and you are going to bed at a reasonable hour like that was not the normal. I didn't know anybody in university who lived

19:53that life. So, it definitely is normalized and encouraged. I don't regret it because I had a lot of fun. I, my best friend, you know, I still best friends with her to this day. We were roommates. It was a lot of fun. I regret not knowing what I was doing to myself because I could have went about it in a better way, but if I'm being completely honest with you, I am very stubborn. I'm a tourist and no one wants to believe this can happen to them. No one, everyone thinks they're the exception, right? So, if someone even told me, if I told myself back then, you know, if you keep doing this, you are going to develop these gut issues, these food sensitivities, like all these symptoms. I truly don't think I would have believed myself. I don't think I would have changed anything. It really took me having to go through it to have my eyes open to do like, okay, actually the way I'm living is not healthy because I was always thin. And yeah, I was tired all the time, but I'm a university student, isn't everybody? And I got sick all the time, like colds,

20:59flu type situation, but also I was getting chronic infections very frequently. I was getting UTIs, urinary tract infections several times a year. I was getting throat infections that I would go to the doctor for. They would say there's nothing like it's not strep. They would test me for strep, come back negative, but I would beg for antibiotics because I had been dealing with it for like a week. I wasn't sleeping. I wasn't eating. I wasn't drinking. It's like, I need something to get rid of this. Like, I can't live this way. So they would give me the antibiotics. It would clear up. And then I would go back again months later with the same thing, same with the UTIs over and over again. I had kidney stones at one point, which the doctor mistook for a UTI. So she gave me antibiotics for this UTI that did not even exist. I took antibiotics. Symptoms didn't go away because it was not a UTI. It was kidney stones. So then I went and got an x-ray for that. And a lot of that was contributed by my drinking, I believe. Like, I would drink a lot of wine. It's 3D hydrating.

22:02That can form kidney stones. And then of course, my diet was terrible. I wasn't sleeping. I did not exercise in university. My roommates would sometimes go to spin class at the school. And I was like, I don't need to work out. I'm still fine. I'm good. I don't need to work out. So I didn't do that. And then I was also doing a dual university degree, which has its own stressors, of course. So that was university Carly in a nutshell. Yeah, I can relate somewhat to what you're saying about the whole idea of being thin because I was quite thin too when I was young. And everybody always used to say, oh, you've got a fast metabolism. You know, they were always were so jealous of most of the facts that I had this fast metabolism. And that continued on, I think, until my 30s, until I started to notice that my metabolism was slowing down, which is not what they tell you about. I mean, but that's, that is a different matter. But I can think also, like when you're talking about how people doctors just sort of randomly give you, well, I shouldn't say randomly, sorry,

23:08doctors or anybody in the health area that's out there. But probiotics are not given to you when you are given these antibiotics. You know, so when we're young, the doctors often give you antibiotic for some whatever throat infection or, you know, you name it. You always got antibiotics, but no one ever told you back then that antibiotics destroyed the good microbacteria. But what, I don't know what you call it, you know better than me, the bacteria and the stomach. They killed a good stuff that's in your gut. But nobody ever tells you that at all. I didn't even know there was good gut bacteria. I didn't know there was a microbiome. I didn't know any of that. I had no idea that antibiotics were harmful. I thought, yeah, this is what I need to get better. There's no downside to it. I didn't realize that every single medication out there has a side of fact. Like, I thought doctors are giving this to me to help me. No doctor would harm me. I was on

24:09birth control for 10 years. I didn't, I didn't have a clue that that's another one of all these different nutrients. Yeah, that also contributed to my health issues. But I had no idea. We don't learn about it. No one tells you. I'm just living my university life trying to get rid of this UTI. So I can go out drinking with my friends next weekend. I had no idea that I was destroying my gut health because I didn't even know gut health existed. Yeah. Well, I got you beat on the birth controls for 10 years because I started it when I was, let me see. How did I put that? I want to be sure I don't get pregnant mothers. Can I please go on the birth control at 19? So my Catholic mother is saying pregnant. So I got the birth control. And the only time I ever went off it was when I wanted to get pregnant to have my son. And so I went off it for two years. So if you think from the age of like 19, I had my son when I was 40. So two year period and I'm now

25:1259. I stopped about 12 years ago because my kind of colleges in Singapore, fortunately, have the wisdom to tell me you need to come off of that because that's messing up your stomach. And also it causes hell for you when you go into menopause. So just so you know, but anyway, go ahead to the gut issue, which is also a menopause issue. But anyway, so you then started working. And things just started to sort of take a turn for the worse. So what happened? Because you also had lots of stress as well. Yes. So when I was in university, I was working part-time at a synoplex actually, but we have VIP synoplexes. They're basically like a restaurant while you watch a movie. So I was a server that worked there. So I would stay up late, you know, I was hanging out with my friends still living this lifestyle. And when I graduated university, I was still working there at the synoplex while I looked for my full-time job. And I continued again, the same lifestyle,

26:13you know, eating synoplex food, which is horrible. Sorry, synoplex food is not good. And then I was still drinking with my friends. I was staying up late because I was a server. So like our last movie would go in at midnight. I was at least having fun, you know, it wasn't a stressful job. I was just hanging out with my friends making some money. And then I finally got my job as a data analyst, my first full-time career, which is supposed to be exciting. And I was excited about it for about five minutes. And then I started that job. And it was horrible. He did not have a data analyst previously. So I was there for a data analyst. And they really did not have very much work for me to do there. They did not need a data analyst. And I'm fresh at a university. So I don't even know what a data analyst does. And so they're like, yeah, here's one thing to do. And I would do it in like 10 minutes. And then it's like, okay, what do I do with the rest of my day? And I had to be there from 8 AM to 5 PM, which is a very long day when you have 10 minutes of work to do. I also

27:15had to sit in traffic for about 45 minutes to an hour each way. So yeah, I was exhausted because I had to wake up very early to get to this job, sit in traffic. I was also miserable because I was dreading the day. I had to go and sit there and people think when I tell them this story, they're like, oh, it's great. You got paid to do nothing. And it's like, no, it's not like I was sitting on my couch watching my favorite TV show and getting paid. It was I had to get up, get ready, sit in traffic for an hour, sit at this office and look busy. You can't just sit there with your feet up and be like, I don't know what you work to do, you know, they'll fire you. So you're playing solitaire when no one's looking. Literally, like it was horrible. I was so bored. And I did tell my manager a couple of times, like, you know, I finished this task. Do you have anything else for me to do? And it kind of just got apparent that there was not much for me to do there. And I was like, all right, I don't know what to do. I'm so bored. So I would use all my vacation time,

28:19all of my sick time. Like I would just do anything to get out of going to this job because I was so miserable and stressed and hated every second of it. And about two to three months into this job was when my gut issues started. I wasn't healthy before that, but I hadn't been eating well or exercising or sleeping well or any of the things since high school, really. So it had been a long time that I've been living this way. And my gut was still hanging in there, but it was the stress. Like, I had never been so miserable in my whole life. That is what triggered my gut issues. And if I got issues, I mean, I would eat and I would have like stabbing chronic pain in my gut. Like so, so painful. I looked six months pregnant. Like my belly was sticking out. And as a very thin girl, very noticeable. I literally looked pregnant. I would have to run to the bathroom after I ate and be in there for a while. Sometimes I'd come back to my desk and I'd have to go back again,

