Digestion Issues in Midlife: Causes, Solutions, and Taking Back Your Mornings

Now is the time , midlife is the time to take it back , because if you're not getting healthy now , if you've struggled , you've raised your kids , you've poured from your cup that is now empty .

You know , the reality is we all have to have sometimes where maybe we don't eat as healthy as we would like to eat and , considering that we are midlife women , sometimes that can be very costly in terms of how we're feeling . Our digestive processes work differently and we have to be more aware about what we put in our bodies .

But for those times where we weren't aware or we just ignored the warning signs , this is where my guests can really help you . I have with me today Melissa is it Kilpaki ? Melissa Hall-Kapaki ? Melissa Hall-Kapaki , and she's a wellness expert dedicated to helping people overcome health challenges and achieve optimal wellbeing .

And today we're going to be focusing on something that we just don't talk enough about , but it seems like we all have had this challenge , especially as we're aging , and that is constipation .

The topic of constipation I know it's not glamorous , but oh my gosh , can't you tell how it can impact your life when you are going through it and can't you tell how much better you feel when you are not ?

So today , Melissa is going to be sharing with us some tips and things of what we can do preventativelyatively , and also some information about why this happens in the first place . Melissa , thank you so much for being on the Vibe Living podcast . It's wonderful to have you here today .

A lot of us have kids that have gotten out of that very stressful toddler stage only to be replaced by bigger kids with bigger problems right when we got those teenage kids and beyond . Stress plays a big factor in that and I think a lot of habits a lifetime of habits will catch up with you .

And when we talk about constipation , I was a victim of really bad gut health and right around 2016 , I was suffering for a long time with Lyme disease and co-infections and was put on a lot of medications that really caused a lot of problems in my gut and I was really desperate for help with constipation and bloating and irregularity and just it was really

impacting my life . And I went to a gastroenterologist and he simply said drink more water , eat more fiber , take some Miralax , and I said okay . I said okay , I made my notes and I said so for how long ? And he said until you're fixed and I said well , what's going to fix me .

That's a bandaid and he just went exactly treating the symptoms , treating the symptoms . And so I left that practice and I went to functional medicine and she ran an in-depth gut study on me and I had wiped out all of my good bacteria . I wasn't even able to process fiber .

Every time I tried to eat things with fiber I would wind up bloated like a tick , and the reason was is because I didn't have the good bacteria there and so without that test I wouldn't have known that and without that test I could have tried to replace good bacteria .

But not knowing what you're replacing , what needs replacing , is really like a big giant guess , and it's an expensive guess .

And what happens a lot of times after a lifetime of just living , as you said , with toxins , but especially if you've had antibiotics and medication and other kinds of things like that it kills the good bacteria and basically you are left kind of undefended in your gut in terms of warding off all the toxins and things that we are exposed to in the course of a

lifetime . So , given that , what kinds of things can we do first of all preventatively to help improve our gut health ?

You can eat fermented foods , highly recommended . Take probiotics we know we need them , you just won't know which ones to take . But still , a recommended practice . Avoid things that are terrible for your gut health . We know that artificial sweeteners decimate the gut good bacteria .

We know that antibiotics a course of antibiotics can take six months to a year to recover from A lot of the foods that we're eating that are highly processed with the high fructose , corn syrups and the seed oils , are not doing wonders for our gut . We need to eat to feed our gut and I like to talk about the gut as a garden .

The word microbiome is thrown around a lot and a lot of people , I think , don't understand the word . It's complicated what's happening in our bodies , but most of the bacteria that we're talking about when we talk about gut health is in the large intestine and in the last part of the large intestine . So when we do the stool test right .

That's what we're looking at the stool and we're looking at good bacteria . We're looking at bad bacteria . We're able to look at whether people are sensitive to gluten . There's another one for people who are having a lot of gut problems , I highly recommend a gluten-free , lactose-free so gluten and dairy-free diet for 30 days to see if that makes a difference .

