[00:00:00] The things worth having are worth the effort. Let me say that again, the things worth having are worth the effort.

[00:00:07] There is no easy fix. You are gonna have to roll up your sleeves and get to work. And it’s not always gonna be easy, but it’s worth it. You don’t need someone who can make empty promises that they can never deliver on because those people out there are a dime a dozen. Right. What you need is someone to come alongside you to guide you, to shoot straight with you.

[00:00:31] Hey, everyone. Welcome to The Nourished and Thriving Show. I’m your host, Katie Lovitt. I’m a registered dietitian on a mission to help you increase your impact and legacy on the world while healing your gut and reducing your IBS symptoms. I’m so grateful to have you here. Each week I’ll inspire you to live vibrantly and provide valuable resources and information that empowers you to take bold action towards your health goals. Before we dive in, make sure you follow or subscribe to my show wherever you’re listening so you never miss an episode. Ready? Let’s go!

[00:01:13] Hey, everybody. I’m so excited to be here with you guys today. This project of launching this podcast has been on my heart, honestly. Probably over a year. I wanted to do it about a year ago and just honestly, didn’t have the mental bandwidth with little baby Beau, but now that sounds like – you can see his picture over my shoulder –

[00:01:37] Uh, now that he’s over a year old, I am starting to regain my sanity. All of you moms of littles can understand how that goes. Right? I think your brain just like takes a break for a year. So I’ve been figuring out all of the tech, know how, and I’m so excited to bring this to you guys.

[00:01:53] So the reason why I wanted to make this and why I’ve kind of like followed through with it even a year later is because it’s so needed. And if anything, over the course of this past year, I’ve realized even more how important it is for me to launch my podcast for you guys. And that’s because there’s so much noise out there.

[00:02:18] Y’all I’m constantly getting texts from friends and family members and clients and past clients. And people who meet me, whenever I tell them what they do, they’re like, oh my gosh, have you heard of this? There’s so many products out there now for the microbiome and so many tests.

[00:02:34] And everyone’s all of a sudden an expert in gut health, right? Like how many times have you been sold on a gut health product? And on the one hand, I, I think it’s kind of cool, right? Because the gut is so important. That’s why I make it the focus of my work, So I was a registered dietician and then did an advanced credential in functional nutrition where we go through all of the different body systems, the biochemistry, you know, all the things.

[00:03:02] And I was like, well, what part do I wanna focus on? Because just being in general, functional nutrition is too big, too vague. People won’t know when they need my help. And I was trying to figure out where I wanted to focus. I ended up focusing on the gut because it was where I felt I could have the biggest impact and make the biggest difference for people, that I was working with because science has shown us that the gut impacts everything.

[00:03:30] A lot of the time people will come to me and they’re like, oh, do you think that my gut could be impacting this? You know, do you think my gut could be a factor? And I’ve learned that instead of asking that question, if your gut is involved, I think the much more appropriate question to ask is how is your gut involved?

[00:03:50] How is your gut affecting this condition? How is your gut enhancing, wellness or enhancing disease? I think is a really great question to ask. And then one of the first questions you need to ask, whenever you start working on gut health. So that was why I decided to focus on those gut health space. I liken it to if you’re trying to tear down a building.

[00:04:12] Right. So say somebody comes in and they have a lot of autoimmune conditions, like hypothyroidism psoriasis, maybe some like chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia stuff, some brain fog. You know, just a lot of things going on with her, just not feeling very great. And in order to figure out. What’s going on and how all these symptoms are fitting together and what the solution or solutions are, is by tearing down the building, tearing down the building of symptoms.

[00:04:43] You can see what all is out there. I always say that going after your gut health first is like taking a gigantic wrecking ball to the building and it takes out so many other things that then after. Done anything left remaining. Isn’t that, you know, challenging. It’s not overwhelming to go after. You’re a lot more clear on what else is involved, but if you start going after those other things first, and your gut is impacting them, your results are gonna be really limited.

[00:05:16] So I see this a lot with hormone issues. So specifically women, or even men, you know, as we age, our hormones are different. So people think that their fatigue is linked to a hormone issue and maybe it is maybe the doctor comes in and does a hormone panel and notices that some of these hormone levels are off.

[00:05:38] Okay. So you start targeting those. The problem is you’re only seeing this big of the picture. And so, you know, maybe it’s like an iceberg, right. Where you’re seeing the hormones up on the top above the water, but underneath the water, you know, thinking about a gigantic iceberg… That’s all the gut health impacting the hormones.

[00:06:00] So really going after gut first helps to clarify what else still needs to be resolved because just resolving gut issues…. And you don’t have to have gut symptoms necessarily to have dysbiosis, which is an imbalance of bacteria, to have inflammation… You don’t necessarily have to have bloating or gas or constipation or diarrhea or heartburn.

[00:06:22] To have some things in your gut that can be causing these bigger, different issues. I think the gut is a great place to start for anyone wanting to improve their health. But there’s so much noise. Like I was saying a few minutes ago, there are so many experts, whether they truly have training in gut health, in nutrition, in, you know, all of this stuff.

[00:06:43] Or maybe they’re just like Facebook armchair experts, or they’re on a learning journey themselves. And they’re trying to monetize that or truly help other people through. But they don’t have the training to back it up. It gets really noisy. And then everything starts to contradict itself. Right? It’s like you have some people saying carnivore keto type of diet over here.