29:22which is super embarrassing. It was a small office too. So there's like two stalls and everyone sees you going back and forth to the washroom. And yeah, it was just really embarrassing. It was painful. It was uncomfortable. I became afraid of eating because I was starting to realize, okay, I have my lunch. Now I'm in pain and now I'm running to the bathroom. So what's going on here? And that had never happened to me before. So I was not happy about that. I was very afraid of eating. We used to have potlucks at my office. So we did a potluck. And this was kind of around the time that my gut issues had started. What is a potluck? Not everybody knows what potluck is. Yeah, so a potluck is when everybody brings a dish to share. So everyone is told a head of time we're doing this event. So everyone brings a dish to share for lunch. So we've got this massive variety of food. And I went to this lunch and I just filled my plate with all this different stuff because

30:26it all looked good. I had this moment of panic after I had eaten my like third cookie. I was like, wait a minute. I just kind of remembered that my gut was acting out. And I just ate a bunch of random stuff. I was like, I don't think this is going to be good. So I went back to my desk and I just waited in terror. And sure enough, the stabbing pains kicked in or the running back and forth to the washroom like all afternoon. And I think that was the moment for me that I was like, okay, I can't just keep eating this food. Something is not agreeing with me. I don't know why or what has happened. But that is when I finally decided I can't live this way. And I need to do something. Was it only happening at work or when you would go out with your friends as well? I would say it started at work. I like can vividly remember me sitting at my desk and having the pain and having to go to the washroom. It did happen outside of work too. Like I remember one time I went to a dentist appointment and all my way to the dentist, I stopped off and

31:26grabbed lunch. And then at the dentist office, I had to go to their washroom and I was in pain. And it's like, great. Now this is happening everywhere. I actually don't remember it happening much at the beginning with my friends, but I also was going out less because I was working full time and I was more tired. And I wasn't seeing my friends all the time like my son-of-black job. But I can remember like going away, visiting my friends from university on the weekend and having to be very careful about what I ate or else I would be in pain. I went on a all-inclusive trip with two of my best friends at the time and I remember I was being careful. Because at this point I knew kind of what some of my trigger foods were. So I was avoiding gluten and dairy as best as I could at this all-inclusive. I was drinking still. I was not drinking as much, but I was still drinking. And I remember like one of the last days I had the same feeling. Like the pain I had to run to the bathroom. It was a whole ordeal. So it definitely happened outside of work.

32:29But I do remember it happening at work very frequently. Yeah, it's just interesting because we're going to talk about that later, but you say that there was a lot of stress at work and then I'm, were you stressed when you were going to the dentist usually? Was that a stressful event as well? Well, I was actually going to the dentist on my lunch break at work. So it was kind of connected. You can't really split that apart. Yeah, I'm just kind of like looking at it in terms of, you know, the most stressful environments that you were in, if it triggered it more than you were sort of just hanging out and chilling out with your friends and not really that stressed. Yeah, all right. So you decided finally to start chasing the source of the problem. I did. So I did not want to continue to live in pain and looking six months pregnant and running to the bathroom. That's no way to live. So I went to my doctor. She was not at all helpful. I told her my symptoms. You know, I said, I am bloated all the time. I'm having stomach

33:32pain. I am having diarrhea. Like, I don't know what is happening. I've never had this before. She gave me a prescription gas medication to help with the bloating. She told me that I probably am lactose intolerant and have celiac disease. So stop eating dairy and gluten and sent me out the door. And no testing. No, no testing. She did give me a paperwork to get the celiac test done. But I will say back then I was definitely afraid of needles. I still am. And it is a blood draw. So I just got my blood taken for the first time, like three years ago. It is one of those fears that I cannot explain. I cried. I totally relate. Every time I have to go have my blood test, I always, I'm always like, oh, okay, just just don't and they always know. I hear on my age and they always are to speak into me like I'm this child trying to calm me down so that they could take

34:32the blood. If you're not the only one, I feel it too. I can't explain it. I've gotten a little better now that I've had it done a few times, but something takes over. It's scary. So back then, I had never had my blood taken. I had a death. I was definitely afraid of needles. So I actually remember standing outside of the clinic with this paperwork in my hand and I called my dad and I was crying. I was like, I was supposed to get this test done just to see if I have celiac disease. But like, I don't, I don't want to because I'm scared. And my dad, of course, doesn't want me upset. So he's like, well, do you think like you have this disease? And I was like, no, I think, okay, then don't do it. And I was like, okay, I'm not going to do it. So I didn't do it then. I did do it later. It's, there's a whole story to it. But later when I got tested, later in life, I was not eating gluten, which you are supposed to eat gluten to have an accurate result. However, I had a GI map test done that showed that I was still getting trace amounts

35:34of gluten. And my body was reacting to it. My naturopath at the time told me, even though I'm not eating gluten, this GI map is showing you are getting gluten. So it would be worth it for you to do the celiac test at this point. That was her advice. So I did do it later in life when I had not been eating gluten. And it came back negative. I don't know how accurate that is to be honest. I don't think I have celiac disease. I don't seem to react to trace amounts. I have never been weary of cross contamination. I do believe it is and was a sensitivity. So I don't believe I have celiac disease. I can't really confirm it because I have an eaten gluten and it's hard to test for certain. But I do not have a lactose intolerance. I've eaten dairy scents and I'm fine. I also tried her gas medication. And it did absolutely nothing for me. I think I tried it for like a week and I was like, all right, that's ridiculous. So yes, the doctor path was no good. I also remember trying to see her on several different occasions and she would just cancel our

36:37appointment last minute. I remember I had booked with her. It was a Friday because that was when I could get off work in the summer to go to the appointment and she moved it. She was like, oh, I can't this Friday will do, you know, three weeks from now. And I'm still in pain. I have eliminated gluten and dairy at this point, by the way. And I'm still dealing with symptoms, not as drastic, not as frequent, but still happening, still having bathroom episodes, still having pain. So I'm trying to go in to see her. She moves it again. Okay, three weeks later, I'm waiting at my office to go see her at that morning. They call me and they go, oh, actually, she can't see you today. We're canceling. And I remember just being so upset because I'm trying to get help. Like I'm suffering. I've waited now a month to see this woman and she's canceling on me on a Friday afternoon in the summer. It's like wonder what she's doing. So I just felt very discarded. I felt like this is an important. Even when I did see her, she was not helpful.

