Hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Keto savage.com.
Today I've got special guest Atavia who is a registered
nutritional therapist and runs the Gut Reaction podcast and we
dive deep into gut health and well-being.
On today's episode, we talk about IBS, we talk about
different nutritional protocols, how she overcame her digestive
issues and has since gone on to learn how to help others do the
exact same. We talked quite a bit about
different dietary protocols. We're kind of coming from
opposite ends here. I'm more of keto carnivore and
she is more plant based and we kind of just discussed some of
the nuances there thoroughly. Enjoy the conversation.
I've got no doubt that you will take something from it, so that
for the delay, sit back, relax, enjoy the conversation with
Atavia. And we are live Atavia, how are
you? I'm great.
Thanks. How are you?
I'm doing wonderfully well. Can I complain?
How's your new year start now? My New Year's, not bad.
I've had a little bit of COVID, which I feel is quite retro at
this point, but I've recovered from that now and I'm doing, I'm
doing well. Yeah, 2025 is the year I feel.
Good, good. Yeah, I'm optimistic about the
year as well. I didn't even know people were
still getting the strains of COVID.
Is it like a new strain now I guess?
I don't know, I think people are just saying it's COVID because
it's quite tragic and intense, but I think it's just, it just
morphs, doesn't it into into new bugs and stuff.
So yeah, it's a new version. It's a new 2025 version.
I'm bringing it back. Sorry, I'm bringing it back.
Well, hopefully you make a full recovery from that sooner rather
than later. Thank you.
So I want to dive deep into all
things gut health. That's kind of where your
expertise is. What, what got you interested in
that in the first place? Having my own issues, which I
think happens to most people, right?
In my 20s, I was very, very ill with depression, anxiety, had
really bad IBS, just low energy. And I think it was just kind of
like the straw that broke the camel's back was just having
awful bloating and lots of problems with my health
basically. And my dad works in this field
as well. And he kept kind of saying to
me, you need to work on your gut health and your physical health.
Nothing is going to get better until you work on that.
And it just got to a point where I was back and forth to doctors
all the time and being told that, you know, you just have to
live with it. And because I'm quite stubborn,
I was like, no, this isn't, I don't have to live with this.
There's no way this could be normal.
So I just decided to, you know, take over myself and and study
nutritional therapy and find out what was going on with my gut.
Basically what. What do you think the catalyst
was for you and the good issues to begin with?
I think some of it is genetic. My dad definitely had these
issues as well. And I think you, you can,
there's no like gene to have any kind of like IBS.
But you, I think you do inherit, you know, weak genetic
weaknesses, so to speak. I was always quite stressed even
as a baby. I was quite like, my disposition
was quite high stress and I was apparently quite fussy with food
and would get lots of tummy bugs and stuff.
So I think it's probably a combination of part of it was
inherited, part of it was the modern world that we live in,
like how all of our food is sprayed of pesticides.
Nothing's really fully natural, kind of kills off your gut
microbiome. But I always say to people,
everyone has a genetic weak spot.
Like there's one thing that will go before the rest of of it.
For some people, that's muscle injuries, for some people that's
gut health. And I think for me, that was
just my genetic weak spot. When you were in the thick of it
with the the most pronounced IBS symptoms, was it like specific
foods that you noticed you just simply couldn't tolerate it all
and others that didn't seem to be as bad for you?
Yeah, I think the, the time when it was like, right, I need to do
something about this now was when I was trying to gain
weight. I've always been quite small and
I was drinking 3000 calorie protein shakes three times a day
trying to put on weight, which didn't work by the way.
And I was using cow's milk, and I basically triggered a lactose
intolerance, and it was just horrendous.
It was like my whole insides were on fire.
I felt drunk, like really dizzy. And at that point I realized I
can't eat dairy anymore. So I knew I had to kind of cut
that out. And the thought of doing that
felt really overwhelming, and I just didn't really know where to
start. So yeah, that was definitely a
food that I needed to cut out. And to be honest, it will happen
for a lot of people because a lot of people don't realise as
you get older, we stop producing lactase.
So we essentially are born with the ability to produce lactase,
which is the enzyme that breaks down lactose.
But then at some point, our body will stop doing that.
So then we go our whole lives being able to eat, you know,
pallumi cheese or something like that.
And then all of a sudden, we're getting these symptoms.
And we think, where's this come from?
Like nothing's changed in my diet or my life, but actually
it's your body not being able to digest it anymore.
So yeah, that that's definitely something that was an issue for
me. Yeah, it is interesting that
we're like the only species that continues to drink dairy after
we've been weaned off the mother.
