Summary:

In this episode of Wellness Your Way, Megan Lyons interviews Lisa Smith, a functional medicine practitioner and dietician. Lisa discusses her approach to health, focusing on the three Rs: removing what hinders someone from feeling their best, replacing what they’re deficient in, and restoring them back to good health. She also talks about her transition from a brick-and-mortar practice to a virtual one. Lisa emphasizes the importance of gut health, explaining that 95% of our serotonin is made in our gut and 70-80% of our immune system is housed there. She also discusses common digestive conditions like leaky gut and candida, and suggests adding a diversity of vegetables to our diet to improve gut health. Lisa is also a podcaster, hosting the show Pretty Well.

Full Episode:

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Transcription:

Megan Lyons:

So thank you so much to you, Lisa Smith for coming on Wellness Your Way. I am so excited to have you here.

Lisa Smith:

Thank you, Megan. I’m so excited to be here talking with you.

Megan Lyons:

Yes. Well, I know you because of our previous conversations and I’ve just read your formal bio to the audience, but please tell us in your words a little bit about you.

Lisa Smith:

Oh, I’d be happy to. So I am a functional medicine practitioner. I am a dietician, so I focus mainly on the nutrition piece, the lifestyle pieces, nutritional supplementation. And I like to say I focus on what are called the three Rs. Megan, what do we need to remove that’s hindering someone from feeling their best? What do we need to replace that they’re deficient in and what else do we need to do to restore them back to good health? And that’s always a mind body spirit approach. It takes a look at the whole person. So that’s what I do. You and I chatted briefly before and I shared with you that I am transitioning out of my brick and mortar practice that I’ve been doing for years and have loved, I feel super fortunate that a functional medicine MD has come in and decided to buy my practice. So we are in that funny, weird transition stage and eventually I will be moving toward a virtual practice, but that’s what I do. I’m also a podcaster. I have the podcast pretty well, and that’s a mom and a wife. And that pretty much sums up right now in a nutshell.

Megan Lyons:

So you have so much going on and you are incredible from what I know at all of it. I just can only imagine all the emotions that are going through your mind and your body at all times in transitioning your practice. And I’ll also put a plugin for your podcast, which is fantastic. So whatever way you’re sharing your knowledge and your wisdom and your insights, it’s great. And I’m glad that we get to do some of that here today.

Lisa Smith:

Thank you. I am too. You and I spoke before you were on pretty well, one of my favorite episodes ever. And so I have been really looking forward to talking with you today. So thank you.

Megan Lyons:

Amazing. Well, thank you. And let’s start with some of the basics. You are an expert in gut health and a lot of people when I start talking about gut health, they’re like, oh no, what comes out in the toilet is fine. I’m like, oh, wow, there’s so much more. So can you just tell us why is gut health so important overall?

Lisa Smith:

I sure can, and I think that’s a really important question that you bring up because I believe that people, people’s eyes are now glazing over. They’ve heard so much about the gut, they’ve heard so much about the microbiome and gut health, and they’re like Charlie Brown’s mother, like WW, please stop. And I get it because our eyes do glaze over and our ears get dull because we get tired of hearing similar messages over and over again. But when we really do a deep dive and think about what the gut represents in our whole being, it’s mind blowing. So 95% of our serotonin is made in our gut, and that is the neurotransmitter, the brain hormone, that helps us to feel like everything’s okay. That helps us to not feel anxious, that helps us to feel like our life is good and we’re content and we’re joyful, and we don’t have all those things that make us feel so out of control.

So you can imagine that is one tiny, that’s the dust on the iceberg of what the gut does. The gut does so much more than that. But if we just take that one tiny piece and we realize if our gut is not well, we are not mentally well, we are not emotionally well. And another really big pillar in that, I mean we could unpack that for the whole podcast, but let’s just rest with that for a minute. Another big pillar of the gut is 70 to 80% of our immune system is housed in our gut. So not only if it’s not well or we’re not mentally emotionally well, we don’t feel calm, we’re in this chronic state of fight or flight. We can’t get into that parasympathetic rest and digest, but also we don’t have good immune function. You can tell those are two things I mentioned in three minutes that if we don’t have those, we’re not living our best lives for sure.