Realistically , it's not so much the gluten , it's the glyphosate , it's the chemicals that are sprayed in this country on our food that are not happening in other parts of the world . That's taking down our gut health and making the gluten react in our systems . And the dairy , for a lot of people , will shut down your bowels almost as much as an opioid drug .

If you've ever had to take a medication after a surgery , they always hand you a medication and some sort of laxative because they know it's going to constipate you . Milk can do the same thing for people . So if you're out there , you're listening , you're like I'm really constipated . I have a lot of people that come and say I poop once a week .

I've pooped my whole life once a week and that's been their normal , so they didn't really think too much about it , and the normal should be what Every day , once a day , every day , preferably in the morning .

That's what I work towards with all my clients and it's so important because that daily elimination you should think of as getting rid of the garbage , taking out the trash . If you had a house and you let your garbage back up for a week wouldn't be so nice in there .

offers them . Go to CVS pick up a laxative . You'll have a bowel movement . If you're trying to go with a gentler route to provoke a bowel movement , you can use something like a magnesium citrate . However , you need to be careful with dosing because it will cause what I call disaster pants if you take too much and you've got to be careful .

You want to make sure that if you're ever experimenting with anything that's going to cause any kind of laxative effect , that you're home and prepared Right . So I don't love quick fixes . I mean you can try things like MCT oil in your morning coffee to lubricate from the inside out . There are a squatty potty .

Make sure you're in the right position when you're pooping . Making sure you're getting exercise because if you're not moving your body , you're not moving your bowels . Making sure you're getting enough water Very important , not only enough water , but water with electrolytes .

If you're the kind of person that's like every time I drink more water , I just pee all the time . The water's not getting into your cells , it's running right through your body . So I recommend for all my clients to start your day with a big glass of water with electrolytes . Every water that follows that will it'll help that to stay in your body . Now when ?

It stands for Environmental Working Group . It's an amazing group that works to safeguard us from chemicals and toxic exposures . So ewgorg slash tapwater . When you go to that website you put in your zip code , it will pull up your water company and it will give you a full report of what's in your water .

All of the solids fall to the bottom , everything else is boiled out and I'm drinking that steam vapor that is then condensed back into water . I add liquid minerals back in to make sure that I'm mineralized . But that's what my family , my dogs , we eat and drink cook with . Reverse osmosis is also a great way .

You can get a small countertop system for reverse osmosis . That's my second favorite way . But I'm pretty strict about the water that I drink . I don't drink bottled water out of plastic . I might always always have a stainless steel water bottle with distilled water in it .

But getting back to the water and electrolytes , I understand the importance of electrolytes , but if you could explain to everyone why electrolytes are so important , especially during midlife .

You need to make sure you're not buying stuff with a bunch of artificial sweeteners , with artificial colors , with natural flavors . If you see that run , natural flavors means chemicals that are made up to taste like something like a banana .

It's time to start paying attention to personal care products , what we're using in and on our bodies , and remembering that everything we put on our skin is absorbed . Absolutely , and it's never too late to start making these changes , absolutely .

We were doing all the things for causes and we have a tendency to our whole medical system . Healthcare system is built upon solving and taking care of symptoms and not necessarily pulling back the layers and finding out what the cause of those symptoms might be and then healing the cause .

So , someone who is constipated , and they've taken the quick fixes and they're okay for a while , but a couple of days later they're right back in there again . What's the first thing they need to do besides running to the drugstore and getting some X-Labs , which is terrible ?

What do I do ? And he says we'll bring it in , we'll run some tests . If they said to you well , we're really not sure , we just pulled the plug on that light , it won't come back on , you're fine now and you just drove that car away , what do you think would happen ?

So when we band-aid our symptoms whether it's a headache or whether it's a tumor , right , whatever it might be and we're trying to band-aid it instead of figuring out why it's there , what's the message ? A symptom is just a messenger .

So if we're not figuring out why your car is broken and they send you on your merry way , you're headed for a breakdown For people . If you have headaches and you get a drug that just takes away the pain , something's still brewing . The reason that that headache was there is still brewing and it might now come out as eczema .