37:38She just gave me medication, didn't test. She didn't ask any follow-up questions. So I was very frustrated and upset and confused. And I didn't have any knowledge on what was going on. So I'm just desperately trying to feel better and I don't know how. So that is when I turned to holistic health. Because my mom, as I mentioned, was gluten and dairy free at that time. So I knew a little bit about gluten dairy free lifestyle. She had seen a naturopaths previously. So she kind of pointed me in that direction. She's like, well, the doctor's not helping you. Why don't you go see this naturopath? And at the time, I was like, oh, great. Like this is some weird woo-woo health thing. Like this, I had no idea what I was getting into, right? I had no idea what holistic health was. Didn't know about gut health. Didn't know a thing. So I was like, I'm on seeing this weird doctor saying, okay, my real doctor's not helping me. I guess I'll do it, too. And I started by doing a food sensitivity test. As I mentioned, I was very afraid of needles. So I found this naturopath that lived near me. Well, her office was near me, where I live. And she did EDS testing, which is

38:45electro-dermal sensitivity screening. So they use this machine that uses acupressure points to test for food sensitivities. And as someone who is very new to holistic health, this was very out there. For me, I was like, what does that even mean? I didn't know what acupuncture or acupressure points were. I didn't know anything. I just knew I didn't want to do blood work, but I wanted to figure out what foods were causing me problems. So I did this test. And yeah, it was very interesting. I had to like hold this probe thing in one hand and the other hand, she had like this pen that she would press on my finger. I think it was this finger. There's like a point on your finger that correlates to food sensitivities or something of the sort and attached to a computer. And it would run through all these different foods and show you how your body is reacting. Red yellow green was kind of the scale. And so yeah, I did that. And I got my results. And almost everything was red

39:50or at least yellow. My naturopath told me, this is the worst one I've ever seen. And as someone who ate poster strutles and pogo sticks as their main diet, I was like, what do you mean? This is what I eat. Everything gluten, everything dairy was red. Different fruits and vegetables were red. All of the sugars were red. Wine was red, which I drank a lot of at the time. So I was having a meltdown. I think I was in shock at the office. And then I went home and showed my parents and I just had like a full blown meltdown on my kitchen. I was like crying. I was like, I'm going to starve to death. What am I supposed to do? Because my naturopath told me to stop eating all this. That's what I was told. This is your list. Stop. Bye. It's like, what the heck? So yeah, that was my intro into holistic health. And it was a dramatic one for sure. And so she didn't direct you towards a

40:51nutritionist or somebody that could help you like with a eating regime introduce you to new foods that would replace those foods as you couldn't eat. It was just like, no, you can't eat these. And that's it. Yeah, I continued to work with her. But to be honest, she specialized in family health. So she worked with a lot of like kids and moms with their hormones and kid issues. She wasn't like a gut health specialized naturopath. Looking back, like I would have sought someone out who more so was helpful for me and what I was going through. So yeah, I continued to see her. And she gave me a lot of supplements, a lot of pictures and try this to help with digestion. Take this pill to help with your enzymes. And again, I still didn't know what she was talking about or what was going on. I was just trusting. This is what I need because I've done this food

41:51sensitivity test. Everything is red. So obviously I can't eat these foods. I also was unaware at the time that food sensitivities can and should be reversed. I was also unaware that food sensitivities change very frequently. And that was just like, at that moment, that is what I was reacting to. I actually did the food sensitivity test two more times, like each a year apart. So like I did it another one a year later and a year after that. Once I learned that they could change, but at that time I did not know. So I thought this is forever. I have to avoid all these foods forever. I don't really know what to eat. And I was still pretty picky, right? So things like quinoa sounded weird to me. I was like, I don't know what quinoa is. I don't want to eat that. And I didn't know you could have bread that wasn't made out of wheat. Like I was really out to watch. Just how it was very dramatic. And I tell this because people see me today and they think it's easy for me to live

42:55healthy. It's easy for me to eat this way because this is my career. This is my life. This is how I've always been. Absolutely. I was so far gone the other way that anybody can make it back to where I'm at. Like it just it does take time and education and it was absolutely not easy for me. Like I had to change everything about my life from my diet to exercising to sleeping right to managing my stress to drinking enough water, you know, like everything had to change. And it did start with that that food sensitivity test. But it did set me off on the wrong path because I was chasing the food. That was the problem. Like which food was triggering me? And I just kept eliminating more and more foods from my diet instead of working on the other things that I just mentioned. So what were some of the other tests because I've got something here. So you did the food sensitivity test. You did stool tests, obviously. And then you did something called the

43:57SIBO breath test. Yeah. So along the journey, I did a lot of different tests because I started with the food sensitivity test. And I just kept eliminating foods because my list was red. So I was like I need to cut these out. But I was still having symptoms like the stomach pain and the diarrhea were less once I cut out gluten and dairy, but they were still happening sporadically. I remember having a notes at like a note in my phone and like the notes out of like when it would happen and what I ate. And it would be like sometimes days apart. And then sometimes I'd go a couple weeks and it would happen again. And then oh, I made it a month and then it happened again. But then it happened three times the next month. And I was trying to figure out like what is going on even though I was cutting out foods. Were you continuously bloated all this time? Yeah. I was bloated every single day for over five years. Wow. Yeah. So I was continuing to work on why is this still happening? I was still tired all the time. I was still getting sick like I just

45:01wasn't well. I can't remember which one I did next, but I read a book called The Bloded Belly Whisperer. And in that book, there was a quiz, I believe. And it was like what are your symptoms? And then based on what your symptoms were, it would direct you to a specific chapter. And that's kind of like most likely what you're dealing with. So I got that book from the library. I did the quiz and it pointed me to the SIBO chapter, which is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. And I read about it in the book and I was like, yeah, that sounds like me. You know, it's bloating, gradually increasing as the day goes on. Gas, it could be triggered by sweet poisoning, stress, things like that. And I had never heard of it before. So I started doing my research on it. A lot of people think the low FODMAP diet is like the cure for SIBO, but it is not

46:02the low FODMAP diet, which is a group of foods. So FODMAP is an acronym. FODMAP stands for a lot of different words that I'm not going to try to pronounce, but they're different types of foods that are highly fermentable. So when you eat those, your good gut bacteria feed on them, release gas. It's fermenting in the gut, which is fine. That is normal. But if you have an overgrowth of bacteria, normally in SIBO, the bacteria are in your small intestine. In a healthy individual, your good gut bacteria should be in your large intestine. That is where your gut microbiome is. So in SIBO, these bacteria have creeped up into the small intestine. That is now where they are feeding and fermenting this food that you've eaten. That is not what your small intestine is for. So that can cause a lot of bloating gas discomfort. SIBO symptoms. So I was like, you know, when I think I have this and to test that theory, I'm going to do the low FODMAP diet for like three weeks to see if I feel better. In my opinion, the low FODMAP diet is one of the most

47:08strict diets out there. It is nearly impossible to go out to eat and stick to the low FODMAP diet because not only are you eliminating gluten and dairy, in my opinion, that's not that hard to do. But you're eliminating cruciferous vegetables. You're eliminating other fruits that are high in sugar like mangoes. Other vegetables like healthy foods are eliminated in the low FODMAP diet because they are highly fermentable, not because they are unhealthy. They are highly fermentable. So when you do this diet long term, you are eliminating very nutritious foods from your diet, which can then cause you to have nutrient deficiencies as well as a terrible relationship with food. So it is meant for short term symptom relief while you work on the root issue correcting that. It should not be a long term thing. Nobody should be on the low FODMAP diet definitely. And it's very difficult to do. So I did it for about three weeks and I hated every second of it.