So that’s just the start of it. And the other cool thing is the microbiome influences every organ of our body and the gut, it’s so fascinating, I could nerd out forever with you on this, but the gut is called our second brain because it has its own nervous system. And for our listeners, if you ever think of do you get a gut feeling well, there’s a reason for that. Your gut is the second brain. It is a more primal, instinctual way that we interact with our world. And so if the gut isn’t reading things right or if the gut’s off, again, we are not balanced. We’re not feeling like all is well. So that’s my quick and dirty of why the gut is so important. Of course, there’s more than that.

Megan Lyons:

That was a fantastic overview. You summarized it really well, and we know now a little bit about why gut health is so important. Let’s talk about why most of us don’t have a healthy gut to start out. And we’ve also heard over and over and over, leaky gut, leaky gut, leaky gut. So everyone’s heard leaky gut, but they don’t really know what it is. Can you tell us from your expert perspective, what is leaky gut and how would someone even know

Lisa Smith:

If they had it? Sure. I like to explain leaky gut this way because again, just a quick story. I went to a doctor I used to go to and I said, I think I have leaky gut. And he literally laughed at me and he said, I’ve never heard of such a thing. And basically treated me like I was ridiculous. He’s also the same doctor who told me didn’t have that food. Sensitivities were not a thing, you either had an allergy or not. So obviously I don’t have the same doctor anymore, but the way I like to describe leaky gut is if you think of your digestive system and the simplest terms like a hose, you just went out to Lowe’s or Home Depot and you bought a brand new hose, spring is coming, you’re going to water your garden. So it’s perfect. And think about that from your mouth to your butt.

You got this hose, this brand new hose, don’t even think about the organs. And it does what it’s supposed to. Just like when you attach your hose to your spigot on the side of your house, the water comes out and it goes out your hose, the same thing. You put food in your mouth and eventually your body does what it needs to with the food, and the rest of it comes out. Well, if you had a bratty little neighbor kid who came over when you weren’t looking and took some nails or pins and put holes in your brand new hose and you went to water your garden, then yes, you would still get some water out, that’s for sure. But you’re going to see these little springs popping up all through the hose. That is a great illustration of what happens with leaky gut. And the problem with that is, is those particles, even though they still are microscopic, by the time they’re leaking out, they’re still too big for our body to use effectively.

And now they’re seen as a threat, just like a bacteria or a virus. So the body and the brain and the immune system look at that and say, that’s not good. That’s a threat, that’s a problem. And now inflammation goes through the roof and you have these gut issues, and often you have far more issues, systemic issues, all throughout the body. So that’s leaky gut. Fantastic. What causes, oh, go ahead. I was just going to say I like to use the picture. It can be really hard to figure out what does that mean? Yes. But when you see that, yeah, so what causes it? So many things cause it the first thing I think of, and it’s just because this is where I go with it, doesn’t mean it is the first thing. But I always think food sensitivities and food sensitivities are like a chicken or an egg, which came first, the food sensitivity or the leaky gut.

But it really doesn’t matter once you get into the cycle because one causes the other to get worse and worse and worse. So if you have food sensitivities or a food allergy, which is slightly different, but they’re both immune responses, then you are causing gaps in the tight junctions or what are the tight cells in that hose causing those little springs, those little leaks. So what happens then is you start to get this leaky gut, but when you get leaky gut, because more of the foods you eat are getting through that barrier before they should, now your immune system sees those foods as a threat. So the more you eat something, the more it becomes, you have more food sensitivities to what you like and eat. So people will say, oh my gosh, I ran this food sensitivity test and everything I like and eat is on there.