So now you've got these headaches that are much more mild , because now you've got pain meds , but now you've got this raging eczema that you maybe take a steroid for or you put a cream on , still hasn't stopped the inside problem . So then it shows up as wild UTI infections , right .

All of that in Chinese medicine , which is where I study , is heat escaping the body . That's toxic heat , and so when we don't fix constipation , we are headed for more problems . And so when we don't fix constipation , we are headed for more problems . Constipation backs up toxins , back up right , and we are headed for problems .

So the answer to your question is we need to know the why . There are eight reasons Beyond . You had surgery . You have adhesions from having a C-section , anything that has been done to you that affected your bowels . There are eight reasons that people are constipated . Number one is dehydration .

People are having poops that look like goat pellets generally are dehydrated . Those people might be drinking enough water , but it's not getting into their cells , right .

Number two is diet . So not only the advice that Western Med gives , which is eat more fiber , which is great if you've got the good bugs in there that are going to help you break that down , right , and if not , we need to figure out what's missing so that you can start breaking down fibers . The good bacteria actually digest those fibers for you , right ?

So making sure we have enough fiber , if we're digesting it properly , is one . We talked about the power of gluten and dairy on the bowels , so we need to make sure that those are in check too .

When we talk about diet , and then we really just need to look at the amount of processed food we're eating Linus , in this country , diet is not good Standard American diet and I have clients that come in like this breakfast is a bagel with cream cheese and a coffee , lunch is two slices of pizza and a Coke , and dinner is a cheeseburger fries and a Sprite On

the regular . No fiber .

We failed our bodies in terms of how we eat , lack of exercise , not enough sleep , the stress within which we live our lives All of those things contribute . So I hear you preaching to the choir over here , although you know , given the fact that you know , we have to watch our processed foods and things that we're eating around that piece .

It's hard to for the average person to achieve all of that . But what I hear you saying ? If you can do bits and pieces of some of this , it will be much better than not doing any .

So not to be overwhelmed , but to take a look at what you can do , to make some incremental changes and it can go a long way , right , melissa , when you make those changes .

So you need to get it all out of your system and you need to be really strict . But for some people it's a huge piece of the puzzle , a huge piece Another piece . So that's , we talked about water , we talked about diet . The next piece is stress , stress and anxiety . So if you're like could be for me , listen to this .

I have a client wakes up at 6.15 in the morning , jumps out of bed , runs to the shower , brushes her teeth in the shower quick shave , jumps out , wraps her head in a towel , runs down , puts the coffee maker on , lets the dogs out , runs back upstairs , dries her hair , wakes the kids , runs back downstairs , grabs her coffee as she walks out the door , lets

the kids in , gets in the car and is at the train station at 6.43 . There was no time to poop . Yep , I remember those days . Yeah , that is what we are doing as a society , and so part of the work that I do with people is rebuilding lifestyles and making small changes . I always say simple changes , better choices , that's it .

We're not trying to solve huge problems overnight . We're not going to get overwhelmed , like you said right , but if that is you in the morning and you are not pooping , it's a great place to start making changes .

I have about 16 ounces of water next to my bed with a lime in it , and I drink that every morning before I get up , and the other thing that I do , of course . Now I work from home and have been for 17 years . Prior to that , I was a mess when it came to my routine . I have four little girls .

They're now grown but , to give you an idea , they're all close in age . The oldest one is soon to be 40 and the youngest one is 32 . So they're all close to basically be pregnant .

For 10 years and I was climbing the corporate ladder , traveling everywhere on my second marriage , and one day I woke up and finally you know how they say when you load up your closet and you open up the closet door one day and things are falling out , you push everything back in right , and then one day you forget all that stuff is

in there , and so you go and you open up the closet door . Just all comes falling out . Well , that was me . A little bit of a tear ran the next morning , one morning , and all of a sudden it all came out and I could not put it back in .

I ended up having to go to ER because tears were coming out of my eyes , but I was like I'm fine , I'm okay , it's fine . You say allergy , whatever . My family was like mom , something's wrong with you . My husband was like what's going on ? So come to find out . Of course I was exhausted .

