Finding the Holy Grail of Health with a Healthy Gut Microbiome

[Music] Welcome to the Women Living World After 50 Podcast. I'm Soulon Karik and I'm passionate about inspiring, motivating, supporting and informing women over 50 to embrace this exciting time of life. Health and wellness in mind, body and spirit are the foundations for living well. But there is so much more to a life well lived. Each week through conversations with my guests, I'll be presenting topics that will help us all to live well and enjoy life. So join me as we discover new ways to become Women Living World After 50. Are you ready to start living? What are you waiting for? Let's get started. Welcome to another episode of the Women Living World After 50 Podcast. I'm Soulon Karik and it's lovely to have you join me. Cutting edge scientific research confirms that a strong healthy gut microbiome is the holy grail of human wealth, over all wellness and resistance to disease. When it flourishes, you flourish. When it struggles, you struggle. And there's much that can be done to ensure your gut is kept in tip-top shape. My guest today is gut health practitioner and nutritionist Natalie Woodman. Natalie has years of clinical experience and has worked with hundreds of clients, transforming their health by interventions targeting their microbiome. She has specialised in women over 50, helping them to learn to manage their biggest concerns, including the ability to reach and maintain healthy weight, despite eating well and exercising. In addition to digestive disorders, hormonal imbalances for teague, metabolic syndrome, thyroid and mood disorders, which are all symptomatic of an imbalanced gut microbiome. With her clinical experience and keen analytical mind and engaging narrative ability to both answer questions and crystallise complex situations and processes, Natalie's observations and insights into this cutting-edge health-critical topic will help us to know how to take better care of our bodies from within. So let's go and join the conversation. Welcome Natalie. I'm delighted to have you join me for the episode of Women Living Well After 50 Podcast. Thank you for having me. Now I'm excited to chat to you today because the talk that we're going to be talking about is something that we hear a lot about, but I think people brush it off because it's all too hard to understand or it's all too scientific for me. If we did understand it a little bit better, we'd all be healthier. So as I said in the introduction, we're going to be talking about the gut microbiome. For an expert in here in that area and so I'm really happy that you've joined me today. I totally get it. It's one of those topics we hear the gut microbiome and it sounds like when you really look at the scientific evidence and you look at it that way, but I suppose my role bringing it to people is to make it understandable so that it fits into something that's doable rather than something that's just abstract. So I think that's what's really important is how do we do it? I think we all know what healthy living looks like. I don't think there's any surprise about that, but how do we do it and how does that fit in terms of the gut microbiome? What is it? How does it work? What do we need to look after? Yes, and it's certainly gained a lot of interest over the last few years. And I'm really interested in finding out more myself because I've probably thrown myself into the, oh, it's a little bit too hard to get my head around that category. But before we start that, I'd love you to share a little bit about yourself and a little bit of your background with the listeners. Okay. Well, I started out as I'm a person born and bred girl and I started out as a speech and drama teacher in high school. God knows why, because I really didn't actually like school. But anyway, I was a speech and drama teacher and then my husband and I got married at university and when we got out, we sort of thought, oh, we might, that was in the 80s when going to Japan was a really big thing. So we went to Japan for a year with our 15 months old son, which is now 35. And we thought we'll stay for a year. My husband's Canadians, we thought we'll go there and then Canada. Anyway, 15 years later, I'm being in Japan and one kid going to three kids and two cats and a house with a furniture and a couple of cars. We came back to Australia. And I think in Japan, even though we ran English schools, we had our own English school with three locations and it was pretty busy. The lifestyle there of riding our bikes everywhere, I mean, we did get cars eventually. But just the lifestyle there, even though it's busy with the downtime and the diet, obviously the diet was just amazing in Japan. We were really very healthy and then came back here and I was about 37 and not that we were eating pies, parties and sausage rolls and downing coats and all the rest of it, but really just going into more of a Western style diet. By the time I was about 42, I went, firstly I went into early manifolds at 42, which is quite young. And I was suffering, I started putting on weight and I'm a small frame. So for me, it was nearly 15 kilos, it was quite significant, especially in that central area. I developed chronic X-NAR. I think we were looking at photos on the weekend and I was laying, I was at someone's party and I had ice blocks on my arms and it was the only way I could stop the etching was to just keep applying ice. I was chronic back pain, chronic back pain until the point was that when I was about 44, I think it was, I would go down for two weeks, I couldn't walk. I mean, literally I had to have people cook clean, do everything for me, take me to the bathroom, take me to the shower. And one night I went to go to the loo and I was like, well, look, I'll just stand in the doorway. I couldn't even stand bright light because it was just so debilitating because the pain was so bad. And next minute I went to sit down like I hadn't started anything, but I passed out, went through the shower screen and slipped through my forehead and my eye. And right next minute was interesting because the ambulance came and they were like, oh, we could just pull you out and get you out, sit up and get your restriction. I said, well, the head's not the problem. I can't move. My legs spasmed so badly. But anyway, so hospitalized, did all that came back and I just thought, this can't be it. So it started saying, like doctors and did acupuncture all the rest of it. And they said, look, this is sort of, you know, you're aging. This is it. And I'm thinking, 46 and I'm aging, like this is my life. So I thought, no, this is ridiculous. I'm missing something here. I don't know what it is, but I really felt that something, my gut, even though it was in a terrible condition, was saying what was going on. So I went back to uni and started doing nutrition. And I just happened to fall over a book by a gastroenterologist in a Mary-Cord-Robbin and Chutam and I'm sure I'm not saying her name right. Sorry, Robin. And it was all about the gut microbiome. And she was a gastroenterologist that really had gone down that very, you know, as a doctor, the GP root of anti-inflammatories and all the things. And she treated a lot of IV and IBD and Crohn's and ultra-adflied, you know, all of that. And I read about the gut microbiome. And it just, honestly, it