That’s not a coincidence. That’s because that’s how that cycle works. Some other things that are terrible for our gut roundup, and no one’s going out and consciously eating Roundup, but we’re eating Roundup every day. And if we’re not defensive shoppers, meaning if we don’t look at our food labels and look at the foods we’re buying, we are getting significant amounts of Roundup in our system. And that puts holes in our gut worse than a lot of things. And then certain drugs, certain medications, certain things like NSAIDs, ibuprofen, and those can really attack the gut. And then some other viruses. What have you found? There are so many things that can contribute to leaking gut, but those are the big ones. Candida, h pylori, those are my big rocks in the jar.

Megan Lyons:

I completely agree with all of those. The one that I think we haven’t covered yet that I find to be a common source is stress. Now is stress again, the chicken or the egg. Is it that your poor gut function then makes you more predisposed because you can’t produce all the serotonin, dopamine, et cetera, and then you feel more stressed and anxious and it’s a cycle that way, or did stress the other way? Cause some of the leaky gut. I just do find in a lot of patients with leaky gut that they tend to be, and myself included, more of the high strong type A stressed out people. And I don’t think it’s just a correlation. I think there’s something there

Lisa Smith:

That absolutely, I have found the same exact thing and I’m in the same camp with you, so I totally get it.

Megan Lyons:

Yes. I think it was really interesting the way you described food sensitivity. So I’m going to try to say it again the way you said it for the benefit of the audience and then see it. You could tell me if that’s correct, the way you described it. So let’s say a person has a sensitivity to, I don’t know, walnuts or something like that, and what’s happening when they eat walnuts, then this is just causing a little bit of leakage, like the pesky neighbor kid poking a hole in the hose. Then that leakage incites this immune attack. So a little fragment of walnut gets into the bloodstream, microscopic particle, the immune system says, oh my gosh, well not supposed to be in here. It flags it, it causes this immune response, and then because there’s inflammation in there, then maybe they’re eating spinach the next day or almonds or something that they initially did not have this food sensitivity to. But because the gut’s so leaky and there’s inflammation, then it’s like this vicious cycle. Then all of a sudden, because you’ve been eating almonds all the time, you develop a food intolerance to that and on and on and on. Is that correct?

Lisa Smith:

Yep, that is correct.

Megan Lyons:

Amazing. I think it’s important for people to hear that that is the way it happens as opposed to just, oh, I was born with this food sensitivity to 49 different things. I find that rarely to be the case. It’s usually the leaky gut causing the food sensitivities and not just, you can never have these 49 foods for the rest of your life.

Lisa Smith:

Absolutely. And just an aside, something like gluten, there’s often the question of is it the gluten or is it that conventional bread and glutens are doused with Roundup and now the roundup has caused the damage and the inflammation and now the body sees gluten as a problem? So I’ve had many people say, well, are people just getting diagnosed more often with gluten sensitivity or has it always been around? It has not. And the gluten itself is a different strain. The wheat is different. It’s not what I grew up with. It’s not what our parents grew up with. So it’s different. Our food has changed, which means our gut health has been impacted because of those food changes.

Megan Lyons:

And unfortunately, it’s impossible to know. We don’t exactly know if it’s just the changing structure of the gluten proteins or if it’s the roundup or a combination of both that’s causing the issue. But it’s really, really hard, almost impossible to get ancient wheat without any roundup in the US these days. It’s more possible in Europe and other places, but it’s just hard. So most of the gluten we’re eating is in some way for someone with a sensitive gut could be causing some issues. Do you agree with that or would you adjust that?

Lisa Smith:

No, I agree with that. Absolutely. And I bet you have patients, and I do too, who have said, I can go to Italy and eat gluten, but I cannot eat gluten here. Yes, absolutely. They are more traditional, more of what we used to have decades ago, and it’s just different now. So I agree a hundred percent

Megan Lyons:

Really tough. Hopefully the food supply will change. We all got to do our little part. I don’t think one person can change it all, but we’re chipping away.

Lisa Smith:

Yeah, I think we all have to be part of that solution for sure.

Megan Lyons:

Amazing. So let’s say you have someone who has leaky gut and the treatment is always going to be individual based on their unique symptoms and body and all kinds of things. But what are some of the common interventions that you might run on someone with leaky gut?