48:10It was just horrible. It was very stressful. But I am very dedicated individual. So I was like, I'm doing this right. So I did stick to it and my symptoms got a little bit better. But my bloating did not fully go away. In my mind, I just took that as like, okay, SIBO is an issue, but I have something else going on too. So I did do the SIBO breath test, which at the time in Canada cost me around $300. So it's not cheap. It did come back slightly positive for methane-dominant SIBO. I won't go into all the details on SIBO because we'll be here all day. But there's two different actually. There's three different types now. But at the time, there was either methane-dominant or hydrogen-dominant SIBO. I tested positive for the methane-dominant a little bit. So then I took that and ran with it. And I was trying to cure SIBO for years. I would do supplement protocol. I would do diet. I would feel a little better than I would feel worse. I would wait months and

49:14then come back to it. And I'd be like, okay, I need to do this again. I just didn't do it right the first time. The supplements cost hundreds of dollars. The diet sucks. And I was doing this on repeat over and over again because my symptoms kept coming back. And I was like, well, I just did do it right. On top of that, I also thought I had a Candida Overgrowth, which is... Candida is in everybody. It's a yeast. It can grow out of control if you don't have a healthy microbiome. A good healthy gut microbiome will have good bacteria, not so good bacteria. That's fine. They kind of live in harmony as long as you have enough good. When the good died because you took 200 rounds of antibiotics and were on birth control and stressed and eating horribly, the bad start to rise up and take over. So again, I read a book. It's not stuff about Candida. And in this book, there was also a quiz. And my quiz said, yes, you have a Candida Overgrowth without a doubt.

50:15And again, I read about it. And I was like, yes, I have these symptoms. This makes sense. I have the bloating and I have sugar cravings. And I have all these symptoms. So I have this too. So I also did a Candida cleanse. I kind of would alternate. I'd be like, I'm doing a Candida cleanse. Now I'm doing the SIBO diet. Now I'm going to do a liver cleanse. I did all this random stuff. But in my mind, it wasn't random. I did research. I read books. I felt like I could relate. I had the symptoms. And the Candida diet is also very restrictive. It eliminates all sugars from your diet, all grains, even fruit. So again, not great. And I lost a lot of weight doing that. You lose weight so quickly when you do that diet, I did that diet. But I first moved to Singapore for three months. I had this mucusy gull coming out of my throat and nose and I was coughing. And I don't know what had happened. I thought, oh, I just got too cold on the plane, on the flight over. But I couldn't get rid of it. It was terrible. So I ended up going to an osteopath. And he did

51:20a chemisiology testing on me and muscle testing. And I could believe it when he told me you have Candida. And I'm like, hello, I'm here for you to crack my back. And you're telling me I've got Candida because I told him what was happening. You know, so he did this test. So I went through all of that. And I did that Candida diet. And wow. And I had also not been able to lose weight since being pregnant because that was afterwards. And this is when I found out about the birth control issue about, you know, you've taken the birth control for XN number of years, 20 years by that point. And yeah. And so I did that Candida diet as well. And I lost so much weight, so quickly that it was a bit concerning. But I felt good because everything else cleared up as well. Yeah. I mean, I will say like it did get rid of my seasonal allergies. So I don't have seasonal allergies still to this day. Did it get rid of my bloating? No. I could tend to do that. But yeah, I did lose a

52:23significant amount of weight. And as someone who did not need to lose weight, it was not good. I remember my mom being very concerned because she's like your clothes are like hanging off of you. You need to put on weight. And the thing is, is that I have always been someone who eats. It's like a joke in my family that like Carly's always hungry. Carly's always eating. So it's not because I wasn't eating. Like at one point, I was eating 2600 calories a day, trying to put weight on and I just was not. So it wasn't for lack of trying. It wasn't because I was just not eating. I had eliminated a lot of foods from my diet. I had a terrible relationship with food. And when you are stressed and you have this anxiety around food, your digestive system does not work right. It does not matter if you are eating the most nutrient dense diet out there. If you cannot properly digest and absorb those nutrients, it doesn't matter. So my relationship with food was bad because

53:24I thought still there was something that I'm eating that is causing this problem. And I need to figure out what it is. Or I need to starve these yeast so they die. Or I need to starve this bacteria that has overgrown in my small intestine. So it dies. I need to take these supplements to kill and I thought this for years. Like years and I spent so much money on supplements and testing. Like I said, I did that food sensitivity test three times. I did the SIBO breath test, which was like 300 dollars. I did a hair sample test that really did not give me any information whatsoever. Did they test you for what is this giardia? Because sometimes also when you have bloating, they think you have a peptic ulcer. And the peptic ulcer is and that can be caused by what is it? Helix pyloria. It's a type of bacteria. And that's rage pylori.

54:25Did you? And they didn't. Yeah, me too. I was so stunned when it came back negative. I was like, what? Yeah, I did that. I did the breath test for age pylori. The GI map also tests you for age pylori. So that was included in that. I also added zonulin onto my GI map, which tests for leaky gut. I did a lot of testing. I saw a lot of different practitioners. I did see multiple naturopaths. I saw a SIBO specialist who made me feel the worst out of anyone. Like the protocol C gave me were so expensive. And I felt terrible on them. Like my bloating was so much worse. I was so uncomfortable. That did not help. I saw nutritionist. I saw an osteopath. I saw chiropractor. I saw an acupunctureist. Why did you see a chiropractor and an osteopath? Because you know, you hear that and you think, oh, well, you know, that's like the bones and what's that got to do with your gut?

55:25And that's what I thought at the time too. But it's because for the chiropractor, you have nerves that go from your like neck skull head area down to your gut. Also, your back is aligned. There are also nerves that connect to your gut. So if you are out of alignment, there is a chance that it impacts your digestion. Some people who have chronic constipation, it could be improved by seeing a chiropractor if that is the issue. If they are out like so bad out of alignment that it is causing that. The osteopath kind of similar. I wanted to see if there was something like structurally going on with my gut. Like if there's some sort of blockage or I don't know. And honestly, my naturopath pointed me to the osteopaths because they had been seeing her for a while. I was following the diet and I was taking the thing. She was giving me the supplements, the tinctures and I wasn't getting better. So she was kind of out of loss and she was like, well, maybe it's a structural problem. Maybe they need to straighten you out so that your

56:29guts work in. So yeah, I went to see them. I was a little out of alignment, sure. But I went and saw the chiropractor a few times and even she told me after a few times, she's like, are you feeling any better? And I was like, no, she's like, okay, I don't think this is it then because we've been working at this and you're not feeling better. Same with the osteopath. I was seeing her for months and I was like, okay, I don't feel any better. So I gave those up. Same with the acupuncturist, you know, I've heard acupuncture can help with a lot of chronic conditions. So I was like, let me try that. I did. I went and saw an acupuncturist who gave me like a traditional Chinese medicine tea. It's like a powder and you mix it with hot water and it was specifically designed for me in my symptoms and my tongue analysis. And if you know anything about how acupuncture works, they look at your tongue and they check your pulse. And I took this tea for a few days and I had the worst diarrhea. And I was like, this is making me worse. I was like, I'm not taking this. So

57:34I went down so many rabbit holes and moral disorder is I was chasing like extremes. I was like, it's this diet. It's these supplements. I need to do this crazy stuff. Like I need to do something very extreme and dramatic and expensive to fix my problems. And I never once was like, what's my sleep like or what type of movement am I getting in the day? Or how's my stress through all of this? Because I actually am a very chill individual. Like I don't typically get stressed about things. Like it's very difficult to stress me out. I don't have anxiety or anything like that. So I've never thought of myself as like a stressed out person and I've never thought like I need to deal with stress. Even going through all of these things that I was going through, I didn't realize how stressed I was about it. I was like, I just have to figure it out. I just have to keep going. But I was putting my body through too much. And I didn't know that. So I really needed to take a step back. And it wasn't until like five years into this that I finally

58:38did that. You mentioned, and I'm looking at my notes here. It says, you did a medical medium liver cleanse. Yeah. You ate 25 apples a day. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, what, what was that? Yeah. You said you wanted to have a mental breakdown. I did. I had about three mental breakdowns. Yes. In my desperation, I learned about the medical medium. And to this day, me and my boyfriend joke about it because it slips easily. The worst thing I have ever done, I read about his liver cleanse in one of his books. And again, I'm desperate. I've tried so much at this point. So I was like, yeah, I need to do this liver cleanse. Like my liver is burdened. And this is what I need to do. It wasn't 25 apples a day. But I do think it was like probably 25 or more apples over the course of 10 days, which was the extent of this liver cleanse.