was like, you know, like Oprah used to do that moment. And I thought, oh my God, this is what it is. And so I started looking at not just that lifestyle and started putting together all the things around diet and lifestyle that helped the flourishing gut microbiome. And within about, with less than three years, and I was in a pretty dark state, like mentally, physically, everything. And basically, it was just back to being walking. I mean, I haven't, I'm now nearly 60 or 10, 60 this year. And I don't, and I don't have any pain. Zero. And they were telling me it's arthritis, osteoarthritis. It's this, it's that. It's, sorry, this is your lot in life. This is X-Men. You've got a skin condition. Probably get over it, you know. Well, we all put on a bit of weight in our 50s. You know, it comes with menopause. And all the stories that we told that this is your lot in life. And it isn't. I'm an example of now I've got, you know, like yourself, I saw you running with your grandchildren. I've got three grandchildren. I'm picking them up and moving and doing things that I couldn't even do with my own children. And I really thought, okay, this is the message to women out there about sort of like, oh, well, it's sort of like, you know, you can up the roll or close the road up to there. And then it's just like, bull down. Yes. And then I thought, right, where I want to do is my practice is mostly women out there. You know, not that, you know, don't like treating men, but women, you know, women is my passion. Women as well. especially in their getting perimenopause, menopause, 40s, 50s, 60s, and really showing them that this isn't their lot in life. And I've had clients now over the past two years, over 600 clients around the world that have rebalanced their gut microbiome. And I'll go into what they did in the moment. And have been told, this is your lot in life, and this is what you've got. And they were debilitating aches, pains, and overweight, and back to living a normal life. And so it's kind of hard to understand. I think I talked to clients on the day, and they sort of think, is this sort of some sort of, am I getting roped into something here? Because that sort of seems impossible. And I was the same way when I started reading about it and doing, I thought, yeah, okay, this seems to be the impossible. How do you go from chronic back pain where you can't walk to now? I mean, I've just come from the gym this morning. Do Jacob Ladder. I do walk, I've got kids, one kid, a baby here, a toddler here, a kid on my back. And I couldn't have imagined that. So I think for a lot of women who get to that state where in their really poor health can't imagine that's possible. Yes. And the model out there says, well, it kind of that's your lot in life. So, yeah, so that's sort of my story in how I became, how I did, and I'm just really passionate of explaining what it is and how people can change. They're not. Yes, well, you know, you're a great ambassador because one you've walked in those shoes or you couldn't walk because of your back pain. And I know what that's like because I've had back pain myself over the years. But the other thing I'm looking at you and you're glowing, your skin is clear. And I can see a glow to your skin. So you are, you know, you can tell that you're very healthy. And I think that it does show on the outside. Whatever's happening on the inside shows on the outside. And also, I mean, I really appreciate you saying that you know, my skin is going on the wrist of it. A lot of people go, oh, well, you know, she's probably got makeup on or the wrist of it. Now I do have mascara on, but I have got no makeup. I've got no, no, no, no foundation. I don't even, it doesn't, it's not in my, so back in my 40s, I would have to go somewhere I think, oh, I've got to put something on my skin is. It was, it was almost ready. It was just no color, whatever. And so, and this is the thing about the gut mark. Well, it feeds everybody. It's, you know, I mean, they're trying to get it classed as the, you know, the body is made to organ, which is now, you know, skin. I mean, the largest organ is skin. We think about liver because it's the biggest sort of tissue organ, but that's skin is and they're trying to get it class because they've realized now that it's got to do it. And like you said, it's become such a big thing in the last couple years because it's almost like they've just they've discovered it. But now the research is coming out going to XMA, asthma, obesity, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative arthritis, endometriosis, PMS, menopause. I mean, it just Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, it's everything is like, it just goes, "Doom, gut my stomach." And they didn't know a lot about it. And the research is kind of still in its infancy. I mean, the last five years is probably 95% of it has come out. But, yeah, I think people have no idea that, yeah, what it is and how it works. Yeah, so that will be my next question, but I just wanted to say that there's nothing worse, especially for women, parimenopausal or menopause, or even post where you know something's not quite right. And I was actually had a guest last week who is a doctor in the States and she was a GP and she has turned to functional medicine because she said all I was doing was writing out prescriptions for medication and we weren't actually, and the message from her and what I'm getting from you too is that we need to take control of our health. And if we feel that we go to the doctor and we're just getting this, you know, responsive, oh, sorry, that's just the way it is. Oh, you menopausal, of course you're going to be feeling that way or whatever and there's no light at the end of the tunnel. We need to feel confident enough in ourselves to say, well, there's got to be an answer and to try to look. And that's why I love having guests like yourself on the show because we're sharing knowledge for women who there could be someone out there today listening and going, oh my God, I need Natalie. So I think there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Like, you know, that it's not your end of life, it's your start of life. I feel like my life has just really begun. I mean, I've probably lost a good 10 years of chronic pain. And I really thought that was it. Yeah, and the thing is we're living longer and we want to make the most of it. And also, I think if you feel there's no light, well, there's no help, it affects you mentally. Your mental health is really affected as well. And you just lose, you just sort of sit around waiting to die really because you lose that zest for life and enthusiasm. So what I want to ask you is a basic question and I know that you can answer it in layman's terms. Because I'll just tell you a funny thing. I used to work for a biotech company. And I wasn't a scientist. I was, yeah, any rate of one of the departments. And I used to chat to the scientists there and ask them about their work and so forth. And they couldn't talk in layman's terms. So I got all around. And so I picked up a few little snippets of work here and there. So I'd sound like I knew what I was talking about. Right. And so after while your eyes glaze over because you can't understand what they're saying. So what exactly is it when we say the gut microbiome? OK, right. So