Yeah, don't even get me started. I'm now like the whole opposite
where I'm like, why? I don't understand when anyone
drinks cow's milk. And I also think who was the
first person to find out we could drink cow's milk because
that's feels a bit dodgy. But yeah, when you look at kind
of like in in nature, it is. It's strange that we do that.
So you said that you were drinking 3000 calorie protein
shakes three times a day, so 9000 calories a day just in
protein shakes. Yeah, it didn't last long.
I think I managed to do it for like a week and then I just,
yeah, triggered horrendous gut issues.
But yeah, that's right. And you didn't gain any weight
in the process. No, the only time I've ever
gained weight is through healing my gut, being able to go to the
gym, and weight lifting. Weight training essentially is
the only way I've ever gained weight, even if I've been at a
huge calorie surplus diet. If I didn't exercise, I wouldn't
gain muscle, I wouldn't gain any fat.
I would just stay the same. Well, it's interesting because a
lot of people in the space, they just fixate on caloric
consumption. And yes, that definitely has a
place, but it, it's, it goes beyond just the consumption.
Like you have to actually absorb that nutrition.
And if you were, you know, dealing with some form of
digestive issue obvious and you're not fully absorbing those
9000 calories, then just simply taking into account the
consumption isn't a true reflection of, you know,
anything really. Oh, 100% You may as well just
like tip it down the toilet, right?
There's kind of no point of even having it in the first place
because you're not like you say you're not absorbing it, your
your body's not able to utilize it and not able to, you know,
make any muscle or fat out of it anyway.
So you're essentially just it's just pointless.
And I also think that if you have experienced gut health
issues, you know, especially things like bloating, it can
make you feel quite full. And it, you know, it was, it was
a slog actually drinking those protein shakes.
I had to physically force myself to do it.
Like I obviously that's quite extreme.
I wouldn't recommend anyone trying that.
But even just regular meals was quite hard to eat because my IBS
just meant that I felt really bloated all the time.
I felt really full. So it was hard to, you know, get
a lot of nutrients anyway because I just didn't have an
appetite. So not only does it mean you
can't absorb it, it means you don't really often have the
motivation to eat it in the first place.
How did you do with like fibre and vegetation when you were
going through the IBS? Was that causing you any issue?
I'm quite lucky. It's not really been something
that's been an issue for me to be honest.
The main things for me were the the lactose and unfortunately
then gluten. So anything with like wheat in
it, like bread and onions and garlic, but apart from that,
like vegetables. Amazing.
I don't know if it's because I've got Greek genes.
Like we, we love a Greek salad, we love vegetables, we love
salads and stuff. So yeah, I fortunately didn't
have any problem with that. It was just the the garlic and
the onions. As far as the gluten goes,
correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we all sensitive to
gluten to some extent? Some more so than others, but as
a species we just simply do not have the enzymes to fully
breakdown and assimilate gluten at all.
Yeah, I mean, there's so many conflicting schools of thought
here. And like there are so many
things that you can look up that says, yes, exactly what you just
said. And then some people say no,
like it's natural. I think the thing with gluten
and and wheat in particular is it's so far removed from what it
used to be. Like when you buy bread
nowadays, you're not buying bread from, you know, like it's
not wholesome anymore than like it used to be when we lived in
small villages or farms and, you know, the, the wheat and the
flour was milled. And nowadays it's stripped away
from, you know, it's stripped away of all the goodness.
It's sometimes put through a chemical process.
It's a bit GMO, you know, genetically modified.
So what we're eating isn't even recognisable to our bodies.
And there is some evidence that shows that more people in the
world are actually sensitive to gluten than have celiacs.
So celiac is like an autoimmune disease where you, you, you
can't have gluten. But additional to those people,
there are so many people who can't handle gluten just just
because, like you say, we're just not able to to digest it
essentially. So yeah, there are lots of
different schools of thought. I'm definitely not an expert on
that, but I know some people kind of talk about how it can
produce sort of like a poisonous reaction when you eat it, and
it's just not something we should be consuming.
Yeah. And if you get people like that,
they'll often times go to like a a different country where it is
kind of more of a native strain of wheat.
And they don't seem to have near the issue as they do here in the
States because what we have here in the States is just so far
moved from what what used to be. Where Where are you located?
I live in the UK, so I live in England.
But yeah, 100%. I think it's pretty similar over
here. I think we had more food
regulations over here than than you guys did.
But now we've left the EUI don't think that is the case anymore.
But yeah, I mean, you go to the shop and you, you look at a loaf
of bread and it's just not like you say, it's not, it's not come
from the ground in the place where you're living.
It is so processed and it's, it's mass produced, right?
Because there are so many people who need to eat.