I also was suffering from an anxiety disorder , and I found out many years later that there were all kinds of reasons why I had the anxiety post-traumatic stress , because of how I found out that my mom died . She was hit by a fire truck on her way to work , so that was really traumatic .

And I had just had a baby , and so my hormones were already interesting . The baby was five weeks and I had 17 months old also , so I hadn't really gotten over that pregnancy either , because when you have them close together like that , that's great in some ways , but really hard on getting a hormonal balance when you do that . So I had that going on .

And then , of course , I was climbing the corporate ladder , traveling all the time and not dealing with any of my emotions . I was a dancer part-time and I would always have rehearsals and things . While the girls were at one rehearsal , I was at my rehearsal all these things . Now they were eating healthy because I knew better .

I was a nutrition minor in college , so they were eating healthy . I was cooking everything from scratch . I would get home with my heels , still on my suit , still on , drop my Franklin planner and run and start doing all fresh food , dinner , running baths , helping with homework .

My husband would be sitting down watching the evening news , which is the reason why we ended up divorcing , you know , and I'm right around doing all this stuff . And finally I hit the wall at 51 and I had to make some decisions and one of the decisions I made was , first of all , to leave corporate America . But I began to build my own morning .

It started with the mornings , my own morning routine . That was just mine , because I never had my mornings For years . I didn't have them because they were all belong to the girls . But now I wake up in the morning .

I drink my water , I do some gratitude journaling , I go for a walk , I have my protein smoothie , I do my prayer lines and then I might drink a cup of coffee and then I'm ready for work . But it took me a long time to figure out what works for me . But I knew that I had to do something because it was important . I feel like I saved my life .

A lot of people say , well , wow , you don't look 67 . But I guarantee you , if I had continued living that way , I would probably look if I was still alive . I would probably look exactly my age and then some . But it started with making a decision to leave my job . But the other part was incremental changes over time and figuring out what works for you .

So I really like the idea that you talked about that morning , because so many women don't give themselves permission to take care of themselves in the morning .

I also go to bed at nine o'clock but there's nothing for me at night , the nighttime , there's nothing exciting . My life starts . I love a quiet morning and it's exciting , and I do my little journaling and all the work that I do , and then I make my coffee and and get started with my day . But , you know , usually at seven . But take your mornings back .

Now is the time , midlife is the time to take it back , Because if you're not getting healthy now , if you've struggled , you've raised your kids , you poured from your cup that is now empty . Now is the time to fill it , because on the other side it's not so great . All these chronic diseases are popping up .

You know , talk to your friends that are on four and five medications . It's not fun , you know , and but it starts now . It starts today .

So if you're listening and you're constipated and you have a litany of medications , talk to your prescribing doctor . Explain that you're constipated , that you want to poop every day , cause if he says three times a week is fine , it's not . It's not you need to be pooping daily . But there are medication switches . That can happen . There are . Sometimes .

They can move you to a different medication that has the same effect that has less constipating quality . So that's something to think about . We always talk about that first because if you're taking a drug that's constipating you and you're trying to fix your constipation , you're going to be banging your head against a wall , right .

The next one is a sluggish liver . You know , between the high fructose corn syrup and the processed foods and the amount of alcohol we're drinking in this country , there is non-alcoholic fatty liver disease rampant . So when your liver cells swell , the bile that's being produced isn't getting out .

Without that bile , we're not grabbing onto toxins and the liver's not able to really do its job Without that bile the quality of your poop . So we need liver and gallbladder to be doing their jobs and sometimes it's as easy as in Chinese medicine we say , tonifying the kidney and liver . There's plenty of herbs that really just help to support that function .

So we just take a look at that . For a lot of people that's a piece , and of course we don't just take a medication . We look to lifestyle . So if you're drinking too much , you need to change your habits . If your life is full of processed foods and high fructose corn syrup , you're drinking soda every day . We need to change habits .