yes, I think these years of speech and drama teaching and trying to get a message across to 15-year-olds probably being good stead and tips about everything. But basically is, if we look at our body, we tore it down the middle and opened up. You wouldn't see silk, but you'd see organs. You'd see your heart and a liver and all the rest. But it's made up of every single little bit. If you think of it from the piece of paper, the piece of paper is made up of little tiny pieces that have just merged together. And it looks like a paper. So in our body, we've got let's say 110 trillion cells. So you couldn't even look up at the Milky Way and see that it does in the sky. So we've got trillions of cells. And what they've discovered, that 90% of those cells, that is about 100 trillion, are I've got my combine. That is microbes, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, all the results. So people sort of get that concept of like, how can we be a bacteria? How does that work? Where we're at the very, very hard of thing like our soil is microbes, a healthy soil is just a collection of bacteria and stuff that holds it together. So what are microbes? So they discovered that we were microbes. And I suppose most people understand it in terms of what we call probiotics. We look at our yoga or something like that. So we're a collection of different types. So we look at, I would use the analogy of a garden. So our gut microbiome is what's happening in our gastrointestinal tract from our mouth through to our amus. And basically that's our gut microbiome. But we also have a skin microbiome, an oral microbiome, a urogenital microbiome, a lung microbiome. So we have lots of mini micro, but our main microguard is in our gut. And what happens is it's like the large intestines of our gut right down the very bottom is where they all reside. So 70 to 90% of them reside there. So think about it as little microbes in your soil. So all these little bacteria sitting there, but they're alive and they need to eat. So there's lactobacillus, but there's lactobacillus after doffolus, where I'm known as plantaramolus, all these sub-species. So it's like basil. You've got basil, but there's Thai basil, lemon basil, all those sub-species. So if you look at every single one of those, I'd apply it and those wonderful substrates. Biffibacterium, long and SPP lactose. There's lots of different bacteria to it. You know, there's endless, and there's thousands that they've named. And they said there's tens of thousands more that they haven't even discovered. And each one of these resides in your gut. And when you send food down, it eats it. They ferment the food. So they ferment the fiber essentially. So they live off 99% fiber and 1% protein. So protein diet don't work for your gut microbiome, like keto diets and things like that, because it doesn't feed your microbiome. So just the same thing. You've got a plant in the garden. It's got its basis. So I eat lives in the soil. But if it's not fed with water, sunlight, etc. then it dies. And so what we've found with our gut microbiome, with all these little bacteria reside there, we send fiber down into them. They take that fiber, they ferment it. So just think of them as like making sourcrow in your gut. They're making sourcrow in your gut. And they produce these short-chain fatty acids. And so think of those as basically the plants coming up and it's like giving the capsicum plants, giving you a capsicum and the carrots, giving you a carrot. So it's-- providing food, but what it's doing is it's providing a source of energy for your body. So this is where the short-chain fatty acids, these little bits of glitter that travel all the way through the body, feed out colon, they keep us at a healthy weight, they modulate estrogen and progesterone production, they modulate thyroid conversion of T3 to T4. So they play a role in every part of our body. So we used to think, "Oh, that's just your thyroid just works on its own." We know now that it relies on the gut membrane. It's like your washing machine, your washing machine. So we used to think, "Okay, your thyroid is like the washing machine. It just does its job." But really, the washing machine relies on a water supply, a power supply and also powder. And that's what your gut microbiome, it's the helper to all these, your brain, so the gut brain connection, 95% of your serotonin is in your gut. We used to think it resided in the brain, the neurotransmitters, which is in here. But the interchromatocelis that line our gastrointestinal tract, hold our serotonin undopement. So what happens over the years? So we get our gut microbiome from our mother, vaginally when we're born, or if you're a C-section baby, you get it from the environment. You still pick up from your mother and skin to skin contact with your father or your mother or whoever you're parenting, but also from the environment. So we develop a microbiome so we can start with quite a very good one or we can start behind the eight ball of not really having a flourishing inner garden. And then as we go through life, I mean, I always say to people, "Oh, man, I'm born Catholic, not born Catholic." But about whether God's a male or a female, I always have a joke that God must be a man, because it wasn't a very good system that they did because our beneficial gut flora are actually very easily disrupted from outside forces with medications or stress, exercise, all those sorts of things, and also our food. And our pathogenic bacteria, and we do have a pathogenic bacteria or a profile, like the bad ones, the E-coli, but they actually play a role in actually producing B vitamins. This is why this mukeying method that people go down and I'm going to nuke my SIBO. I'm going to nuke my gut with antibiotics or herbals or things like that. Don't work because you also destroy your good bacteria because your good bacteria are like, if anyone thinks about their garden, right? If you've got garden, you've got beautiful basil growing. All of a sudden, a really hot day hits and your basil just about dies, but your weeds don't die, okay? And your bacteria is the same way. Your beneficial gut flora are the ones that provide all this energy for your body and basically have a role in every function in the body, inflammation, obesity, abdominal obesity, thyroid, function, heart, function, inflammation for things like rheumatoid arthritis or arthritis or inflammation of the bowel, the colitis and ulcerative colitis. What it does is, so when they're not around, they can't keep it healthy. So outside forces happen as well as food, beneficial gut flora just goes, and they no longer provide. So because they are dying off, they can no longer provide these short-chain fatty acids for your body to flourish. Unfortunately pathogens, they also secrete a thing called lipopolysaccharides, but they're inflammatory. So what happens in when we've got beautiful garden of basil, something hits either food, lifestyle, that dies off. Our weeds go, wow, this is great. I've got lots of space here to flourish and grow and all the rest of it. But unfortunately, like weeds, you know, those ones where they've got the little fluffy thing on the chopping you blow and then a career to another hundred weeds, what they do is they are very strong, they're very prolific, they grow anywhere and they flourish. And