Lisa Smith:

Yeah, so remember when we talked about those three Rs, what do we remove? What do we replace? What do we restore? So initially what I’ll do is a deep dive. I’ll do a deep health history, life history, nutrition history, and take a look at what do I think is a low hanging fruit. If I see this person eats gluten three times a day, every day, I’m thinking, we got to look at that or say it’s something else. Say they do eat lots and lots of almonds, or they eat lots of something that’s a red flag because first of all, it’s imbalanced. And second of all, there’s a likelihood there’s a sensitivity there. Some other things I look to remove and look for things that could be pathogens, like is there an h pylori overgrowth, is there a candida presence that’s an overgrowth? Are there some toxins that are getting in?

Are they eating a standard American diet that’s just wrecking them? So that’s the first thing I look at. What do we remove? And then I look at what do we replace? What are just some normal things that bring about normal function? So for instance, we all digest our food with enzymes. We make them in our gut and we use hydrochloric acid to break down our proteins. So many of us are deficient in that. So I look at what are some obvious deficiencies, even B vitamins, those help us to digest our food properly, magnesium. So I’m looking at what are obvious things that I replace, and then I start looking deeper. What do we need to do to restore that gut health? And that’s when repair starts to come in. That’s when you start to replace things at a deeper level. So you’re repairing, you’re repopulating the gut. And that’s when I’m looking at specific probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics, as well as some reparative, like some very specific supplements and herbs like L Glutamines and Carnasine Allo, slippery Elm, marshmallow, those kinds of things.

Megan Lyons:

That’s really amazing. Postbiotics are such a new field and I am constantly trying to stay on top of the emerging research, but it’s still something that I feel a little bit nebulous about. You feel excited about Postbiotics, is that true? I

Lisa Smith:

Do. And I feel like you, I’m just learning what is this? So it’s the foods that make short chain fatty acids, which become the fuel for your gut. So sometimes you can just take a supplement that’s a short chain fatty acid or you can start to bring about more foods that your body likes that helps you make more of them. So there’s specific fibers for the most part.

Megan Lyons:

Amazing. And this is where people may have heard of resistant starch powder or butyrate, which I’m shockingly getting a lot of people asking, Hey, I saw butyrate on Instagram or something. Do I need to take that? I think these are really, really interesting and I would say in most and many cases helpful and we’ll probably know a lot more in the upcoming years. I know lots of people are working hard on this.

Lisa Smith:

Yes, I have experimented with butyrate myself and I like it. I do, I like it. I’m not sure that I could give you a specific why I like it and I don’t know, do you do this? I try everything on myself first before I ever have a patient or client try anything. I try it first because I want to know what is that experience? Is it worth the money? Is anything, are there any side effects that I want to be aware of? So I’ve been trying butyrate and I like it.

Megan Lyons:

Amazing. I do do that much to the chagrin of my supplement budget sometimes, but it’s really fun to try all that stuff and test. I test labs on myself all the time, but I have not yet tried butyrate, so I will add it to my list and I will let you know. Thank you for that.

Lisa Smith:

Okay. Okay. Just for brands, I’ve found Body Bio, I like that one. And there’s another one from Designs for Health and I think it’s like Tri Butyrate. I forget that one.

Megan Lyons:

I’ll look into them. Thank you.

Lisa Smith:

Sure.

Megan Lyons:

Alright, let’s talk about leaky gut and autoimmunity. They have an interesting and close relationship. Can you tell us about this and why this stuff is kind of increasing in prevalence these days?

Lisa Smith:

Yeah, I sure can. And even firsthand, I have Hashimoto’s, so my youngest kiddo is now 18, so I’m sure he loves being called a kiddo. But after I had him gave birth to him, I was feeling extra tired, really tired, and I thought it was just postpartum fatigue, sleep deprivation. I had a little tiny toddler girl and this little baby boy and I thought, I’m just tired. And no lie, Megan, a friend came to visit me who’s more of like an acquaintance friend. She came to bring a gift for the baby and a meal. And she looked at me and I thought I was doing pretty well. I really did. I thought I was kind of hanging in there and a trooper and she looked at me, no lie, she said, you look awful.