It's as simple and complex as that . Let's see reason number five low minerals . We know magnesium has a direct effect on the bowels . Magnesium citrate will produce a bowel movement if you take enough , and sometimes violently . So don't take too much magnesium citrate . But all of us are low in magnesium .

I've yet to see somebody who's who's been tested that has an adequate level of magnesium . Not only that , but the rest of the minerals are essential too . So if we don't have enough minerals , we don't have enough energy . If we don't have enough energy . We can't contract muscles . Without contractions in the bowels we can't poop .

So for almost everybody I've every single person I've worked with goes on a multi-mineral supplement . It's that important . You know , we used to get a decent amount of minerals and we were more worried about vitamins . Multivitamins were all the rage . Now it should be a multi-mineral . That should be what we are all taking . Our soil is very depleted of minerals .

You know they talk about the orange that you ate versus the orange that your grandmom ate .

You definitely want to get the black clay-type sticky form and not one that's been processed , but you want to get it in the form almost like a clay form , and I just put a little bit of hot water .

That's what I drink in lieu of my coffee first thing in the morning , because I still wanted to have something hot , and I used to be a big tea drinker back in the day . But a lot of times what happens ?

As we age , our taste buds change , and sometimes the taste buds change for a reason , because sometimes your body will give you certain clues like okay , you don't need to be doing that anymore , try doing this .

So I kind of stopped drinking some of the teas I used to drink and I replaced it with the Shilajit and I used some in the morning , and that really does help . Now , the last time I had my panels drawn , the one mineral that I was deficient in , of course , was magnesium , so I had to take a supplement for that .

But the other ones I was doing okay , even zinc , which sometimes is another one that we have a tendency to be low on . But Shilajit is something that I've used . I'm just sharing with everybody . I always say that I'm just sharing this with you .

I'm not saying that you have to do this , but this is something you might want to take a look at , because I believe , melissa , that we have to have various kinds of things in our toolkit for our health .

Some of those things work fine for a while and then something changes our environment , the chemical makeup of our bodies , our hormones , whatever and then all of a sudden it just doesn't seem to work anymore .

That's okay , because the good thing is that if you have been gathering knowledge and checking things out , you're aware of maybe something else that you can do .

And another thing I wanted to say , too , about gathering this knowledge it's great to be listening to this podcast , it's great to be taking notes , it's great to be getting all this information that gives you power .

But acting on the information that you have , actually contacting Melissa and scheduling a consult , actually doing some of the things that she's suggesting that's powerful , because that's when you're going to actually get the results .

And what happens a lot of times is it's not that we know better , we just don't do better , because it means making change , and I know that change can sometimes be difficult , but it can be so much more worth it .

You're going to listen to me list the rest of the causes and you can be like maybe it's that , maybe it's that , maybe it's that . Or you work with someone and you do some gut testing and we're going to talk about gut testing in a second and you get a true picture of actually what's going on and then you got a framework for healing .

But if you don't know what's happening , how can you fix it ? Right now , you might know you're constipated , but that's it , because most doctors will tell you we don't know why , just take this medication , right .

So maybe it's the food , maybe it's the water , maybe it's the liver , maybe it's the anxiety , maybe it's other medications , maybe it's the minerals Number seven , maybe it's mold and parasites .

If you continue to cover it up with Glade plugins and air fresheners , that problem is just getting worse . Same thing with your body If you just to cover it up with Glade plug-ins and air fresheners , that problem is just getting worse . Same thing with your body If you just keep covering up with Band-Aids and medications . Something's brewing right .

So we need to look for mold in our house . I encourage everybody who says maybe I have a mold problem , if you've seen something , if you have water

stains , if there is a definitive mildew smell , or if you go into your bathroom and you lift the back of the toilet off and you look in that well and there is black mold , you have a mold problem .

Because what it's telling us is there are mold spores in the air and mold spores grow on water , and that's one place in your house that you have standing water and so that's a great place to check to see if you have a mold problem . That would need remediation . But mold shuts down your bowels .