what that causes is what we call dyspiosis. So if you look at the scales, we want something like this. We need some pathogenic bacteria, they play a role in our body and are beneficial, but then the scales go like this and we have what we call dyspiosis, where we have more pathogens than beneficial bacteria. And what they secrete is inflammatory. So they're living microbes, but what they secrete are inflammatory markets. So we start to become inflamed and then inflammation, forget inflammation because again, when we're inflamed and we ache and we pain and mental health, it's not great. We don't want to do things and it causes that vicious cycle going down where it basically keeps pathogenic bacteria alive and I've been a dyspacteria, aren't getting fed through diet and lifestyle. So there are living beings, you can't see them. I mean, billions of them can be on the end of a little, a little pin, some of the, a pin. So we can't see them, but what they are is just microbes, different microbes that we know now play a role in our body. We used to think they were just, I suppose, existing, but the heart does that's heart. We looked at things on their own, the liver, the thyroid, whatever, whereas we know now that everything comes from the gut up, into feeding every part, managing that body, like the washing machine. It doesn't, just because you got a washing machine, so just because you got to live up, it doesn't work. It needs all these things and you need to maintain it. And so we go through life and where the reason might hit so badly within our fifties and that is not, while it coincides with menopause, it's, it's the coinciding with the menopause, but it's actually a lifetime of things happening to our gut microbiome and degrading, which then makes menopause so bad. I mean, when I lived in Japan, and we used to talk about menopause, women there didn't suffer from the menopausal symptoms that we don't. We do because their diet and lifestyle was more conducive, we didn't know that then, of keeping those beneficial gut flora alive and healthy, and then it fed back to women as far as hormone production. So it was, it was that easy. Yes, of course we stopped producing estrogen that, but it was that slight move, whereas what we have, we have years of, you know, kids and then, you know, teenage as God, I mean, that will throw anyone's gut microbiome off, you know, and marriages and businesses and work and then medications and take a pill. I mean, some, you know, too much alcohol and then, you know, not, you know, like we're like this and we're basically having a garden that we are just bombarding with things from the bottom up and we're top down. Until we arrive in our 50s and we're kids have left and all leaving, you know, and we just go and we stop and we go, oh, and we look and we go, oh my God, what's happened. Yes. We sort of blame it on menopause, but it's not. It was the slippery slide down all those years of degrading our gut microbiome and then it just is the perfect storm. Menopause, the drop in estrogen comes with a dysbiotic state and imbalance gut microbiome and it, you've just got bang and it goes off. And so what people go is people go, well, I was carrying a bit of weight, but suddenly I hit menopause and 10 kilos came on in, you know, in a period of six months. And it's because it's, it's sort of like, you know, you've got a car and things start going wrong and then all of a sudden one thing forgets another thing, radiators not working properly so it doesn't cool the engine and then the engine overheats and then it just gives one thing and all of a sudden your car goes bang and blows up. That's what happens to our body, especially for women. And men don't suffer the same thing because they don't have those huge hormone fluctuations that we do as we go through it. Yeah. And I think as you say, you know, lifestyle either enhances or diminishes the gut microbiome and I don't know, I was just listening to you talk then and what was going through my mind was, well, we know that some, especially in Okinawa, I think it is in Japan, that's a blue zone where you've got people that are living much longer and healthier. And I think it's the fact also that we've stepped away from simple living and, you know, the big decluttering of everything's been the big focus over the last 10 years, although I think Marie Kondo has now changed her mind on a few things, but, you know, we declutter our house or we declutter, you know, our wardrobe. But we are not addressing perhaps the stresses of life that impacting our body and from what you're saying is has a great influence on our gut and the microbiome there. And that sort of then starts a rolling pattern of being unhealthy and, you know, our gut not being able to provide what we need for a healthy lifestyle. And of course the perimenopause symptoms here. And I also think like for example, I'm going back to my mum's generation. One they never talked about me in a pause, but they didn't seem to be, it didn't seem to be, be thinking then. Now it might have been that they just had the stiff upper lip and they didn't sort of talk about it, but I just wonder if it was also true that back then we didn't eat all these processed foods and we had a much simpler diet. Our lifestyle was simpler. We, most of us didn't have a car or we didn't rush here and rush there and then while we're driving, we can send 20 messages using Siri and we can do this and that. And that would surely have an impact on our health and the microbiome from what you're saying. Yeah, well we've found, in fact about 95% of the research in the last five years has all been around stress and something, this, I mean, this one that always gets my clients basically that even this is from a research study, even a single two-hour exposure to a short-lasting stressor significantly changes the community profile of the microbiome and can result in a drop changes to potentially lead to negative health outcomes. So people go like that and people go, "Oh well, I'm doing it because I've got teenage kids and a job and all the rest of it." So what we know now is that stress has a greater impact than on food. But also that stress actually, I mean, I know in this time when I was coming to when I was working, I came back from Japan and I was running an English language school at a university and I was traveling and I was doing all these things and that. And so when you get stressed, the decisions that you make around food online. So well, I, you know, I would come home from working over, you know, give me a glass of wine, have a glass of wine, another glass of wine, I haven't got time, then I don't feel like dinner, I have a little bit of dinner, then fall asleep and then the next day get up and wake up with a coffee because I can't function and then I don't feel like eating because I'm not hungry and then on all the rest of it. So unfortunately stress is that not only the impact on the microbiome, but it impacts everything else. Now, women always say to me, "Well, Nat, are you crazy?" Like, "How do I not be stressed? I've got a job, I've got a mortgage, I've got one or two kids at home store and they're, you know, like teenagers are like ego centric maniacs and or, you know, I'm trying to help them, you know, I'm trying to, they're getting through uni and then my husband's there, so I'm