59:42And honestly, what it was was just like, eat a ton of raw fruits and vegetables over this 10 day period drink celery juice. It was horrible. My jaw was sore from chewing because I was eating these massive raw salads. I was starving because there was zero protein or healthy fats in any of this. It was just raw fruits and vegetables. And if you know anything about gut health, which I didn't know this at the time, raw vegetables are really hard on the gut and really hard to digest. If you are pounding back massive salads and you're feeling bloated and you feel like you're not digesting that well, you probably are. Especially if you have gut issues. So eating a massive salad three two times a day, whatever it was, was not what I needed. But I was convinced that I haven't tried this yet. And it made sense to me at the time. So I did this liver cleanse. And yeah, I remember

1:00:43frying sitting there having a mental breakdown. I think like three times. Oh, she's for some 10 days. And my poor boyfriend can be lived together. And he was watching me go through this. And he's like, I think you should stop. But I was like, I need to do it because, hey, I already bought all the produce for it. I wanted to finish it. And be like I said, I'm a very dedicated individual. So once I decide I'm doing it, I was like, I need to see it through because what if I quit halfway through? And I'll never know if this was what I needed. You know, so in my mind, I needed to finish it. And I did was what I needed. You must have spent thousands of dollars on all the supplements that you went through. And you must have had very restricted social life as well because of all these food restrictions that you had not to mention that when you are not having food restrictions, you were running to Detroit it. Yeah, it was expensive. I don't even want to know how much money I

1:01:45spent on not even just supplements, but practitioners and food too. Like I did this liver cleanse and I bought 25 apples. Why am I doing that? You know, it's the excess silly. Yeah. And then for social events, I was very anxious around that because of what can I eat? How can I stick to my diet and go to this event? And I'm a hungry girl. Like I said, it hasn't been a problem of me eating. Even going through all this, I was still eating all day. You know, like I was never skipping meals. But I was scared of I don't want to go hungry, but I don't want to eat something I shouldn't. So what do I do? And I would go to my friend's place and I would bring like food and snacks and all my stuff and all my supplements with me. If I would go out to like an event, I would bring like stuff in my purse. So at least I had something. I would ask the servers, you know, what's in this? What's in this? What's in this? And it would be that annoying person at the table. So yeah, it was very stressful, again, like trying to go out and have a social life and be included,

1:02:48but not have an episode where I have to be in the bathroom all night. And you never thought about going to therapy to help deal with all the stress that you were having around all these different diets and what was going on. No, because I truly didn't think it was a problem. I didn't realize what I was doing to myself. I thought I'm trying to get to the bottom of this. I'm willing to do what it takes. And this is just what I have to do to get better. Like now looking back, I can see I had a terrible relationship with food. I took it way too far. I was way too strict. But in the moment, I didn't think I was doing anything wrong. I thought this is what I have to do to get better. And I'm just very dedicated to it. So I'm going to keep on pushing through. And you were still working at that same job doing the data analysis. I worked there for about a year. And then I quit. And then I actually moved to BC with my boyfriend for two months to see it. It was my first time seeing British Columbia. That's where we now live.

1:03:51But yeah, we did that for two months. And then we moved back to Ontario. And then I got another job, an office job doing math like things. But it was better than the first job. And yeah, I worked there. Actually, I worked there up until just about a year ago was when I quit that job. But I was working remote. So it wasn't as bad. Yeah, I was just curious in thinking stress-wise, you know, what's contributing still on the exterior to what's happening on the interior as well. Like my gut issue stayed at 24. And that was when I was doing that job that I hated. And then about a year into that, I went to BC. And then about four years after that, I was working at this other job, still math-related desk job. But I didn't hate it. Like I hated the first one. And I was still having issues, but they were improving. I would say probably just over the last two to three years was when I

1:04:52finally stopped obsessing over all of these different supplements and diets. And I really just started focusing on my daily habits. And I now take the fewest supplements ever. I have the most variety in my diet. And I feel the best. So what was the pivotal moment that made you just suddenly say, okay, this is ridiculous. I'm just going to start trying to be a normal eater now. You might have been that liver cleanse. That was the tipping point. I think the liver cleanse might have sent me over the edge because I was still eating apples, by the way. Not very often. I have a little trauma from the apples, but yeah, I do think that liver cleanse was an eye opener for me because I was like, you're crazy. You can't do that. Do you need to stop? And I also had the SIBO specialist while I was in BC. That's where I met the SIBO specialist. And I felt worse. So I don't know. I think it was just I don't know why it took me this long,

1:05:56but I finally had an eye opening moment of like, okay, you have been doing the same thing over and over again for years. Different protocols, different practitioners, different diets. You've done them all. You've done them all. Nothing like I feel better than when I first started this journey. Sure. But I still have a terrible relationship with food. I was under way. I was still bloated. I was still having issues. So I was like, stop, stop doing it. You know, I was like, what's going to happen if I actually just start eating things again? Like I had eliminated eggs from my diet because the medical medium said they were bad. And I had eliminated cauliflower and bananas from my diet because I was bloated when I ate them. And I was like, what did you just eat all these things? Because it had been a long time since I had like I had cut those foods out for a while. And I was like, I haven't eaten these in a long time. What happens if I just do it? And so I did. I just started eating everything again. I didn't eat gluten or dairy. I didn't include those, but all

1:06:59of the healthy foods like all of the fruits, all of the vegetables, all of the other whole grains. I started eating them again. I was like, I'm fine. I ate eggs. And I was like, I'm fine. I didn't eat red meat for a long time. I heard it's hard to digest. So I was like, well, I probably can't digest it. So I didn't eat red meat for probably years. I was like, what if I just eat red meat again? So I started eating red meat again. And nothing bad happened. And I was like, okay, you know, maybe I am okay to eat these foods. And I just stopped obsessing. I stopped the fear. And yeah, I haven't gone back since I just keep eating and adding more things into my diet, actually. When you started adding foods back in, were you carefully just, you know, like this week, I'll just add this back in and see what happens next week, or you're just like, okay, that's it. I'm just going to start a new and eat whatever I want right off the bat. It was a bit of a process, but it wasn't as strategic as it might have maybe

1:08:04should have been. I like didn't eat like eggs red meat and cauliflower all in one meal or anything. But I don't know, one day I was just like, why am I avoiding eggs? I was like, because medical mediums had to. And I was like, that's silly. So I was like, I'm going to start eating eggs again. And then I was like, why don't I eat red meat? And again, I was like, because I heard it's difficult to digest. I was like, but did I actually specifically notice symptoms when I ate red meat? No. So I'm going to eat that again. And I kind of just went through this process and for some foods I was reacting. So like I know cauliflower and bananas, for example, were two healthy foods that I was reacting to once upon a time. So yeah, one day I was just like, I'm going to try to eat a banana in my oatmeal or whatever. And I did. And I was fine. And I was like, okay. So then one day at dinner, I was like, I'm going to have cauliflower as my vegetable for dinner. And I was fine. So I just kind of strategic, not strategically, but slowly did reintroduce them. It wasn't all at once.