So it's just kind of far, far removed from what food used to
be. I haven't looked at a a label on
a loaf of bread in a while because I've been keto for so
long, but I'm pretty sure if my memory serves me correct, the
the first two ingredients in a typical loaf of bread here in
the states is like enriched wheat flour and high fructose
corn syrup. Oh wow, really?
So pretty, pretty terrible. Yeah.
And also like the nutrient value of that, where is it?
Like you say, it's not something that, you know, back in caveman
times, we would be eating loaves of bread.
It's just we're, we're so far removed from what we used to,
what we used to eat and how we used to eat.
So, so now you've taken the route of, you know, functional
medicine and nutrition. Before you went that direction,
were you going to, you know, standard Western medicine
doctors and were they recommending anything?
Yeah, I would go back and forth to the doctor and just be told
the classic things like I'm sure if anyone listening has ever had
experience with gut health problems or to be honest, any
health problems, you kind of feel a lot like being palmed off
a lot of the time, especially when it's not disease state.
But they did the classic, you know, we'll do a stored sample,
we'll do some blood tests and they'll look for anything in
disease state and they'll say, oh, everything came back normal
or try some peppermint capsules. But obviously that helped a
little bit, but didn't really work because it's not getting to
the root cause. And what I didn't realise at
that time is health professionals and medical
doctors, they're looking for, do you have a disease, yes or no?
And no, I didn't have a disease. Like IBS is not a disease.
So as far as they're concerned, there's quote UN quote nothing
wrong with you. So then you get sent on your
merry way and you think, why am I feeling so rubbish?
Then I think, why do I feel like this?
Well, it's not that you I wasn't well and like in that state,
you're not well. It's just that you don't have a
disease. But that's the place where you
need to start working with someone who's, you know,
holistically trained, who's in integrative medicine and like
functional medicine because that's where they look at
subclinical symptoms, which is where you have symptoms and
there's a problem, but it's not yet reached that threshold of a
disease. So that was my experience, just
back and forth, being told there's nothing wrong with me
and, you know, you just have to learn to live with it.
But fortunately, I'm stubborn, so I refuse to.
I refuse to do that. Yeah.
I'm stubborn as well, so I can relate there.
What was your introduction to functional medicine like?
How did you get started on that path?
I basically just decided to enroll in a college.
I looked at the colleges around me in the UK, we have two, we've
got only two different ones you can study at.
And I went to an open day and just spoke to them about the
options, what they cover. They basically cover the same as
medical doctors get trained in the first year you look at
biochemistry. And I remember them saying to
me, the only difference is the next couple of years we don't
look at symptom and pills. We look at holistic, like what's
going on in the body, different parts of the body, how they
interact with each other and how you actually can bring the body
back into harmony in full health rather than just symptom
management. So that's how I started.
You know, I decided to go ahead and study and spent three years
working full time and studying because I wanted to learn
basically and be able to help people and show people that you
don't just have to live with it or, you know, resign yourself to
a life of a chronic health condition.
Totally. Totally.
And as you were learning that, what were you doing in your own
diet and lifestyle to kind of get things moving in the right
direction? Oh, I had so many fuck ups.
Honestly, there's so many things I look back at now and I'm like,
what was I thinking? I did the classic thing of,
well, my diet was awful in my early 20s.
I worked in pubs and bars and I just ate takeaways, drank too
much, ate so much sugar. And then I thought, right, I'm
going to have a health kick, cut out all sugar, like just hardly
ate even any carbs and obviously went into complete withdrawals
from sugar, any caffeine, anything like that and just felt
awful all the time. Then I decided I realized I had
sort of like a yeast, I think had a yeast candida overgrowth
because I had a lot of fatigue, things like that, the classic
symptoms of of candida. So decided to take some pills to
try and kick the candida, not realizing that if you have any
kind of level of candida and yeast overgrowth, then you will
basically cause die off of those of those yeast and it will
ferment and it will cause really bad symptoms like migraines and
headaches. So I made that mistake and kept
feeling worse. But all the time I was making
improvements, I was learning from my mistakes and then I
realized I need to just call cool down a bit like I need to
just calm, calm it. Stop trying to make these
really, you know, raw foods, really impressive whole food
dinners every single night. Like it's not possible for me.
I just need to look at what the basics are, look at the basic
food groups I need, look at my sleep schedule.
You know, the things that are easy to kind of change in the
first instance and just slowly but surely started every week,
every month, looking at one thing I could change and improve
because that, you know, then would become a habit.
And that helped me to eventually get to a path where I was more
healthy than I was unhealthy. Did you like, were you, are you
following a specific type of dietary protocol now or is it
kind of more of a mixed diet? No, I'd say I'm a mixed diet.
I tend to follow, I have followed more of a vegetarian
slash vegan diet just mainly because of like ethically I
don't like the whole animal eating animals type thing.