I’m like, what? But I did. In retrospect, I did. And that was what I needed to hear because I was in denial. I thought it was sleep deprivation. I had let Hashimoto’s go almost a year undiagnosed, and I was sick, sick, sick. My joints hurt really badly. I was afraid it was ms, it was bad. But it turned out to be Hashimoto’s that went way too long. And that is an autoimmune disease that where your body starts to attack your thyroid and there’s a very clear relationship between leaky gut and autoimmunity. When we look at autoimmunity, it can be called the three legged stool. And those three legs, there are always three legs to any autoimmunity.

There are genetics involved and then there’s always leaky gut is the second stool. And the third stool is some kind of insult. It could be a virus, it could be a toxin, it could be some kind of exposure that it was the tipping point, it was the straw on the camel’s back, or it can be multiple things. So the thing with leaky gut is we really do want to heal that. And some people have put their autoimmunity into remission by healing their leaky gut. I’m not one of them, but I am one of those high type a high energy, never say die works way too many hours. So I don’t think I’m the best poster child for that for, there’s a lot you need to do when you’re addressing autoimmunity. One is leaky gut, but also a lot of good self-care and dialing down and doing some other things too.

Megan Lyons:

Yes, I admire you for your vulnerability on that. And I share that. That’s the hard part for me too. The nutrition, no problem. I love eating healthily. The workouts, I got that, whatever. It’s the letting down and not going a million miles an hour. That’s always the hardest part for me as well.

Lisa Smith:

Yes. And it’s what you and I talked about as business owners, it’s always, there are micro decisions. They may be tiny, but they’re always floating in your head and they’re always spinning around. So if you do wake up in the middle of the night, you’re thinking 10 of them are coming at you at once. And so it’s really hard to dial that back down. So I’m the same way. Love the nutrition. The exercise is great. Deep breathing. I could do, I mean all the things that are prescriptive, sure, I can do that, I can do that. But it’s just that dialing back down.

Megan Lyons:

Yes. Well, we’re all works in progress, so good to always have something fun to look forward to. Yes. Let’s talk about a few other common digestive conditions. I always feel that people are surprised when I start talking about low stomach acid or hypochlorhydria, which is just as or more common as actual high stomach acid. So can you talk to us about this? Why might have low stomach acid? Is that even a thing? What does it look like? Tell us anything about that.

Lisa Smith:

It is a thing and sometimes don’t you feel like when you’re talking about it, people are looking at you like, what?

Megan Lyons:

Yes.

Lisa Smith:

Are you sure? Because my symptoms feel like acid. They are in a sense, but they’re more that your food isn’t digesting and it’s sitting there and it’s petrifying basically. But yeah, low stomach acid is extremely common, but we just don’t know about it. It’s not talked about. And then it can be even more detrimental when someone gets on A PPI because it wipes out any little trace of stomach acid somebody had. Now some people do truly have an overproduction of stomach acid. So those folks, I’m not saying that doesn’t exist, I’m not talking about that, but some people type A blood people tend to have lower stomach acid. Isn’t that? I

Megan Lyons:

Did not know that. Wow.

Lisa Smith:

Yeah, it’s fascinating. And so that can be one factor. There are other factors. H pylori is one of the biggest reasons why people don’t make enough stomach acid. And everyone has some h pylori, just like everybody has some fungus, everybody has bad bacteria, but it’s when it reaches a threshold that it overgrows and becomes a problem that it suppresses the cells in our stomach that make stomach acid. So we can’t make enough stomach acid. And that causes so many problems. It causes digestive problems, it causes gerd, which again, you think it’s the opposite cause it causes poor malnutrition iron, it causes anemia. There’s so much that low stomach acid can cause.

Megan Lyons:

So how would someone know if they, of course we want them to come in and have actually have virtual consultations with you, but if someone’s just listening and being like, oh yeah, I have reflux. Do I have low stomach acid or high stomach acid? How could they know?