1:09:06But it was like this mindset shift of like, I'm just going to start eating things again. One by one and see what happens. And nothing happened. And why did you decide to continue not eating gluten and dairy? Because I did know that those were very dramatic reactions that I was having. Like when this all started, when I was having the stabbing stomach pain and the diarrhea, that was very clearly linked to gluten and dairy back then. The other symptoms, like some of the foods I just eliminated for literally no reason. So I was like thinking back on it. Well, there's no reason why I shouldn't be eating this. So I started adding it back. Cauliflower and bananas. It wasn't like I was having diarrhea or pain. It was more gas-bloting type symptoms. So I was like, that's not life-ruining. It's not great for the evening. But, you know, it's not going to destroy me. Whereas gluten, like for example, there was once upon a time, I had eliminated gluten from my diet. And then there was an incident about a year or two later

1:10:10where I accidentally ate gluten for three days in a row. I thought the product that I was eating was gluten-free. It had like a healthy label on it. It was dairy-free. It was vegan. It was this and that. And I just misread it. And I ate it for three days in a row. And I had the worst brain fog. I thought I was dying. I said, why can't I think? My brain is not working. Like it was scary. I ended up with an infection, a UTI. That's the only UTI I have gotten since I went gluten-in-dairy free seven years ago. And it was because I ate it. So I just was afraid, you know, like the reaction that I was having to gluten was pretty dramatic and bad. And I had an infection and I had brain fog and I had pain. And I wasn't prepared to try that again. Also, I have learned a lot over the years. The gluten in this country is not truly what it appears to be. It's not a whole grain. We strip it so that the nutritious part has been removed. That is for shelf life. They want the

1:11:14product to last a long time. So the bread on the shelf, that is gluten. If you actually read the ingredients, it says like enriched bleached wheat flour. It's not really gluten. There's also sugars and seed oils and all this other garbage added to it. So it's a highly processed food with really no nutrients in it. I don't want that anyway. However, I am going to Italy soon. And I do plan on trying their products to see how it goes. So to answer your question, I was afraid to eat it. And then I've done a lot of research and I know that the gluten in this country isn't great. So I don't really want it anyway. But I would try like a high quality organic sourdough. Or when I go to Italy, I will try some of their products because they just do things differently there. Their food is higher quality and see how I react. Because I don't believe I have celiac disease. The test said negative whether or not that's true. I don't know. But I have done a lot of work to heal my gut. He'll believe you got reversed my food sensitivities. I have added back

1:12:20some dairy products and I've been okay. So I am slowly getting there to see what I can tolerate. But I also don't want to go back in time and like eat all this junk either. Like that's not even what I want anymore. My mindset has changed and I like the way I feel. But it would be nice to know that I don't have to be afraid of like a restaurant, you know, like is this bun really gluten free kind of situation? But there's something else that you also, you went off birth control and you stopped taking antibiotics as well. Yeah. I went off birth control after 10 years. So from 18 to 28, I was on birth control and then I finally did some digging and did my research and I decided I do not want to be on this anymore. It depletes you of so many nutrients. And when you have been depleted of those nutrients for 10 years, bad things can happen. It also causes estrogen dominance. And if you do your research and you look up what estrogen dominance is,

1:13:22bloating is a major sign of estrogen dominance, mood swings, lots of different symptoms. So I did not want to be estrogen dominant. I did not want to have nutrient deficiency is I thought, you know, this is really counterproductive of what I'm trying to do. Like I'm trying to heal my gut. I'm trying to eat a nutrient dense diet. I'm trying to improve my digestion. I'm not going to be on something that is counteracting all of my efforts. So I decided to come off of it. And the other miraculous thing that happened was in high school, I had really horrific periods, like very painful. I remember like crying and having to come home from school because I was in so much pain. So I was a little nervous because I had been on birth control for 10 years and I was like, what's going to happen? You know, because when you're on birth control, you don't get a real period. You bleed, but you're not ovulating. So I was nervous to see what would happen. At this point, I had done a lot of work on my gut health on my health in general. And I was totally fine. Like I had zero pain, short

1:14:23light periods, no symptoms whatsoever. Like it's very common and normalized to say, oh, it's that time of the month, you know, watch out for someone so because they're moody and they're in pain and they have to call off work and they're hunched over and they get the heating pack out, it does not have to be that way. It was that way for me. And by working on my gut health, like I don't even care when I get my period, it doesn't matter to me because it does not impact my life whatsoever. So that was another thing that resolved by working on my gut health. Do you work with people who have these types of pre-menstrual cramp or syndrome because always you're bloated at that time too? It's kind of an all-in-one thing. Like my clients typically come to me because they're having gut issues. So they're bloated, they have food sensitivities, pain, diarrhea, constipation, whatever. But when we dig deeper, we find they also have terrible periods or they have anxiety and depression or they have X, Y, the even weight. Like I have so many clients

1:15:24that I work with that can't lose weight. And by the end of the program, even though I am not working on them specifically for weight loss, they lose weight. You know, they can fit into their pants better, their clothes fit better in general. I have clients who have working with their doctor reduced or come off of their depression and anxiety medication. And again, I am not a mental health program, but it's all connected. Like the gut in the brain are connected, our hormones are metabolized in our gut, our immune system is in our gut, our metabolism is in our gut. So by working on our gut health, we are improving all of the above. So let me just back up because you became so passionate about gut health that you decided to chuck in what you were doing, get certified in which I was really surprised to hear that you could actually become a certified gut health coach. So you decided to do that and then start this business. So what was the decision for deciding to do that? I became obsessed with gut health because of my own journey. I obviously had a lot going

1:16:27on. It was very difficult for me to get help. I was put down a lot of incorrect paths. I developed terrible relationship with food. I spent a lot of unnecessary money and it was a lot of zigzagging to get to where I'm at today. It just hit me like I can help so many people avoid this. Like I can help so many women not need this restrictive diet and not spend thousands on supplements and have someone who didn't just learn about it in a textbook but who lived it and can relate and can genuinely help you. I found that was an issue when I was trying to find help. Like nobody that I was working with had experienced what I had. Maybe they read about it in a textbook. They had like the education behind them, but they didn't live it. They didn't get it. They couldn't relate. Whereas I can truly relate to people who have these gut issues. I know how much it ruins their life. And I know how to get better. I know how to reverse these symptoms, how to improve your life, your social

1:17:27life, your sleep, everything improves once you start improving your gut health. And I just was no longer fulfilled in my job as like it was another analyst of the ship. I was like, you know, this isn't important to me. I'm not changing lives. I'm not helping people and I have all of this knowledge and that is what would make me happy too is like helping others. So yeah, I decided I'm going to go get certified, start my own business and start helping people so that can be happy and do what I want to do and help others also be happy and live their lives and get their lives back because yeah, it's, it's rough living that way. The course that you took, maybe what are the different elements of that course? Because I think it would be interesting for somebody else living somewhere else. Maybe to get certified in that as well if they thought they liked the content. Because there seems to be, there's this stress aspect of it as well. So it seems to be that there's a mental emotional aspect of it and it's not just clinical. No, it definitely. There are a lot of health coaching