But sometimes I eat meat like maybe a couple of times a year I
have chicken or poultry or something.
I'm gluten free because I have to be.
But generally, I try to not be too restricted around food,
especially because I'm putting on muscle and weight and going
to the gym. I don't want it to feel
stressful because when you have something like a gut health
issue, food can feel a lot like a threat.
And it can just kind of really, really damage your relationship
with food. And not to be dramatic, but food
is life. So like, I don't want to ruin
that relationship. So I try to just obviously stay
gluten free. I don't eat lots of animal
products, but I try to just be as relaxed as I can about it.
Totally, totally. So this is a a complete tangent,
so forgive me if I lead this astray here, but with regards to
your views from an ethical standpoint on meat consumption,
can you kind of flesh that out? Yeah.
Oh, I like that. That pun, that play on words
there. I think for me, just for me, I'm
a very, very empathetic person. I find it really hard to
compartmentalise things a little bit and think that's food and
this isn't. And I just think, again, if we
lived back in, you know, World War 2 era where maybe not maybe
before World War 2, but there were local farms where there was
just, you know, there was meat. There were animals that were
being raised and then they were being used for food consumption.
Fine. But I don't agree with the whole
animals are like a commodity and the mass farming issue that we
have and how it's kind of become animals just for food rather
than animals being alive, wakened sentient beings and then
being eaten because that's a food chain.
So that's more kind of just like a personal opinion.
And I think having watched things like Cowspiracy on
Netflix and stuff like that, that's just made me realise the
impact not only of like how we treat animals, which I think is
quite like backwards, but also that it can really fuck up your
health. So I remember in my first couple
of lectures at uni, them talking about gout where you get, you
know, like a really inflamed, painful toe.
And they were talking about some of the causes of gout can be
uric acid buildup, which can come from breaking down animal
DNA. And I just remember thinking,
that's so fucking weird that we breakdown animal DNA and that
becomes part of our DNA. And it just, that moment just
made me look at it quite differently.
But like I say, I'm not super ultra vegan, would never eat
animals because I think to some extent it is kind of normal to
have that sometimes. But I just don't want to be a
continue like common consumer of animal products, yeah.
Now this is super interesting. I mean, I've I eat a lot of
animals. Like I predominantly eat
animals, but you we're. We're like the the balance of
the universe. You're eating lots and I'm
eating none, but it's. Interesting because I like
bringing people on the podcast that eat and view the world to a
different lens because more often than not there's more
common ground than people realize.
Because I can totally respect and relate with your stance on
not wanting to contribute to, you know, the factory feed lot
farming and just using viewing animals as a commodity.
Like I, I try and get all of my meat from wild game that I hunt
ethically and from local ranchers that I know are raising
the animals the correct way. I mean, I think most of the
people in the ketogenic carnivore space who eat a, you
know, a lot of meat, they're all on the same board on the same
page there. And that they don't want there
to be this needless suffering. Because when you look at the
commodity beef system, like it's, it's just a broken system,
like it is not fair to the animal.
They're using a whole lot of, you know, industrial farming and
ranching techniques, They're using chemicals, they're using
pesticides. It's just not good for anything.
But at the same time, you look at a lot of the really devout
vegans that don't risk or don't want to be the cause of death of
anything. But it's kind of like they're
they're looking through life with rose colored glasses.
Because when they do mono crop agriculture, they're killing a
whole bunch of habitat, whole bunch of habitat and just a ton
of life. So being vegan is not excluding
one from, you know, taking a life.
It's just not as directly, you know, seen through the lens of
commodity beef, you know? Yeah, I think it's really good
to have those conversations with someone who's on the opposite,
almost the opposite side, because it does bridge that gap.
And I think there's so much in society where it tries to pit
people against each other. And I'm very, I'm very kind of
wary of using the word vegan just because so many people see
that as an immediate challenge to like do it.
Well, if you're vegan, then, you know, try and kind of talk you
out of it. But you're right.
I mean, I think if the thing with like the mass production
of, of meat essentially is, is companies not really giving a
fuck about the animals, but they don't care about us either.
They're not doing it thinking how can we create the best
quality product for our consumer?
Like you say, they use antibiotics they use.
Pesticides, they use loads of, you know, nasty things in
producing that animal meat that isn't going to be nutritious for
us, but actually it can be harmful for us.
So it's kind of like it's not, you know, meat for the sake of
needing to eat it. It's kind of, yeah, just
commoditized. And I think, you know, if we had
people who are like you say, you hunt for your own, you know,
meat or people who ethically raise and then ethically and
that animal's life, I still, I still personally wouldn't agree
with that because it just for me personally couldn't do that.