Lisa Smith:

So with that, that can be tricky. The symptoms can be the same. There is a test, do it yourself. There are a couple do it yourself tests at home. I would not do them without working with a functional medicine practitioner. One is taking a supplement called batan, and you take two at a meal and then you keep increasing until you get a warming sensation, and then you only go up to so many. And then if you don’t ever get a warming sensation, the likelihood is you don’t have enough stomach acid. There are a couple other DIY. Are there any you recommend?

Megan Lyons:

So I have done the batan HCL with people. I know there is also one where you drink baking soda or something like that, but I’ve never done it, so I don’t know enough to tell people on a podcast to do it.

Lisa Smith:

There is something like that. I can’t remember it either.

Megan Lyons:

Yeah, I think oftentimes we can tell somewhat by the symptoms and even asking if they’ve been on A PPI, well did that help? And sometimes they’re like, I don’t know, helped a little bit. I’m not sure. If it wasn’t a home run, then I often want to look further. We can do stool testing to assess that digestive enzyme capacity and inappropriate fat breakdown or fat. There are lots of other things to do, but just like I think it’s kind of hard to know just on the surface just by talking to someone.

Lisa Smith:

Yeah, I do too. I often see that when people do get, if they do have hypochlorhydria, then not enough stomach acid, then if you start to replace that, they notice right away that they can tolerate protein in their meals much better. They can eat meat without problems. They don’t bloat as much. They’re more regular, they don’t have as much gas. And the same goes with enzymes. But if you’re replacing enzymes and you’re still dealing with a lot of that bloating, that irregularity, the food sits in your stomach and it feels like a bowling ball. I’m putting my bets on low stomach acid.

Megan Lyons:

Yeah, great observations. Let’s do one other common condition, which is candida. People probably have heard of this one too, but don’t really know what it is. So tell us more.

Lisa Smith:

Yeah, so some of the other things we’ve talked about, we all have some level of candida. It’s when it becomes an overgrowth situation that it is a real problem. It can cause some nebulous symptoms, things like headaches, brain fog, terrible fatigue, achiness, rashes, things that you don’t even link to your gut, but that’s where it originates. White film in your mouth, white coating on your tongue, tendency toward yeast infections, gut issues, big time gut issues, some bloating. And the hallmark that I see when someone’s like, I have the worst sugar cravings, that for me is like, okay, that’s a real red flag for me. But then we start putting together some of these other symptoms. That’s when I start to think I’m thinking candida.

Megan Lyons:

Yeah, really. Great. And what’s a common one or two interventions that you would do for someone with candida?

Lisa Smith:

Yeah, so what I do is I take a look at their diet and I see how many simple carbs and how much sugar is in there, and hidden sugars are the worst sneak in. But then what I’ll do is start with an anti candida diet, what I call it. I just put it together for the people I work with, but it’s just what do you need to start to remove right now? Because it feeds the candida. It’s not a forever thing. I’m not a diet person. I like to teach people how to eat healthily for life, but when we’re trying to really knock the candida back, we have to starve it, pull out some of its fuel so it doesn’t keep getting the upper hand. And then I really like certain supplements, so I like a supplement. It has oregano in it, has garlic in it, it has thyme, it has some other herbs in it that are very specific for candida, and that’s called Canda Kill Love that product. It’s from a company called Nutritional Frontiers. So I do a course of, depending on the severity, a couple of months typically on that product. And then also I will add a probiotic. So I’ll do the Canda kill in the morning and a probiotic in the evening to try to just cover that. So the good bacteria, the good probiotic will start to knock back the candida.

Megan Lyons:

That’s great. I appreciate those interventions and I agree with you. I like sustainable eating styles for 99.99% of the time, and I think that if someone has active candida, that’s out of balance. It really is the time to pull back hard on added sugar and alcohol and refined carbohydrates and things like that just to clear it out.

Lisa Smith:

Yes, because it really does. I mean, it grabs sugars first and it really feeds on them and it grows and it gets stronger and harder to get rid of.