doing this and all the rest of it. How do you possibly do that?" Well, you don't stop living, you don't just go, "I, K, well, I'll just, you know, move myself onto a year and just block myself away." What it is is what I work with women a lot around that. I work with the behaviour, health specialists too, that works with the stress. It is changing the perception, okay? And working at where you put yourself first in that journey of those things. So, yeah, I've still got three adult kids and grandkids and aging parents and, you know, all those things are happening. A lot I run two businesses, it's not, we're not saying stop those things. We're actually working at how to put ourselves first and then do those things. So, you don't stop, you don't stop life happening, but your perception of and how you react to is a different thing. I remember in Japan, I mean, I was a mental driver and I would be screaming and baby, get out and then when I came back here I was the same thing. And honestly, my kids, I mean, it was very stressful for them to be in the car with me or anyone for that matter. When I thought, "Well, my thing was I was running late and then going crazy at people all the rest of it, but if I change things to go right, I sought myself out first. If I 10 minutes earlier, and if I leave and then it doesn't matter, and what do I care that they want to go in front of me?" "Okay, and now I'm a very, very calm driver." And I know a lot of people go, "Well, that's not me." And the problem is, I think, not the problem. I think the issue is that when I was of that age and going mental about everything and driving, going crazy, come home, the kids be on the couch, "Hey, mum, how's your day?" And I look at the mess and then I'd go, "I'm going to explode." And the kids go running like, "Cock roaches," and all the rest of it. Is that when you try and tell someone that, "Look, okay, you've got to try to put yourself first and you've managed your stress on the rest of it, you don't know how to do it. You go, "I can't do it. You don't understand. I've got this and that." And the problem is that everyone's trying to do everything at once, almost like you said, the Marie Conduct, they try to do kind of this and do all these. They're doing. You actually want to not do it. So we try and do. Let's declutter this and let's do this and let's do this. It's about the undoing, the not doing, that is, is got to be the focus. And it's almost, we've got to relearn how to do that. We've forgotten how to do those things. We're tied to our phones. We're tied, you know, we're, and then we're wide and we can't sleep. And then, of course, sleep. And the circadian rhythm of the gut microbiome intrinsically lean it. And so you can't separate the two. Bad sleep and affects the health of your gut microbiome. You'll beneficial gut flow rely on that sleep to actually flourish. So beneficial gut flow, don't just rely on food where they obviously need a source, just like your ground. You've got plants in the ground, they need water, but they also need sunlight and they need the weather to be the right conditions. And so for us, it's food is one that certainly feeds it, but those outside conditions are the stress, which is like a cyclone that can destroy it. And all those other lifestyle things will sleep, etc. Which like the plant needs, the plant needs the sunlight and the photosynthesis. If it's in the darker part of time, it dies. So our body very much relies on all those things. So yeah, I think the hard one with the stress is people go, how do I? And I think it's, I mean, I don't know if you know what I'm saying. It's a, it's a big one, that one, you know, setting the boundaries, learning to say no, we're programmed to be the nurturers and we want to be there to help. But, you know, and then suddenly you put your hand up and say, well, hey, hang on a minute, I, I really need something for me and it's suddenly, oh, we're you're being selfish. So that's sort of the story that we've been told, and we have to deprogram our way of thinking because, you know, if we don't look after ourselves, we won't be able to look after anyone else either because we're not capable, we'll get sick or, you know, so really logically, we should be looking after ourselves first if we want to continue to do all those other things. So, I mean, you're so right when I was, well, everyone had to look at me and I basically made everyone's life a nightmare. So had I been more selfish, looked after me first, I wouldn't have been a burden, but because I did it, I, I actually become the burden. It's quite, you know, it's quite ironic really. That's right. And like, you know, people probably feel like, you've got aging parents, as you said. So that's a responsibility. Now, what will happen to them if you fall over, if you're not well, if you're taken out of the picture, what's going to happen to them? So I think we've got to forget about this feeling, you know, being turned selfish. I think it's actually should be coming from everyone around us who are expecting so much from us to be supporting us and to say, well, what do you need? Because if your needs are met, if you're healthy and you're feeling good mentally as well, they're going to get the benefit as well. So, you know, I think that we've got to just change the narrative a bit there. But what I wanted to ask you is now, you know, my listeners and myself, we're sort of thinking, oh, this is all good stuff. Too hard. No, not too hard. But the question is, where do I start? What, what little things? Because, you know, most of us sort of look at something at the big picture and we get overwhelmed. And I'm a big person of having my big goal. But then I break it down into little baby steps. So what is some simple shifts we can do to build the confidence, I think, in us to keep going? What's some things that we can do today, even, you know, to start rebalancing and replenishing to alleviate all those symptoms we've talked about today? Yeah. So one of the big things that we get our clients to do, which is a really helpful is to do a knee schedule. Okay. And because like we said, you talk to someone, you know, well, I can't, I haven't got the time. But we actually all have the same 24 hours. We all have, let's say, eight hours sleep. That leads us in 16 hours of waking hours. And some people don't even get eight hours sleep. Let's say 16, eight waking hours. Let's say seven and a half is work plus travel time, whatever that's eight. We actually have eight hours up our sleeve. Now, if you look at anyone, you say, someone would say, well, I don't have eight hours. Like, where did that go? I don't have eight hours of free time. But we actually do. So what I say to women is just on a piece of paper, jot down what time you wake up and what time you go to bed and go, all right, that's you know, so I've got 16 hours waking hours. And then just down right, okay, right, if I was to put my main things in breakfast lunch dinner and a snack time and all the rest of it, where I get home and what happens at this time. Where can I delegate some of those things so that when I get home, right, and that's probably the main thing, the before work and the after work is when it gets sort of crazy. We've got so how to how to how to do it. But if you can look at it. So even if you look at, okay, this is I get home