But that would be different to, you know, mass slaughter houses
and abattoirs. That's just such a different
thing, isn't it? And it's such a kind of entitled
stance rather than, you know, actually going and killing your
own game is is something that's it's more humbling, I think.
And it's like, you know, you're you're doing it in a way that
you feel right about rather than just paying into that kind of,
you know, mass produced product. Totally.
I mean, with hunting, I love hunting because it's like
hunters, most hunters, there are definitely some bad apples out
there, but most hunters have this deep respect and admiration
for the animals they're in pursuit of.
I mean, like, and when you look at it from a a strictly
biological standpoint, like it, it makes sense that you would,
you know, kill that food to eat it like in the wild, but for
survival, so to speak. But if you take an animal's life
in the wild, that's going to be a cleaner, crisper death for
them than if they were to be torn apart by wolves or
something, or starvation or something of that nature.
So they don't suffer near as much.
And then they're living wildly and, you know, fulfillingly up
to that point. And the quality of the meat,
nutrition of that meat is just so far superior to anything
you'd get in a factory feed lot beef kind of scenario that does
that is fed antibiotics or you know, just done in a very
unethical manner. Yeah, absolutely.
And we've got something over here now.
I don't, I don't know if you guys have the same in the
States, but they're introducing something to cattle because
we've got the whole, you know, cattle causing a lot of issues
with the Ozo layer because basically because of so much
methane, so fart so much and they're introducing something
for the cows to like prevent methane, but it's so toxic that
it's going to cause so many issues with digestion.
And it's just like really, really bad for you.
And I just think that's just such a backwards way of looking
at it. Like, Oh, we have so many cows
that is causing issues of the ozone layer.
Oh, let's give them some kind of pill or, you know, whatever it
is to stop them from farting. Like that's not the answer.
You're, you're still, again, you're missing the big picture,
which is, you know, like you say, going and getting your own
food. It's that's how as it should be,
right? In an ideal world, we we would
all do that and have small animal holdings and stuff.
But yeah, it just kind of, I guess it's just over
overpopulation totally. We'll talk to me about the
training. So you said, you mentioned that
you were able to build muscle and, and add weight once you
started incorporating, you know, resistance training into the,
into the wheelhouse. How?
How did that transition go for you?
At first it was difficult. I think I didn't really know
what I was doing in the 1st place as most people don't when
they go to the gym. But after sticking at it for a
while and definitely looking at my food intake, and this is
where I sometimes eat animal products a bit more now, like a
couple of times a year, usually in the winter, I'll eat poultry.
For some reason it's just like my body intelligence telling me
I need it. That just had a huge impact.
So moving through the world as like a woman who's quite small,
it makes such a difference to how you present yourself and how
you feel in your body. I think.
And I guess that just goes for anyone in general, when you
start to feel the difference of oh, I've added a bit of muscle,
Oh, I feel a bit stronger, I thought really changes the way
that you feel about yourself and your place in the world.
So I got APT and decided to really commit to it and, you
know, really push myself on the weights, do lots of compound
exercises and was pressured in a good way recently by a friend to
up my calories and up my food intake and really look at my
protein. Take it seriously.
And yeah, I just saw incredible changes in my body and how how
easily I was able to add weight to myself.
Whereas before, if I tried to have, you know, thousands of
calories, it just wouldn't make any difference.
It's almost like it's what my body was missing was weight
training. And I just find it such a
calming thing to do. It just really helps your your
mind and your mental health as well, Yeah.
Totally. I mean training for me is like
therapy. I'd probably go crazy if I
didn't have a gym to train in. But like when you have more
muscle in your frame, you've got, you know, better
functioning metabolic rate because muscle is very
metabolically demanding. So you can afford to eat more
calories without I'll effect. And I mean muscles, like having
muscle is like the best, you know, best predicator for aging
well. And I've seen so many people who
don't move their body are not physically active.
And that compounded over a lifetime, like they just cannot
function in their later years. Like they can't get upstairs,
they can't, they can't move. And I feel like an easy way to
hedge against that is just to simply have more muscle. 100%,
and especially for women, right with if you look at bone density
as well, I think is it from the age of so 40 or something?
You basically start losing or maybe it's younger than that,
you start losing bone density. And one of the only ways to, I
think the only way to make sure you safeguard against that is
weights basically and resistant training.
So you are literally safeguarding yourself like you
say in later life, not being able to move, being so
overweight or out of shape where you can't get up from a chair.
Like I just never want that to be my life.
And it just changes. It does change so much
physically, but also like you say, mentally, the feeling of
calm I have after working out, it just balances you.
It almost makes me feel like I can think more clearly and I
don't have so much internal chatter.