1:18:32programs out there. I will say I specifically picked one that focused on gut health but also understanding that gut health is not just about what we eat. The program that I did was called the natural nutrition coach program. It focused on the four pillars of health, which is what I focus on in my own business now. Nutrition, sleep, stress management and movement because it all is connected. It was broken into three sections. Section one was like the content, the knowledge learning about how all of these pillars fit into gut health and other conditions as well because as we know, gut health really is the start of shawl. Then the second section is focusing on coaching, right? Because just because you know the knowledge doesn't mean you know how to coach someone through it. So step one, learn the knowledge, step two, learn how to implement it to help someone else, how to coach them. Step three was how to start your own business because you can't help anyone if you don't have a business. So that was the program that I went through, which it did teach

1:19:33me content for sure. But I will say lived experience is very, very important and you cannot replace that with a textbook in any way. Do you do any other types of wellness tools like meditation or yoga or I don't know? I do less traditional types and that is what I find is very important. You don't need to do like what's popular, what's cool, what's trendy to have wellness practices in place? Like for me, the most important thing is getting my sleep. So like I have a wind down bed type routine where like I get off technology by 9 p.m. I'll shower, I'll do like a stretch or I'll do like some sort of movement before I get into bed. I'll read before bed. That helps me unwind calm down. Same with the morning. I have like a morning routine where I don't use technology until after my breakfast. I'll also sit in a walk midday because I know

1:20:35like I need a break. I need to go move my body, get outside. I can't just be sitting all day long for additional movement. I do play fastball in the summertime, but I also like going to spin class once a week. I'm actually getting a gym membership again with my sister-in-law. We're going to start going to the gym a couple of times a week. I've been doing Pilates once a week because I like it. You shouldn't force yourself to go to the gym if you hate it. Like there are other ways to move your body. You don't have to go to Pilates if you don't like it, but it is about finding something, even if it's just a walk. Like I go for a daily walk. And yeah, all of that isn't a traditional wellness routine, right? Like I'm not cold plunging. I'm not meditating, but I went for a walk last night and I didn't bring my phone or any technology. I live in British Columbia. It's very beautiful here. So like that is a form of meditation in a way, right? Like I'm out there walking in nature without anything to distract me, and that helped me go to bed. It doesn't have to be

1:21:35your stereotypical wellness routine. It just needs to be something that is doable, works for you, and is sustainable. Like you can keep doing it. You are primarily helping women with bloating. So talk a little bit about your business and what it is exactly that you're doing. And because you've said you had a recent success story with a 60 year old client. Yes, I do not care how old you are. We can work on your gut health. Everybody has a gut microbiome no matter your age. And actually as we age, you might need a little bit more support because things like stomach acid, start to decline, hormones start to change. And it is all connected to your gut. In my coaching program, I work one-on-one with women who are struggling with floating food sensitivities, stomach pain, fatigue, weight issues, like menstrual issues, all the things because it does ultimately come down to the gut. We do not do strict measures. We do not do low-fod-map diet or

1:22:38any sort of crazy carnivore diet, any sort of diet of the sort. It is very individual. I do help my clients pick out supplements if they are required for them, but it is very minimal and it is now what we start with. We really focus on those four pillars of health, optimizing their nutrition, their movement, their sleep, and their stress management for their lives. I work with women in their 60s. I work with moms of four. I work with business owners. Everybody is different. Everybody has different priorities in their life, different schedules. I do not tell anyone what to do or what to eat. I work with them to figure out what works into their, what will fit into their life, and what will help optimize their gut health. It really is a whole big picture approach. For example, that six-year-old woman that I worked with, she was having gut issues, literally her whole life. I met her actually at a local event and she messaged me. I was like, I have had these gut issues literally forever. I could not remember a time when I did not have stomach pain,

1:23:42bloating, etc. Let's see what we can do together. When I told her what I do and that I do help people eliminate those food sensitivities and that pain, she laughed because she had been dealing with it for so long. She had seen so many naturopaths and practitioners. She was like, I'm willing to try, but she was a little skeptical because it had been her whole life and I don't blame her. It's hard to believe little all of me can help, but lo and behold, by the end of our time together, she did eliminate that stomach pain, the bloating. She regulated her bowels, she lost a significant amount of weight. She actually had saved all of her clothes that no longer fit. She self-proclaimed herself as a pack rat and a hoarder. She said, I kept all these things, not actually thinking I would ever fit into them again, but she tried them when we finished working together and all of them fit. She was so excited because she had a whole new wardrobe for the summer and not only that, she was also able to go out with her daughter and eat out

1:24:47and not be in fear. She just felt like she got her life back and I do have her testimonial on my website. There's proof of it if you want to go read it. Is it okay if I ask you what it was that she was actually doing in her life that contributed to this whole symptom? Yes. For her specifically, and this is not the same with everybody, she was a very anxious individual. She was dealing with a lot of stress, with work, with family, just with life. So we worked on stress management, also nutrition. Her nutrition was okay, but what I have found in my practice is that a lot of people believe they are eating healthy when they are not. And that is to no fault of their own. I know it is hard to see through the noise of social media and what we're being told and products advertising that they're healthy and heart healthy and this and that when they're loaded with sugar it's hard. It's hard to know if your diet is truly benefiting you, which is where I come in.

1:25:48We did work on improving her diet and I am very against heavy elimination. She was already gluten and dairy free. She knew that she needed to be. She wasn't very strict with it. So we did work on replacing the things that she liked because she loved pastries and she loved dessert and honestly, so do I. And there's nothing wrong with that. But there are better versions, as I mentioned, the gluten in this country isn't the best. So if you have gut issues and you want to work on improving your gut health, you may need to eliminate some of those foods that are not serving you, that are damaging your gut, but I help you replace them. So I have recipes and product suggestions that replace these things that aren't benefiting you so that you can still have them and still feel included and still feel like you're getting that treat in that dessert because, yeah, hardcore elimination and restriction just makes you want it more. And it's not sustainable to cold turkey quit sugar. Like no one's going to do that. I eat sugar every day. I just eat better

1:26:52versions of it. So I help my clients do the thing. So we did a lot of food swapping and we worked on stress management. She did get a lot of movement already. She worked on her feet. That was her job. And she slept well. She had a good like bedtime routine. So for her, it was diet and stress. That was like the main components of her journey. How did she relieve her stress? That's a tough one because stress is never eliminated, right? We can't quit our jobs. We can't get rid of our families. So we have to do what is in our control. And this looks different for everybody. It depends what works for you. Like I have clients who find exercise helps them with stress. So we make sure that they fit in movement every day to help with stress. I have clients who like meditation, like legit meditation. And they fit five minutes in the morning, five minutes in the evening to do that to help them unwind and start their day by myself. Walk. That helps me. I walk out in nature. That helps me with stress. Deep breathing is a big one with this client that