from work at 5 30 and then comes dinner and da da da da da da da da da da da da da. How the really important part is to bring it down after when you get home. Of course, that's where ramps up for most women. Right. I've got to start. I've got to do this. I've got to do that. That's where you know, all I say to women is delegate an hour, okay, one hour. Delegate that out. So if you come home and that's where you go to the shop and pick up a few things and you start dinner or a set, you need to delegate that to say to the kids. Now, one of the big problems that women have to go, they'll say is, well, but they won't do it well. They'll mark it up the leave of message. But you, okay, well, you can't do everything. You can't spin a million plates. You're going to be gone and then you're going to be in the state where you're going to be so ill and everyone's going to do it anyway. And that you know what the worst part of it is is when you're really sick. I was in bed and I was watching because of course no one has the same standard as you know, with most women, right. And because I couldn't move, I was watching this feels like around me like towels dropped or this that like people would my husband would carry me into the land and my tip there and I just got all my God, the mess and I couldn't do anything was had I earlier delegated and got kids to learn and do or little bit or make a mess now clean it up or whatever. Let them experience it. I wouldn't have had to suffer. Well, we do really create our own monsters. So one of the bigger thing is to try and delegate an hour. Again, women make the mistake is they go, right, I'm going whole, whole, going, I'm not going to do anything and all I'm going to come home and I'm going to you know, hit the gym for an hour or the rest of you want to actually bring things down, not back up. And that's the mistake. So delegating that first hour when you come home and one of the really best things that you can bring it down and knowing how much stress has a detrimental impact on a microbiome is to barefoot walk. And the reason by barefoot walk and I was actually way on the weekend and my daughter came up for the day and she talked about you know 27 things going through your mind. So you come home from work and women will do the single put on their sneakers and they'll boom, boom. And but the whole time this your mind is going like that. So understand that these stresses, these two hours single stresses, they're not someone dying or losing jobs. They are worried over thinking frustration resentment. That's the stress of what happens in our mind is what sets off the you know the HPA access the hyper down those particular access adrenal cortisol adrenaline all the rest of it keeps surging ourselves. We think it's like we keep pulling the pin out of the grenade and it just keeps going off. We need to put that grenade that pin back in the grenade. And so I said to my daughter, let's go for a walk a barefoot walk. Right. So it took our barefoot walk and we were walking across the road with pebbles and then on the thing and then on the grass. Well, because you when you barefoot walk you have to be in the moment it is a really I know mine from it. I mean I don't kind of like that word because we sort of know that my name is going to be we band it around and yes, just get ruined. I mean yeah words sometimes get right but what you are is is because you are barefoot and walking and you can take a pair of phones with you just in case something gets a bit too you know hideous or these prickles on the grass and you have to cross over to something else or wherever. And what you're doing is that you have to slow down and you're in that you're in the moment you're going. And we walk this thing and my daughter we got to the end we were actually goes man that's amazing I just I just didn't think about anything. And the reason is is you are there. So what. And you know it's a real fancy about speeding up with excise all the risk because when we over excise and we do really long endurance we actually raise the levels of CRP which is a serious protein inflammatory protein in our body. Now that's fine do a marathon run then it comes back down but when we keep up this very high endurance and fast living us in in addition to the high lifestyle that we raise those levels where again creating that perfect storm that we're. We're raising things over and above and basically like covered causing a cytokine storm in the body with these these serious active protein side can create in this inflammatory state so. The biggest thing that women can do is and even if you go right i'm going to get out of the house for 15 minutes. Look at that gap and go well look I think I could get the kids to chop that up or my husband to do this or whatever but and where can you grab 15 minutes to bring it down because when you bring that down especially after work and especially with that barefoot walk what happens is is when you come in you come into it with a different outlook like a ever try to reason with a kid having a tantrum. I mean you don't probably you can't do it you're all of it so the same thing we come home and we're trying to see things clearly but we're like what's the mess i'm going to put a load of washing on i'm going to do that what's tomorrow where are you going with that and I have women that have got kids that go i've got to take my kid to soccer and i said okay well what do you normally do well I normally sit my car and I'm on my phone I talked to other women I like yeah grab a couple of these women take your sneakers off but it's cold yeah that's okay you're not going to freeze today. You're not going to freeze today for its wet or it's and take a barefoot walk and I have women now who go to soccer and they've got this tribe of other women with them they're my client but they take another women and they're doing this walk around get to playing soccer things don't change you can still walk and talk but everything is coming down because it's really hard to go like you're walking and even if you've got a heated conversation you touch something is cold or something is a bit sharp you're you're back in that moment. It's almost it's just it's like diffuses any anger so my biggest thing to women is do that every day bring it down not up you've got to bring it down and then when you come home you're in this calm estate that you can look at thing and either delegate or do in a more calm way. So you're bringing down those quarters or levels as likely quarters always planetary side accounts and a time which then helps you sleep better and just that one simple lifestyle shift then be get then you go oh I feel like I can you know I rather than falling on sleep on the couch because what happens is quarters are levels and then they drop off we go time put the movie on and we're like we wake up the end when the credit is going to go oh and then we're awake two hours later we fall into being with her what you do is you stop that cast that cascade of the vicious cycle that be gets that high level of quarters low and so you get a bit of sleep you wake up in the morning you don't feel the same need to go I got I need a coffee because I can't function do you know the mean so yes that one little thing of our can ask your listeners to go and you know the biggest thing is it first what women say