Like it just does have a huge impact on your whole experience
of life, I guess, yeah. Totally, from a psychological
standpoint, you get all the, you know, positive endorphins that
have a, you know, a benefit obviously.
But then like for women, especially as they go in through
menopause, they're having all their hormone down regulation
take place. And yeah, that's going to cause
drastic decrease in bone density and strength and and, you know,
lean tissue if they don't counteract that with, you know,
well implemented resistance training.
So yeah, I think that's one of the single best things people
could do to just set themselves up for long term success.
No, 100%. I always say to my family
members who are into cardio, cardio, cardio and I'm like,
yeah, cardio, great. But then they're like, why are I
losing weight? Well, because you need to like,
it's not just going to come off just from doing cardio.
You're not targeting any part of your body.
And the difference you feel when you do weight training and how
much your body responds to it is just incredible.
I just, yeah, there's nothing like it in my opinion.
Totally. Agree.
So now that you are a functional medicine practitioner and you're
working with clients, what are some of the big mistakes that
you see people making day in and day out?
Like what are the common denominators?
That would be an easy fix for people to correct course with
and see a pretty profound improvement.
The biggest thing honestly is stress.
It's so it has such a huge impact definitely on your gut
health, but generally on any area of your of your well-being.
And I think because of our daily lives, how we live now, we have
some level of baseline stress all the time that we think is
just normal. Like no one really ever feels
fully, truly relaxed anymore unless you make a specific point
of going for a massage or taking CBD or whatever it is that works
for you. And something I see with people
all the time is just a high level of stress or just a small,
a small elevated level of stress that's there chronically all the
time. And that just drives
inflammation, it drives gut dysbiosis.
It can cause, you know, so many problems of hormonal imbalance.
And that one thing can make such a huge difference in any of the
health issues that you're experiencing simply by doing
things like deep breathing, where you're just regulating and
controlling your breath. So you're breathing more slowly
and more deeply, which tells your brain that you're not in a
sense of danger. You're in a state of, of you can
be calm and relaxed and it basically changes everything
about your body, about, you know, the neurotransmitters that
your brain releases and can help you to just reduce symptoms.
I know so many people who have issues with their gut bacteria.
Even half an hour's worth of stress, say you're having a
stressful drive or you're having an argument with someone, within
half an hour, it can kill off certain bacteria in your gut and
cause bloating. That's how much stress has a
massive impact acutely and also chronically.
So that's definitely the first thing I would encourage people
to look at. What do you think the we're
getting philosophically, but what do you think the main
driver for stress on a societal basis is these days?
Like what do you think is going on now that wasn't going on 500
years ago that's led to this just significantly increased
baseline for stress levels? Firstly, demand.
There's so much demand on us. We're busier than we've ever
been socially, work wise, paying bills, notifications on your
phone, whatever it is like, there's just constantly a
demand. Whereas before it used to be the
classic the wife would stay at home and the mom would go out to
work and you would have your areas to look after, right?
But now everything falls to us all the time and there's always
someone that wants something from us.
But also, I think you've got to, you know, mention social media
and how we're constantly bombarded with, you know, oh,
dating advice for this or Weldon news events that, you know,
happening halfway around the world and how you need to be so
stressed about this right now. And what about this person is so
much clickbait out there at the moment.
And obviously that helps, you know, whoever's trying to get
our attention, to get our attention.
But I think we're just so aware all the time of everything
that's going on and it's delivered to us in such a
intense and stressful way that of course you're going to be
stressed even if you're not aware of it.
Just having the news on in the background and having constant
negativity and, you know, breaking news all the time, it
just immediately triggers that stress response.
Even if you get a notification on your phone, that's something
looking for your attention. So you get a tiny little spike
of cortisol because it's like, oh, I need to pay my attention
to that. And that's there all the time,
constantly. I just don't think our brains
are developed to handle that. Yeah.
No, I totally agree. I I do not own a TV.
I never have and I do not watch the news and I listen to like a
little short form 15 minute news clip.
It's occasionally like an audio form, but it's weird because
I'll, I'll listen to it and I'll hear some, you know, world
events. And more often than not, like
99% of time, it's always negative events.
Like the news doesn't really, you know, popularize positive
things. So they're always talking about
negative stuff. And it's like this information
about a country that is literally knows how the world
that I can't have an impact on is stressing me out right now
and making me less present in my current day.
And it's like that. That makes no sense.
Like, in what era have we ever had to deal with that up until
recently? And I feel like you have to have
this. I don't even know.
I mean, like you, you don't want to be ignorant to what's going
on in the world. But at the same time, if you
can't impact it, what good does it do to weigh on you, you know?
