Episode 6 | Consuming Healing Foods and Healing Your Gut with Melissa Weber

[Music] today i’m joined by melissa weber and she’s a registered nurse and a health coach co-author of the book naturally inspired her personal health journey led her to this place to help the many struggling to find the right help that they so desperately need at what time she found herself fighting for her life and victories along the way fueled her passion to help others find hope because it is possible to find your way back to health and wellness melissa continues to study the various things people can do to support their health

melissa tell us a little bit about the health challenges that you went through

hey dr haley yeah um yeah so for me i’m gonna try to make this kind of short and sweet but for me i dealt with a lot of health issues for like over a span of about 20 years um couldn’t really get any answers towards the end of my journey battle i found out that i was dealing with you know lyme and co-infections and i had breast implants and breast implant illness i found out later after i had them removed that they were growing mold i was living in a mold moldy house had mold toxicity um i was a nurse injured by some injections as well dealing with heavy metals so i had the gamut i was loaded but i didn’t know at the time what all i was dealing with for all of the years and kind of got singled out as you know it being in my head and all of those things that go along with that so um not that you like finding out all of this stuff but it was kind of nice to know that i wasn’t crazy

so yeah and that’s kind of where we see the majority of our customer base too with similar histories and that is you know whether it was molded environments or lyme issues and you know things that seem to really attack the immune system and even the treatments for these things that further attack the immune system when i’m talking about treatments i’m not talking about the natural things you could do but the medical route can really make some changes that have long-term ramifications

yes i totally agree with you and i am very thankful that i even though i worked in the realm you know in that realm as a nurse i was not drawn that way and i didn’t go into all of the you know treatments in that way you know antibiotics and such i chose not to do that thank you you know for my intuition on that because i don’t know if i would actually be here

you know and we are going to talk about that we’re going to talk a little bit about antibiotics so when you came to me and you do like i do i like to ask health care professionals and learn from them and read books and you came to me with some questions and i i think we’re going to have a real neat discussion because as i told you i have i’ve read some new content and it gave me not necessarily any real new revelations but just a deeper understanding of the things that i already knew and i think that it will help you and it’ll help the listeners whether they know all this stuff or not because even though i knew it seeing a different twist on it just kind of helped me understand it all the more

let me tell you what i’m talking about you know you were and you asked me about cleansing and detoxing yes which sometimes that means getting rid of things that ought not be there toxins in your body cleansing can also refer to parasite cleanses yes as an example and when we look at these detoxing cleansing protocols i personally get concerned and there’s a reason for that that’s going to make a whole lot of sense

what makes for a healthy gut and before we answer that melissa i want to talk about soil

yes i love that subject

i think of this and i have a video um underneath this podcast i’ll try to remember to put a link to this particular video of a property tour that i did with a friend of mine garrett schundowicz and and tim simmons they planted on their property

and when i say property literally just a home regular neighborhood property and they had probably 50 different edible plant foods probably more than that actually all different kinds of trees and bushes and things that you could eat now what was neat is they had only been farming this property for a couple years but as i was walking through it i just had to comment on the soil because it almost had this like sponginess to it and it was clearly a very healthy alive soil

and when we talk about you know healthy soil what does that mean what’s the difference between healthy soil and and bad soil you know farmers are using so many chemicals to kill pesticides you know pesticides are besides fungicides to kill bugs weeds and and funguses and things that grow on these that they’re killing off the stuff that would live in the soil yes why is that a problem

in the soil what makes soil healthy and if you think about it things have to decompose and this is you know that there’s bacteria and and fungi and they use energy from plants litter to make organic matter that other organisms feed on and protozoans might eat bacteria and fungi and even other protozoa and some soluble organic matter and nematodes eat bacteria and fungi and protozoans and even other nematodes and when they excrete their you know releasing nutrients that fuels more plant growth

you know worms eat yes soil and they eat compost and all the things that i’ve already mentioned the fungi and bacteria they’re eating all of this stuff and they’re kind of like these hollow tubes where it goes in one end comes out the other and what comes out the other end is more nutrient dense soil or future soil we call it uh what what do they call the worms uh manure it’s a compost um um the earthworm uh what is it just um oh castings castings yes

you know but that it’s essentially a healthier soil and you know it’s funny because then the the lizards and and toads and you know other insects eat the worms and birds eat the worms and and those you know birds poop all over the place and the birds are eaten by other animals that poop all over the place essentially healthy soil is poop exactly [Laughter]

you know whether it’s the poop of bacteria or the poop of bigger animals and when it has these living things in it poop pooping it makes the soil nutrient dense for the things that can grow in it and when i visited this uh my friend’s home with all these things growing it was absolutely beautiful and the fruit it was so colorful and large and it was just an amazing experience i was if you if you tune in and ever watch that video you’ll see exactly what i mean and and just the expression on my face like wow this is amazing

yeah so why are we talking about soil

you know the roots of trees and plants go into this soil and you know you have these primary roots with branches secondary roots that kind of branch off them and little tertiary roots that kind of branch off them and if you look at those you know tiny tiny little roots microscopically they have these little hairs projecting off them that dig into this soil to absorb nutrients

and you know it’s funny even roots have um oh boy i’m trying to think of the name of the the tissue the layer in our skin it’s given epidermis they have an epidermis just like our skin is an epidermis and our skin is this epithelial tissue and in our gut is the same epithelial tissue what does that mean epithelial tissue is tissue that absorbs and excretes