[00:07:07] Then you have the vegetarians. Then you have everything in between and food sensitivity testing. And then you hear food sensitivity testing isn’t helpful at all at or it’s fake, or you know, whatever you hear. It’s, it’s so easy to just completely spin. Right? And so then you do a couple of things. You either spin and don’t take any action in any direction and you stay stuck because you don’t know which action to take.

[00:07:32] That’s the best. That’s true. Or you get sold on one thing. And you go down that path wholeheartedly and you don’t get results and then you get discouraged and you’re like, oh, well, I tried and it failed like nothing worked. I tried it. And so I really want to come in and help just shine a light of understanding on all of these different things for you guys.

[00:07:56] That’s actually, one of my unique gifts is being able to see the forest through the trees. And see both sides in both perspectives and gain an understanding of that middle ground, and, and may move forward without like an extreme on either side. And I found that taking this really pragmatic, but personalized approach gets the best results.

[00:08:21] So I’m really excited to bring you guys on my journey along with. And you know, moving forward and I wanna say too, this is like a preface before we get into anything. So, you know, we all have a desire to feel well, especially if you’re experiencing really painful or frustrating gut symptoms, they’re keeping you from living your.

[00:08:46] Keeping you from being able to show up how you wanna show up or having a positive impact on others because you’re having to focus so much on your health. That’s awful, right? That’s I mean, it’s awful. It’s robbing you of the impact that you were created to have. And I get that. And because of that, because we can feel so bad and feel so frustrated, it’s really easy to get desperate for answers, whether we’re aware of that desperation or not.

[00:09:16] And how that shows up is looking for the fast or the surefire fix. And when I say it like that, I bet you immediately responded with a mental that never works. And it’s so true, but it’s so easy to get sucked in and it’s really difficult in that moment to be able to recognize it in yourself. So I wanna do this huge caveat before I get into any of these, you know, real episodes where I’m sharing different information with you guys, anything that I share with you guys, it needs to be taken with a view of moderation, just really considering it before you take action.

[00:09:55] No one thing is the right answer for everyone, right. There is no magic bullet solution. There is no perfect answer because if there was you wouldn’t be sick still today. Right. It would be so simple and it’s not simple. And you know, the unfortunate thing is that companies or people are out there who want to make a buck, who wanna make a lot of bucks.

[00:10:21] And yeah, maybe they have some success and help, make a positive impact in people. Whether it’s really working or they happen to get lucky, but it can be a really narrow viewpoint. And I’ve heard of a lot of people really getting burned, and having really hard experiences, with this where, people are appealing to their desire to feel better.

[00:10:42] And, they’re over promising what they’re ever gonna be able to deliver. Right. And that’s just the truth of it. And that’s hard and I’m not calling anyone out in particular. Anything like that. but you know, the things worth having are worth the effort. You say that again, the things worth having are worth the effort.

[00:11:03] There is no easy fix. You are gonna have to roll up your sleeves and get to work. And it’s not always gonna be easy, but it’s worth it. You don’t need someone who can make empty promises that they can never deliver on because those people out there are a dime a dozen. Right. What you need is someone to come alongside you to guide you, to shoot straight with you.

[00:11:27] When you need shooting straight with to encourage you and to help you uncover your own power in healing, instead of just being the victim or the sheep who’s going along and waiting for someone to rescue you. You are not a sheep. You can go and you know, no one’s gonna rescue you here. Right. People can help you.

[00:11:51] They can guide you. I’m not saying you have to do it, you know, by your own, by your own will and, and figure everything out yourself and get a degree in nutrition. You know, that’s, there’s a difference between getting support when you need it and relying on someone else to rescue you. Okay. So that’s what we’re gonna do here.

[00:12:12] It’s gonna be encouraging inspiring. We’re gonna talk about wins and celebrations. That’s actually gonna be one of our first episodes is celebrating our wins, is there’s so much power with that. There’s gonna be a combination of solo episodes. I’m gonna bring in people who I really think are experts in their area to be on the show as well, to help in different areas where maybe I’m not an expert or just bring a different perspective, because I think unique perspectives can really, whenever we’re looking at things from multiple angles and in multiple ways, it just enhances how we understand it.

[00:12:47] Right. Even if you know, my friend is saying the exact same thing as me, just in a different way, and you hear it both ways, you’re gonna understand it a lot more. So I’m gonna bring that. I’m so excited. I can’t wait to hear what you guys think, if there’s any questions that you have or topics that you’re really curious about, send them in.

[00:13:07] I’d love to hear that, to see you guys and talk with you all soon.

[00:13:12] Thank you so much for listening to the entire episode. I hope you are feeling inspired and empowered to take bold action towards your health goals. If you enjoy what you heard, don’t forget to follow my show so you never miss a new episode. And it would mean the world to me, if you left me a review, so others know what to expect from my show.

[00:13:40] Last, get in touch. Let me know what bold action you’re taking. Let me know how you’re inspired. Follow me on Instagram @the_healthygut_dietitian. I’ve put a link in my show notes for you, so you can simply click and follow. Come say hi, I respond to all my messages and I can’t wait to get in touch.

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