Yeah, and it's also, no one teaches you what should your
boundaries be around it. Like, yeah, if you want to, you
want to know because like you say, you don't want to be
ignorant to it. And there are some things maybe
that you can maybe have a small influence on just by, you know,
small actions. But you can't change it.
So it's like, what are your boundaries?
So for me, I'm the same as you. I will never have ATV just on
with news in the background. Like, I don't have ATV either,
but I will listen to podcasts or something like that's me
deciding when I'm going to consume that content.
It's not just their infiltrating my living space all the time.
So yeah, it's just a combination of everything, like constant
demand being told as well that, you know, even with adverts, for
example, with like charities where you know, it's about
people dying and you have to give to this and this, it's
almost like we're told we have the answer to everything and we
have to do something about it all the time.
But there's so many things that we're told about that just gets
completely overwhelming and we just don't know where what to do
or where to start. Yeah.
Totally agree. So out of out of curiosity, what
is your daily routine consist of?
Like knowing what you know about health and nutrition, the gut
microbiome, how to optimize for that and how to you know,
mitigate stress? Like how do you structure your
day-to-day? My structure, my day-to-day, it
can be different. To be fair, it does vary from
day-to-day. I'm not always consistent with
how the order I do things. But I wake up definitely before
8:00 AM because I feel my circadian rhythm.
I'm very in tune with it. And I don't know if maybe your
listeners are super in tune with you know how your body clock
works. But there will be a certain time
of day where you're more alert and where your cortisol rises.
And mine rises definitely before 8.
If I wake up after 8, I feel really groggy.
So I always make sure I'm up like half six, 7:00, I'll go for
a walk in the morning to try and set my mindset for the day or
I'll go to the gym, then I'll have like a big protein shake
and I'll have like lots of food, do my work.
And then I really essential for me is to have a break at around
3:00 PM when I have that cortisol dip.
So after lunchtime you have like a little dip in cortisol where
probably we used to nap, but now we're not allowed to because
it's not so socially acceptable to nap in the day.
So I have a rest because I try to be in tune with my body and
what it needs and go with its natural flow of when it has
energy and I'm able to perform and when I need to have a little
bit more rest. And then I have dinner no later
than 8:00 at night because you need to give your gut like
around 12 hours resting time when you're asleep.
So I have my last meal at eight, 8:00 PM and then not eat until
8:00 AM the next day. So my gut has time to regenerate
and heal itself and make sure I get good quality sleep because I
know how that has a huge impact on your stress levels.
But always making sure that I'm I get some daylight every day
and have some movement in my body, whether that's working out
or at least going for a walk. Totally, totally what?
What time do you want to go to sleep?
I'm struggling with this in the winter.
I've got to be honest with you. I try to go to bed at half 10,
but honestly, usually it ends up being half eleven.
I'm like, how is it half 11 now? So I think in winter my body
clock does just change a little bit.
But I aim for, I would say before 11:00, whether that's
like 10:45 would be my ideal, yeah.
Do you find that it's easy to reset 1 circadian rhythm, or
does that take quite a bit of time?
I think it's different for different people and in
different stages of your life because I've definitely,
definitely found I have a shift in my circadian rhythm that I
haven't really purposely done. It's just kind of happened to
me. So if I try to go to bed now at
10:00 PM, that would just be way too early for me.
Whereas I used to go to bed at 9:00 PM and get up at 5:00.
So I do think some of it is just your body changing as you age
and you you reach different ages.
Like now I'm 33, whereas before my 20s, I used to get up really
early. But I know one of the biggest
things that can help is making sure you have daylight in the
morning. So the daylight hits your eyes
and your, your brain stops releasing the sleep hormone and
starts releasing serotonin. So your circadian rhythms like,
oh, it's daytime now, this is when I'm awake.
And then that helps to, you know, get you back into that
rhythm and flow. And then avoiding screens,
avoiding really bright lights and stuff at night time so your
brain knows it's time to wind down.
And that can really help with resetting your circadian rhythm.
Yeah, it's interesting because I definitely know the benefits of,
you know, natural sunlight exposure.
And for me, I wake up at like 3:00 or 4:00 every day.
So it's obviously dark, especially this time of year.
And I don't get to see sun until like 737, thirty or eight.
So I'm awake for so many hours prior to actually being exposed
to any natural sunlight, which I am not a fan of because I'm in,
you know, bright lights, you know, overhead lights during
that time. But if I'd sleep in until the
sun rises, I just feel significantly more groggy
throughout the day. So I must just be backwards.
I don't know. But I think everyone has their
own circadian rhythm, don't they?
And I talk to people about their sleep schedule.
And I think we're not all supposed to go to bed at 10 and
wake up at 6:00 because if we did that back when we lived in
tribes, we'd all be dead because we'd all be murdered in our
sleep or eaten by a sabretooth tiger or whatever.