Megan Lyons:

Yes. Oh, incredible. Okay. So we’ve talked a lot about things to take out, which is very important. It’s your first R, but what are some of your favorite things to add in? If someone doesn’t have any of these issues, they’re just kind of looking to improve their gut health overall and make sure their bases are covered, what could they add in?

Lisa Smith:

So I love adding in a diversity of vegetables. To have a healthy microbiome, you need enough of the good bacteria, so you need the population. If we think of in our gut, we have two armies, we’ve got the good guys and the bad guys. We need enough good guys to overpower the bad guys. It’s not like we’re trying to get rid of the bad guys, this ecosystem where they all kind of live, but you just want the right amount of good guys. So that can come a lot from food. But you want diversity. So you want your army to be very diverse. You want all kinds of shapes and colors and kinds and just like we want a diverse army in the real world. We want all different types of people. Well, you want all different kinds of strains. And so the best way to do that, you can use supplements to some extent, but you really want to do it through vegetables.

So we hear all the time, eat the rainbow. It sounds so cliche, but that’s where the power comes in because all those colors and those phytonutrients feed different strains and they grow that diversity. So those are the things I like. And then I like to promote specific foods that are high in fibers, prebiotic fibers, things like artichokes, asparagus, bananas, apples, onions, lee, garlic, those feed, those are prebiotic foods. So they feed the probiotics. So you’re getting diversity through vegetables. Then you’re using specific vegetables to feed the good guy, so your army keeps growing stronger. That’s what I like to do. And then we talked about the postbiotics. I’m just starting to get more familiar and more knowledgeable about those and using those as well. And then if there’s something to add in, because there’s still some repair that needs to be done, then it goes back to the things I talked about before, some different herbs and L-glutamine and things that are very, think of them as very soothing and healing for the whole digestive tract.

Megan Lyons:

Amazing. Very powerful. Let’s talk, actually, I have a question before I get into your personal routine. I’m curious to hear your preliminary thoughts because another emerging area of research. What about fecal microbial transplants? Are you going to be a fan?

Lisa Smith:

I don’t know. They’re so freaky. They’re so freaky to me. I think the research is clear that they’re completely efficacious. So if done right, they’re completely, I think that they can be a game changer for people. I don’t know enough about it how that process all happens. But for our listeners, so a fecal microbial transplant is when you literally, well, obviously scientists and doctors do this, but they

Megan Lyons:

Don’t do this at home.

Lisa Smith:

Please don’t do this at home. But they take a poop sample and they purify it, but they keep the good bacteria and then they transplant it into somebody else. And so that’s why it freaks me out because it just seems mind blowing to me. But on the other hand, when you read the research, it really changes. Sometimes I guess it can be refractory. It can be difficult for people to truly get their microbiome healthy after years and years of it going in the wrong direction. So this appears to be a way that’s going to be very effective.

Megan Lyons:

I would agree with that. Totally. I mean, I have not personally done it or looked into it for myself, but I genuinely think if I did have a digestive condition that was super resistant to all the normal treatments, I think I would be right now actively looking into it. Because the research, as you said, is so compelling. It does seem kind of weird and a little icky. But hey, if you’re in that position and you are feeling desperate, I would highly encourage at least looking into it.

Lisa Smith:

That’s a great thing you brought up. I haven’t given it a lot of thought. I’ve read a good bit of research about it and then it kind of shelved it. But that’s a great thing that you brought it up, because truly you’re right. The research is clear about it and it’s purified. So if we’re looking at it since it’s purified, we probably take many things that we have no idea what we’re taking. Right.

Megan Lyons:

Oh, I know. Yeah,

Lisa Smith:

Pharmaceuticals, we don’t have any idea where those came from.

Megan Lyons:

Yes, absolutely. Well stay tuned. Maybe in a year or two we’ll do another episode and we’ll be more clear on the research and we’ll come back and report. But for now, I’d love to hear a little bit more about your personal routine. Are there any things that we haven’t covered that you do regularly that really make you feel your best?