1:27:56actually the six-year-old client. We worked on breath work a lot because if you're stressed when you're eating, as I mentioned, you will not digest that food. So we worked on sitting down at the table, no distractions, no phone, no TV, no nothing, taking some deep breaths before you eat that meal, really chewing your food to applesauce consistency before you swallow so that you actually can digest your food. And it's often overlooked in its sound silly, but how you eat is more important in my opinion than what you eat. Because if you're eating at a very rushed, distracted state and you're stressed out, you won't digest it even if it's a healthy put together meal. So that was one of the things that we worked on together was getting in like a calm state before she would eat. Please don't tell me that you have to chew each mouthful like 20 times because I went through that phase at one point. There's nothing left in my mouth to chew. You do have to chew it pretty well. I mean, how many times is dependent on you, but yeah, you do need to chew your food well because

1:29:01your gut doesn't have teeth, right? And if you have an impaired digestive system, it's going to be way harder to break that food down if it's coming in massive chunks, whereas if it's already quite mushy and broken down. Let me ask you for a little bit of a quick tool that anybody can use that can help with their digestion if they're facing any issues. It's tough because there are so many things that can help and it's going to be individual. But if I think about what I see most common, it might actually be how you eat your food truly. Like everybody is so rushed in this world. Everybody is on the go. Everybody is trying to take care of their kids or their families. And nobody takes the time to sit down and just eat their meal, right? Like we're typing emails while we're shoving food in our mouths or we're on the phone, we're scrolling social media, we're in our cars. How you eat is so important. I cannot emphasize this enough. And that is one of the things that

1:30:04significantly helped me. I used to eat at the speed of life. It was a running joke in my family that like my plate would be spinning by the time I get up because I was eating so fast. And that's a problem because if you are eating that quickly, your body does not know that you are eating. So it does not produce stomach acid. It does not produce enzymes. It does not produce the gastric juices required to digest that meal. Same if you are distracted. If you're watching TV or you're typing an email or you're on social media, that's what you're focusing on. And your gut and your brain speak to each other. So if you are cooking yourself a meal, you're paying attention to that meal, you're smelling it. That's like your body preparing to eat. If you sit down at the table and you're now distracted by your phone or whatever else you're doing, that thought is gone. So you're now focused on the email or the TV. The stress of the email that you are typing, your co-worker is

1:31:07irritating you. That is causing stress. That is putting us into fight or flight. Your body cannot digest that food. I see it in everybody. And I'm not saying you need to now go from being distracted and rush that every meal to eating three meals a day perfectly. But I would say start with one. Like start with one. That is the easiest for you to do it. A lot of people I find it's breakfast, start your day without your phone without your TV, without the distractions, chew your food, and go from there. As you master breakfast, maybe you tackle lunch. And it doesn't have to be perfect every day. There are some days when I'm not perfect either. And I am watching TV while I have dinner with my boyfriend or something like that. That's life. You don't have to be perfect. But what you do most of the time is going to be very impactful. And it is the little things that really add up. And how you start your meal, how you eat, I would say is one of the most important

1:32:10pieces of digestion that gets overlooked. Well, is it you that was telling me that before you sit down to eat, take like three deep breaths? Yeah. And that kind of is a part of mindful eating, getting into a calm state before you eat. Because oftentimes we're working. We get a lunch break. So it's like you're working, working, stress, stress, stress. Let me just go eat my lunch immediately after when I'm still stressed. There was nothing significant that happened to turn that stress off. Taking those deep breaths, clearing your head, going for a walk after you eat too is also really beneficial. If you can manage that, that really helps prevent bloating and gas, gets digestion going. It could be five, ten minutes instead of just going back and sitting at your desk again. It all adds up and it is like people have said to me, they feel better just from doing that. They didn't do anything else yet. They just do that and they feel better. If people want to connect to your work, where can they reach you? Because you're on Instagram, and you have some quite some funny posts on Instagram. Thank you. Yes, I am on Instagram

1:33:14at Beyond.Bloaded. That is my most active social media. So yeah, you can follow me there. You can reach out to me on Instagram through the DMs. I love chatting with people. I also have my website beyond bloated.com. That's where you can find more information about my program. I have some free resources on there. If anyone would like to get started on their gut health journey, it's free to do so. And my podcast is also on my website, the Beyond bloated podcast. Yeah, I'm actually saved your podcast because I think I'm going to sort of stick to it. Yay, awesome. Well, let me know what you think. So all of those links will be in the show notes, everybody. It's been such an interesting conversation with you because you know, I have my own bloating issues. And I've had them often on, I don't know, ever since I had my child actually, that's been these about turn 19, so 19 years. And it's been up and down. But I can tell like we're the things where some of you say where I used to go walk after dinner, go and do like a 30-minute

1:34:15walk. And even when it was cold, and I would always feel so good after I did that. And after I had the first interview call with you, I started listening to some of the things you'd already told me. I was like, okay, now she said to go walk after your dinner. I would just go outside of my garden because I didn't want to go outside if it was too hot and just walk around just a little bit, and it makes a difference. And you're getting fresh air as well so that makes you want to sleep better. So it all adds up in little ways if you don't even think it does. So thanks so much for bringing all of that to light. And what's great is that you've been through everything yourself. So it's first-hand experience, you know, you've been through it and been through it for a long time. One thing I don't want to ask you, people could reach you internationally, right? You do through the internet. You don't have to go see you in person. Everything I do is virtual. So I have clients all over, not just in Canada. Okay, okay, that's good. All right. So is there anything else that you'd like to add to all that wonderful information you have already given? Yeah, I mean,

1:35:19honestly, it's hard for me to put my entire journey into like an hour and a half for whatever how long we've been speaking because it was quite the journey. I also do provide more like tips and tricks on how to start eliminating your bloat for free on my podcast. So like if someone wants to learn not just about me, but how they can actually start taking action on their own gut health. Like that is the place to be. I'm also very open-blook if someone wants to chat. And I do just want to leave everyone with hope as someone who went through it. I know what it feels like to be stuck and feel like this is my life. I just have bad genes. I'm going to have bad digestion forever. It sucks to be me. I had that pity party for myself, but I never gave up. And I did get there and you can get there too. It does take time. It does take effort. I can help you get there a lot quicker, but regardless, I do just want you to continue pushing and keep fighting for answers and keep working on your gut health because you do not have to love this way. I know what it's like to be

1:36:21stuck. You can un-stuck yourself, I promise. Great. I will be looking at your podcasts and at your tips and tools. Because why honestly, I'm at that point again where it's cyclical and where I am going through metapause and all of that leveliness that comes with that. It's been not so great all the time. So as I sit here doing the podcast, feeling my stomach. Yeah, it's rough. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry you're going through it, but please check out my podcast and I definitely will. I definitely will. So, well, we're coming to the end of our podcast, and I just want to thank you so much that was really, first of all, very interesting, very lively, so full of information, so full of stuff I've never even heard about tests I've never heard about. All right, listeners, I hope that you have enjoyed this podcast, and I hope that you have got some very useful information out of that. Please do reach out to Carly with any questions. Please do follow her because I think that there's some very good information in there,

1:37:23and if it's not for yourself, if you know anybody who's suffering from the bloat or from these other gut issues, please let them know about the podcast. Please let them know about Carly, because really, I can tell you firsthand that as Carly can being bloated is just not fun. It just really sucks. It does. Anyway, but let's leave that on a much higher note that we can work it out. You can figure it out, and she can help you do it. Absolutely. Until the next time, thank you, Carly, and thank you, listeners, and you have been listening to us, too, without the guru. Have a wonderful day wherever you are in this huge, beautiful world. Bye. Thank you so much. Bye.