Most people will be completely constipated if they've had a toxic mold exposure that they haven't gotten over . There are ways to release it from your body and to detox , but it should be considered , if you know we need to figure out whether that's an underlying root cause for your constipation . And the same thing with parasites .

And unfortunately there are no good testing for parasites , because parasites don't live , they don't hang out in your intestines , they live in your tissues . So it's not like you could have a colonoscopy and the doctor's going to be like oh , I see a lot of parasite .

In fact , I had a colonoscopy and made the mistake of asking my doctor to look for parasites and he smirked at me and then did a parasite cleanse six months later and passed a massive tapeworm myself . Myself saw it with my own eyes , and so that's showing you that they don't live right sort of in the digestive tract . They live in the tissues .

But you can imagine if you're full of parasites that tube goes from being nice and wide with poop passing through , to kind of squished . You've got swollen tissues , so we need to get parasites out . If that's the case , I will also say that anybody that I've worked with that has done a parasite cleanse . 100% of people have seen parasites in their stool .

But if , if you've got a parasitic issue , you're not going to be pooping , well , not only that , but you're going to be extremely nutrient deficient and probably fatigued over time , because those parasites snatch up all the nutrients . They also do some good things . They're also going after your radioactive elements .

It's the only way that we're pulling radioactive elements and storing them in our body . The parasites are eating those up . They're also eating up Lyme disease or any kind of bacterial infection you might have . They're eating up heavy metals . So they do have a purpose , but we want to keep them at a very low level .

Right , the native americans cleansed regularly and we sort of have lost that . In india they're still cleaning , cleansing regularly , and we just don't do it in this country . It's a shame .

So if you're constipated , even if you've got parasites , we can't just go right for parasite cleansing because imagine you're killing parasites . They're sitting now . They're going to sit in your colon dead , releasing whatever , releasing the contents of their guts . You need to get that out . You don't want that reabsorbed .

So we do work to move the bowels regularly before we start a parasite cleanse . So that's number seven is really mold and parasites . And then number eight is just gut dysbiosis and you don't know what's going on in the gut until you test . And so we do a simple at-home stool test .

You get a kit sent to your house , you do it in your bathroom , you send it back via FedEx Like no embarrassment , right ? No muss , no fuss , no expensive doctor's appointment and you will get a five-page test back , which is remarkable . It tells you everything that's going on in your gut . It tells you all the bad guys whether they're there .

It looks for H pylori , which can bea cause of constipation , because H pylori , though it affects your stomach , it reduces your stomach acid and without enough stomach acid you're not digesting your food . And when undigested food makes it into your gut it's hard for it to process and takes longer , which winds up with constipation . So it tells us about that .

It looks for viral pathogens like

adenovirus and norovirus . If you've recently been sick and it was viral , this would pick that up . It looks for inflammatory and autoimmune related bacteria . You know a lot of these autoimmune diseases are starting in our gut and can be traced back to bad bacteria in the gut . Eradicate the bacteria , lose the symptoms .

I see rheumatoid arthritis reversed all the time . But we have to be thinking about the gut and taking care of the gut when we see autoimmune diseases and skin conditions .

The test also tests for fungi and candida , which is a problem for a lot of people , viruses like cytomegalovirus and Epstein-Barr , and then it takes a good look at all the bacteria that are supposed to be there and it tells you what your levels are and then , based on that , you'll know maybe you need more lactobacillus , maybe you're low in acromantia and you can

take that specific supplement , instead of guessing with a general probiotic right . We know exactly what needs to be replaced . And the coolest part of the test for me as a gut health expert is the intestinal health markers , which tell me how strong your stomach acid is . How well are you digesting proteins and fats ?

It tells me , you know , your immune system starts in your gut . There's a secretory IGA level , so it'll tell me how is your immune system in your gut . It'll tell me if you're sensitive to gluten .

A lot of people will come in and say , oh no , no , I have no problems with gluten , but we take this test and their numbers off the chart , which is causing tons of inflammation in the body , and that also gets picked up on the test .