Lisa Smith:

Well, I’m trying to work on self-care, like we talked about. So things that are easy for me when I wake up in the morning, I drink water right away. I actually go to bed. I take a glass of water with me because that’s just what I’ve done all my life. So I drink a glass of water first thing. I do some stretching. First thing I pray first thing. So those are my big rocks in the jar before I really hit the ground running. And then in the evening, I do read before bed every night. I always have a real book going, and I always have an audible book going. So it’s whatever I’m in the mood for. Usually full disclosure, I get about a sentence or two in, and I am out either the book’s on my face or by my ear going on for chapters before I figure it out.

But I read, I pray before bed at dinnertime. We connect as a family almost every night. We have dinner together just because I feel like that’s so grounding for us and I love it. It’s a chance to just decompress with the people I love the most and just be, so that for me is really good. Self-care. We’ve done that since we’ve had kids, and that’s been really, really rewarding. Midday, I don’t do a lot, but my goal is eventually to be more intentional to go for a midday walk or to go outside and do a little grounding. And I don’t know, for our listeners, grounding is literally just connecting with nature. So it could be walking bare feet on the barefoot on the grass or walking barefoot on the beach would be my preference.

Megan Lyons:

Yes.

Lisa Smith:

Which is doing something to just get outside and get the energy from the sun, get the energy from the ground, and to just help your body to pour more into your body. And I am working on being more intentional with deep breathing. I do it, but I don’t have a system.

Megan Lyons:

Yeah, amazing. I fully agree with that. Midday being the absolute hardest. It is just, I mean, there are a million other things that we could be doing, and so it’s hard to prioritize that. But I notice such a difference. Even if I just get outside for 10 or 15 minutes, like a very short walk, I feel so much better the rest of the day. So it’s constantly something I’m striving for.

Lisa Smith:

That’s such a great point. And it’s like sharpening the saw. So if we actually take that 10 or 15 minutes, we’re more productive than 10 or 15 minutes worth the rest of the day, we make up more than that. So if we could just hang on to that and say, I’m going to carve this out. That is my goal for sure. And I do have to give you a plug your pepper planner. I am just starting to dive into it. It is wonderful. It’s amazing. So guys, go on Megan’s website, get the pepper planner. It is so well done. You’ve put a ton of thought into that and I love it.

Megan Lyons:

Thank you. Well, it was truly a passion project for me, passion project. I just genuinely wanted to make it for myself. And then I thought, why not offer it to other people? But I’ve been using it myself since 2017 every day, and I just love it. It really makes a difference to my mental and physical health.

Lisa Smith:

I’m just getting into it, but I’m telling you guys, you got to check this out. You have no idea. I was going to say that, but I did

Megan Lyons:

Not.

Lisa Smith:

It is beautiful. In every page I’m like, there’s more other planners had in the past. You have three or four pages that are a little bit unique, and then they repeat themselves all through the planner, but yours is really unique. So anyhow, I just had to say that that’s going into my self-care.

Megan Lyons:

Well, thank you. I’m excited for you and grateful for the plug. And now you can plug yourself please if you want to lead the audience with any other thoughts, and then please tell them where to find you and connect with you online.

Lisa Smith:

Yeah, and so you and I have talked about that. That has changed. So because I’m transitioning out of this brick and mortar, my areas of contact have become much more limited because that is something I’m handing the baton over on. So right now, the best way to find me and follow me is on pretty well the pretty Well podcast. So that’s on Apple, Spotify, all the places where you listen to podcasts and it’s just called pretty well. And then to find me on social media and Instagram is where I’m most active, is pretty well podcast.

Megan Lyons:

We will absolutely link to both the podcast and the Instagram podcast page. And I know people will be very anxious to hear all of the wisdom that you have to offer over on the podcast. So thank you for that. And thank you so much for coming on Wellness Your Way. It was such a pleasure to have you here.

Lisa Smith:

It was a blast. I appreciate you having me on.

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️ Want to hear about this topic in audio format? → Check out the podcast episode here!