Like people will have different sleep schedules.
And maybe for you, that's what works for you.
And I'm a big believer in going with what your body tells you
and following that body intelligence because your body
will show you when do you feel good and when do you feel that
crap? Like if you feel awful after you
wake up after the sunrise, that's telling you something,
right? Yeah, totally.
I've got a 2 1/2 year old and he takes like a two to three hour
nap every every afternoon. And it's funny because like I
feel like that's how things used to be for all of us.
Like we would all take this siesta.
And if you go to some parts of the world that that's what they
do. They take a siesta after the
lunch hours, and it's, you know, a relaxed, you know, time to
rejuvenate, to take a nap. And it's, like, totally
countercultural in today's standards to do something like
that. But I'm like, looking at him and
he's growing. He just wakes up all vibrant.
And if he doesn't have his nap, he's, you know, a little terror
for the rest of the afternoon, as many of us adults are.
And I'm like, man, we should just make that popular again.
Let's bring back napping. I'm such a big believer in that.
I know they do that in the, you know, the blue zones, the areas
of the world where people live the longest that they'll they'll
nap like they'll wake up super early, do a bunch of work and
then nap and just lie around and and sleep.
I'm like, yeah, let's bring that back, please.
Want to hear that in some political parties manifesto
because that that's what I want. Bring back napping.
Hey, I'm. I'm all for it.
Well, I know we're we're short
on time here. You've got another appointment,
but I'd love to kind of learn more about what you've got
planned for 2025. What's in the pipeline, What are
you excited about? I'm excited about just helping
more people recover their gut. So I'm starting a gut recovery
coaching program where I walk people through basically
demystifying anything to do with gut health, anything to do with
IBS, and educating people around, right, Food
intolerances. Let's identify your food
intolerances, why they're having such a big impact on your IBS.
Let's identify your gut microbiome.
Basically systematically going through and looking at all the
areas that can really trigger the issues with gut health and,
and IBS. And I'm really excited for that
because I just feel like I want to help as many people as
possible to A, understand their health and B, recover it.
So it's not kind of having such a huge impact and ruining their
lives. That's like it used to of mine.
But aside from that, outside of professional, I think just work,
work working more, travelling more, going to Australia to see
some friends, just going on holidays and just exploring the
world. I feel like since COVID things
have been a bit heavy. So yeah, I'm excited to just
travel and and have new experiences, yeah.
Travel. Travel is awesome.
Like we, I went to Brazil for 10 days this past year and that was
amazing. And then my folks are actually
about to sail around the world and I'm going to fly out and
meet them in various ports as they're doing so and just kind
of see more of everything. Because you get stuck in this
echo Chamber of belief systems when you're just in your own
bubble and just travelling is the the most surefire way to
break free of that and get more perspective in life.
Oh, 100%. And I think isn't it something
that's now been shown to be neuroprotective?
So like the people who travel and spend money on travel are a
lot happier and healthier than people who spend it on like
things, for example, if you buy material possession.
So yeah, I definitely agree with you on that one.
Yeah. 100% So when is the the course going live?
The course I'm going to hoping it's going to go live in spring
2025, don't hold me to that. But yeah, that's what I'm hoping
to to bring forward and have that ready to launch.
At the moment, I'm still working with clients 1:00 to 1:00.
But until then, yeah, that's what I'm going to be working on
and hopefully around April time. Awesome.
Well, that's very exciting indeed.
It's, it's, it's great that you're, you know, doing this out
of your own motivation, having seen how much your life, you
know, positively improved as a result of it.
I feel like when you come into the space with that as your
background, you're in it for the right reasons.
You're helping people because you truly want to and it just
carries so much more weight. So I tip my hat to you for doing
that. Oh.
Thank you. Yeah, 100% is definitely, when
you've experienced it yourself, you want to show people that you
don't have to live like that. So yeah, it's definitely my big
passion. Absolutely.
Well, until the, until the course does go out, where, where
do people go to find out more about you to, you know, pursue
the one-on-one if they want to go that route or just follow
along? Yeah, sure.
I mean, you can come over and listen to my podcast on IBS and
gut health, which is called Gut Reactions.
I'm sure we'll put the link in the show notes or they can
follow me on Instagram. I'll give you that my handle as
well because my name is quite difficult to spell.
But yeah, you can contact me through Instagram if you if you
want to have a consultation. But the podcast is the main,
main way that I talk to people. Awesome.
Well, I will definitely link out to make it the easy people to
find you. And I really appreciate the time
Atavia. And there's everything I can do
to help. Just let me know.
Thank you so much. It's been great talking to you
likewise. Likewise, take care and happy
Twin 25 happy. 2025.