So it's beautiful and it gives us an even better framework , because now we know exactly which bugs we need to kill , which things we need to replace , what needs repairing , and then we've got that framework .

Well , if you have an unhealthy gut , the chances of you having even more brain fog multiplies , because that nerve that stretches into the gut , into the brain , you know it's going to take the blood supply to the brain and the blood is going to be full of whatever is down there in the gut .

And if you have an unhealthy gut , then you're going to have brain fog . And if you're already going to menopause , then it's a double whammy of even more brain fog . And it's really amazing too , because that also could be one of the reasons why people are like we kind of touched upon this earlier feeling anxiety , depression .

So much of that can be rooted in the gut . Now , we could talk about this forever , but I really want all of you listeners . You know I talked about the fact that you know acting on information is powerful . I need you to contact Melissa Hall and say your last name , kopaki . Kopaki yes , I'm going to have her link is in the show page there .

Go ahead and contact her and find out about her services . This is something that you don't want to sit on . And actually , this is the first gut health expert we've had on this year . So , therefore , start your year out right .

Find out what's going on Remember , knowledge is power and acting on it is powerful and also think about how much better you're going to feel . I know that some of this can be intimidating , overwhelming , maybe even scary , but once you find out what's going on , then you're working with someone that can tell you what you need to do about it .

It's not like there's not solutions for some of these things that we're feeling . I know that just about , oh about three or four weeks ago , I was so gassy I couldn't figure out In my mind . I'm thinking I haven't eaten anything differently than I have before .

Then I began to start really I start taking writing a food log to figure out what it was , and it was something that before I could eat , no problem . But now something's changed . I can no longer eat my favorite yogurt . I just can't . I just can't .

Now , butter doesn't seem to bother me , other things with lactose doesn't seem to bother me , but I just can't do the yogurt . And that was the first thing I thought . Oh no , it's not that because I've been eating that for years . Remember I said earlier . Things change and your body does talk to you ,

but you got to listen . You got to listen instead of trying to figure out a way to shut it up .

Oh my God , don't spray that stuff in here . I hate Lysol spray . I hate it with a passion . I'd wake up and he would be spraying this . Oh my God , don't spray that stuff in here . I hate Lysol spray . I hate it with a passion . So , anyway , that's what it was , and as soon as I stopped doing that , within a week , that stopped as well .

And before not a problem . And supposedly , yogurt . Greek yogurt is good for gut health . But I just had to find something else . I substituted it with sauerkraut . Now sauerkraut's my best friend . Oh great , good choice . I do . I eat sauerkraut all the time . It's an acquired taste , but now I crave it , and that's the other thing .

Too Many times , as you're making these lifestyle changes and you settle on something that seems to work for you , you'll find that your body will let you know that it's working because you'll begin to crave that thing and you'll let go of other things that aren't good for you .

You'll stop having a taste for some of those things when you start correcting and find out what's going on with you , it's amazing how the cravings for bad stuff stops because you've addressed what was causing the craving in the first place .

And the next thing you know , and it's a great way to drop weight in a healthy way , by taking a look at your gut health Instead of trying to do all these good diets and everything else . The answer to weight loss , I feel in many cases , is in the gut . It really is . It's all about what you put foods whole foods , nourish yourself .

But wherever you might listen to this maybe 2027 , who knows but I but wherever you might listen to this maybe 2027 , who knows but I'm so glad that you stopped through and don't forget to click on the link of Melissa's information and also check out the Vibe Living Women Network .

That is my network of subscription programs , where we have 18 experts in the field of health and wellness that write blogs . They also do workshops that are free . The field of health and wellness that write blogs . They also do workshops that are free and they also have online courses on this site . So take a look at the Vibe Wellness Woman Network .

It is probably one of the best investments you will make in your health . It is not expensive at all . It can add so much value . Thanks so much for listening . Everybody . Have a fantastic day and don't forget to vibe Bye-bye everybody . Thanks for listening to the Vibe Living Podcast and don't forget to subscribe , like and comment and share this podcast .

Have a fantastic day and don't forget the vibe . Bye-bye everybody .