is that but why no look stupid and I'm like well what why do you you know why do you care what other people think I mean I remember we will be walking just the other week and our neighbor was at the front me you never see neighbors anymore because you know the doors go up and doors go down but we've got a very old house so we see everything and he goes they said we're going for a walk and I think you I think you know we have seen on he goes I think you've forgotten your shoes I said oh no we have a walk and and we purposely go on that you know the concrete's heart and then it goes grass cool and all the rest of you because why did you do that and I said because you know talking about the relaxation the rest of it yes well that's really cool and so we get embarrassed with other people think but really people aren't really carried that much about what we're doing but if you are really worried then and someone else you tell them what you're doing I'm trying to get everything down my mind my what my life is up here and I don't think any woman is going to say oh that's ridiculous every woman goes I know with my clients you get other women on board they go oh my god yeah I know what you're feeling well you know I'll try anything but yes and it's almost again it's the not doing see instead of doing this boom boom boom putting this rock me my heart rate blah blah blah blah blah we are not doing really really slow down yeah and we're not talking about not having energy you know we're not talking about not I mean I like people think that energy equals stress it's not I'm a very energetic person but I don't feel the stress my perception changes but you've got to bring it down bring it down bring it down and then what you want to do is you want to bring it down further. And then that gets the start into being able to make those changes. You can think about what you're going to, you come home, you feel more relaxed, you don't want to grab for some crappy food and give me the wine and all the rest of it. I mean, my biggest thing, I'm stopping coming home. That was the first thing I did. And it was the research we read about grounding and barefoot walking and all the rest of it and the gut environment. I thought there's to come home wine, wine, wine. And what happened is I went out, I just got home, it was in the kids' like I want you to do this while I'm on the thing. I'll be back in whatever. And I just start 15 minutes and I went feeding, then I went in our barefoot walking. And when I came back, I didn't feel like a glass of wine. So the cycles it breaks, it's like the gifts that keeps on giving. And so I didn't want wine. I didn't grab a wine. And then I was like, oh, I have a bit with dinner, but I usually by then I'd had two glasses for I've got to dinner. Yes. Yeah. And I was going mental. So yeah, if there's one thing that I would say to try and put in your day is barefoot walking. And the when, where it is, if you're a shift worker and you come home and it's, you know, that time in the morning that it's up here and you need to bring things down. We'll then do it there. We're in your day. Bring it down. And that has a huge impact on your microbiome. And we're sort of coming towards the end now. So I haven't really touched on questions like I was just interested about what sort of diet. And when I say diet, I don't mean, you know, diet in the way they say now, sort of the sorts of foods we should be eating. Is it a matter if you want to start today, for example, just trying to cut back on the process foods, the alcohol, things like that, is that a good start coming down on the sugar, the things that we all know are not good for us or exactly a bit too basic. No, it's not. But while I always say again, start slowly. So the general thing with most women when I, when we talk about diet, or as to what we're starting, obviously there's so many things you do. So fiber feeds the gut markup on the gut markup on relies on fiber takes fiber, the mental creates your short chain fatty access. Well, fiber is fiber is not in eggs and meat and chicken and fish or something. I'm not saying about because I'm not certainly not a vegan and I don't believe in any diet. But that's not giving you any fiber. It's always your fruits, your nuts, your veggies, your legumes, lentils. And then a lot of people go, well, I can't eat lentils or legumes because I bloat. Well, that's because they're always doing too much, right? So what I say to people is make the, make the tiny change of morning tea and afternoon tea, right? Because they're the big ones where we grab muffin. That's where the process foods come in. Most people are pretty good with breakfast. I'll go, oh, I have a piece of toasted, smashed avocado on my lips, smoothie, or even have some cereal or something like that. Now, they've certainly better ways to do those rather than packet nutrient gain, having a, you know, whole food granola or something like that. That's not steeped and sugar. But most of us don't really have the big issue with our main meal. It's been in between things that we go mid morning, coffee and a muffin and a man's bar or this recipe. So what I say to people is decide for the week go down and get as the variety is key. So just our microbiome relies on variety, not just fiber, but different types of fiber, okay? So the fiber in an apple is given to the fiber in an orange, the fiber in a kiwi fruit, banana, etc. So what you do is you're, all right, I've got five days at work in front of me. So that's if I do morning and afternoon snack, that's two pieces of fruit a day. That's 10 pieces of fruit. I'm going to go down to the shop on the weekend on Sunday. I'm going to buy 10 pieces of fruit and I'm going to try to make them different as much as I can, because sometimes seasonally, the bit hard, but at the moment you get a plum, a nectarine, a banana, an apple and you're only buying one, right? Don't buy a packet because you're just going to throw it out. Just one. You might have to hide it from the kids in the fridge and put a big thing sign on it saying don't eat these because they tend to eat everything that you put aside, even though then they don't want it. So what you do is you make, so when you, and a handful of nuts, so go and get some raw unsalted macadamia or, and again now we can buy nuts by a small amount. So sort of think well, if I have a handful of nuts in the morning and a handful of nuts in the afternoon, that's about 30 grams, that's 60 grams a day, over five days, that's 300 grams. So I'll get a variety of different nuts, mix them all up, raw unsalted nuts, and then what I'm going to do is I'm going to put my alarm on my phone at 10 o'clock, I'm going to have my apple and my nuts. And again, that little change because it's very satisfying at sweet, if you're really craving something sweet, there's nothing sweeter than an apple or blue berries in sweeter than a marns bar, it's sweeter than a marns bar, but I crave sweet and also to that little bit of savory having the nuts also when people go, I like this savory, I want that, you're having that. So again, just introduce that and that because a lot of people will take dinner leftovers and all the rest of it. So generally that's not the issue, but it's that fall down of those snacks morning enough noon. And when you make that one little change and you just keep doing that every day, so you just in the morning, two pieces of fruit, anything, put in your handbag, take it to work, people go, I'm getting a marns bar, oh, go and get my fruit, I'll join you, right? And you have that, you are providing your body with the healthy omega sixes and threes plus the all-important fiber, but what that little change does. So people all say, what's the diet, what can I follow? But make that little change first with your barefoot walk, things come down and you can think of that, wow, okay, I don't then feel like this for lunch, I'm not going to get taken away, I feel like because what happens is when we feed our beneficial gut flora, because they sort of exert behavioral changes on our mind, what we do is they start to grow and they make us want more good food. And then we want it. The pathogens make us want salty, fatty sugary food because they exert, they exert changes in our mind, they make us irritable over well frustrated, like, oh, give me that nothing, give me this, give me that, give me that, give me that, but what happens when you do that, other change in your beneficial gut flora grow, you don't feel like it anymore. So yes, while fiber is really good, you know, all fiber things, things that aren't processed yet, don't get a processed corn flakes or neutral grain or whatever, get a whole grain musely or make your own bit of oats, bit of, I've got on my website on the blog, you know, five simple breakfast, seven simple breakfasts that you get, oh, I've got lots of room, freebie things that you can do, that you can do, but again, people go whole whole, they go, right, that's it, I'm starting this Monday, I'm getting this, that's where everything out, they do this, and by Tuesday afternoon, they're deep in Mars bar and a coffee going, oh, blown that. So don't think about blowing anything, bring things in and so you're moving snacks, those snacks out, you're bringing something in, you do that, you feel better, and then you make the next move. I mean, you, I know you do marathon running and all the rest of it, and I've got friends that do it, where they didn't wake up in the morning and do 42k, they started with a 500 metre walk or a 1 kilo walk, yeah, and then they built it up and then two and then five and then because that makes, then you don't hurt yourself or damage yourself or you keep the motivation up with the same thing with your body, barefoot walk, lunch snacks, and then that lunch snacks, you know, good morning and afternoon, and even if you don't feel hungry, make yourself have it, just see if you start, people always wait for the hungry cues, but it's always too late, so you just give yourself, go, you know, 10 o'clock, 3 o'clock, and go, I'm, being on my thing, I'm going to sit down and I'm not going to do my phone, I'm not going to do anything, just going to sit and I'm going to eat, base snacks, and that's a huge change that we're going to do, and I know by the way, you listen to that, well that's not going to cut out, I need more, but it's more is the problem. Yes, less is the answer. That's right, and we're just talking today about what you can do today to make these little changes. If, you know, obviously I'm going to be putting all your contact details in the show, so that people can contact you because I know you have a program, and I know that, you know, if women do want to make substantial changes, they can start with the little tips we've done today, but I'd encourage them to reach out to you for a more personalised or, you know, to work with you to see what we can do to help them start, because I think starting is always a little bit, you need your hand here. sometimes. So and I think you did that little cheers squad. I mean you've done it in there. You need others around you. You can't see everyone's trying to do it on their own another mistake. We try to do it on our own and women think they should be able to do it because they do everything else but getting your health back on track is something you really can't do on your own until you get some momentum. Then you can keep going. It's not like you need someone forever but you need someone to help you start. That's right and you are worth it. You are worth putting the time into making those changes to make a healthy a lifestyle. Well look it has been lovely having you as my guest today Natalie but before I let you go I'm going to ask you one question that I ask all of my guests and that is what does being a woman living well after 50 mean to you? Wow I think it means that's a good question. I think it means being I don't know again we're happy but what I am is I I like me I really like me learning that I love me for how I nurture my body like loving me is nurturing my body and living well after 50 means putting myself first not selfish but caring and putting myself first like their ear mask that comes you know the oxygen marks that comes in the hotel so you can get in the phone planes that can help others. My thing is living you know what it means is putting yourself first so that you can be there forever and and and going wow I really like me I find that a lot of women don't like themselves and I get that. That's a huge thing. I did not like myself a lot of years I hated the way I acted the what I did and how I did and now I think living well is learning how to nurture yourself from the outside in from the inside out that you don't not without being happy I've days that I'm miserable. No I'm I can sit in that misery and not be beating myself up. Yes so yeah I think that's what it means to me. Yeah and that's that's a great place to get to isn't it where you are happy. Oh so nice. And who you are because a load is just lifted off your shoulders isn't it? I know. I do. Yeah that's a great state to achieve if we can so thank you so much Natalie Woodman for joining me. Thank you. I have a pleasure to chat. I'll have to get you back on to the show because we could talk for hours the way we've been talking today so I'd love you to come back again because I know you've got a lot of information but I'll direct everyone to your website and I'm actually going to have a bit of your resources as well when we finish because you've got me motivated I'm pretty happy with my health but I think we can all do with a little bit of an order just to see how we're traveling and perhaps tweeting here and there so thank you so much Natalie it's been a pleasure. Ah pleasure for me to thank so really enjoyed it. Well that was an interesting conversation that I had with Natalie Woodman all about the gut microbiome and what we can do to live a healthier lifestyle. Are you going to start barefoot walking? It sounds good to me because when you think about it it's quite logical and a good way to be in the moment especially if you're walking over those rough surfaces and the other tip that she gave was having your morning and afternoon snacks with perhaps a piece of fruit and some nuts and keeping that variety up but anyway I hope you've enjoyed the episode I know I have and if you have I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments leave me a like and also share it with a friend who I know will benefit from the conversation so that's it for this episode until next time remember to live well enjoy life and most of all be a woman living life your way bye for now (upbeat music) you