our guts essentially have these projections these villi and smaller projections off them almost like you know the primary route to the secondary route to the tertiary route and little hairs called microvilli off them that are digging into the soil of the stuff that is in our intestines

what where does the soil in our intestines come from see they’re not just tapping into the food they’re tapping into the excretions of bacteria protozoa even worms and fungi all of this stuff in a balance in our intestines and these little microvilli tap into that slimy muck excreted by all of these things

it’s only when those things get out of balance and we have you know more fungus than we’re supposed to or uh more h pylori than we’re supposed to it’s not h pylori is not bad it’s when it’s in an overgrowth state that it becomes bad when we’ve done something to screw up the balance

right i think so many think that everything has to be killed off and you know it’s i’m not supposed to have this i’m not supposed to have any yeast i’m not

yeah exactly that’s exactly where we where we would get into trouble

that’s and i i’ve thought that way too and i think a lot of us as we’re you know getting in this new understanding realize no it’s not about killing it off it’s about having it in the right balance

yes and this is where of course you know someone who’s had lyme and took the antibiotics for instance gets into trouble because we kill off but there are some strong survivors and things are no longer in balance and the strong survivors now kind of take over the population of our intestines and they’re out of balance

yes i kind of correlate that to you know the weeds the weeds start taking over you know that’s what i would tell people that the weeds start taking over and you don’t you don’t want that you know

yeah and you know it’s interesting because um well what what throws things out of balance uh and we mentioned that antibiotics and anti of course against biobiology life things that are alive anti against things that are alive antibiotics

and you know you didn’t take antibiotics to treat your condition as you mentioned yes but are there antibiotics still being consumed that you’re unaware of right

now it’s interesting i was i remember hearing jordan rubin speak on this issue and you know he said something along the lines of you would think that the farmers are treating the animals with antibiotics they don’t treat them they give them antibiotics so that they can mistreat them

and they’re also giving animals antibiotics in their food supply because it fattens them up yes when we eat these things that are filled with antibiotics we’re still getting antibiotics yes

you know the big hype about genetically modified organisms you know people don’t realize a lot of people think that it just means you know bigger better food but how do they do that

if we were to get rid of the competition which in a plant it might be a weed weeds our competition they’re sucking nutrients out of the soil we if we could somehow spray and kill all the weeds we got rid of the competition so the corn should grow bad better we call that roundup ready and people don’t realize that roundup is a form of antibiotic yes it’s against life against plant plant life and when we consume these things with that antibiotic type stuff on it does it know to stop killing once we eat it

um the corn from what i understand even makes its own sharp proteins a form of a pesticide another form of an antibiotic against pests against bugs insects and you know farmers use fungicides remember fungus is an important part of your intestinal flora it belongs there yes

so and there’s other antibiotics you know it’s interesting um what is a preservative it’s it’s actually an antibiotic they put in food because it’s something that’s against life they usually use a combination of preservatives to prevent bacteria fungus and you know yeasts and things growing in the food so that it can last on the shelf longer exactly you know yes

chlorine is a form of an antibiotic against life that that is in the water supply

so we’re always being exposed to all these chemicals to kill off our gut so when people ask me you know should i do a cleanse or should i do a parasite cleanse you know it’s a parasite cleanse we’re consuming things maybe even natural that are against certain life forms but can that actually throw your gut out of balance

and that’s why i’m so careful on on you know these concepts of you know i i want to cleanse um let me go online and and buy a you know a cleanse and start consuming it

one of the things that throws our guts off balance significantly is also things that affect our ph and we might think that we’re doing ourselves well by you know doing a oh an alkaline water cleanse detoxification yes

you know if you think about the ph the acid belongs in the stomach and there’s not many organisms living in the stomach like they are in the in the small intestine where the majority of your absorption happens and the ph um starts increasing as we go down the tract and as you get further down it’s a you know different ph that is going to be um more suitable for other types of flora

it’s funny we actually have a very poor idea of the flora of the small intestines because we never really culture it you know we never really study it people um study what what comes out the rectum but yeah how many times how often have how much time have we spent studying what’s in the in the smalling test and what we do about that a lot too

the small intestine and not even you know when we’re going in and looking in the when you’re actually having you know procedures done you know they can’t even get into the small intestine and so it’s it was really eye-opening to me you know you know how how do we know what’s going on in there you know

exactly we’re not you know smart enough to you know mix water and dirt to get a good consistency of mud you know and when we start playing with cleansing and detoxing and man-made tools to do this we open ourselves up to the possibility of really screwing up the balance of nature

so when i when i think of detoxing i think more of lifestyle yes meaning every meal is detoxing in the sense that it’s not adding toxins to the best of my ability knowing that my body will detoxify so long as i don’t over tax it correct yes what you put in your mouth yes

and though certain things for instance we know bitter for the liver what does bitter do bitter you know stimulates peristalsis to get the bowels moving bitter makes your gallbladder bladder release you know the the digestive enzymes to help emulsify fats and you know process your food that way um

you know there’s certain benefits where we would say it’s detoxifying to the liver we know that fiber is detoxifying in the sense that it’s food for our gut flora and our gut flora is an important part of detoxification and and kind of cleansing to the bowels also stimulating peristalsis and keeping things moving sometimes when things aren’t moving fast enough by the way that’s you know contributes to overgrowth of certain bacteria yes yes um

so there should be a normal flow so when i think of detoxifying i’m thinking of natural foods that i should be consuming on a regular basis

it’s funny you know you know that i have the only unprocessed unfiltered raw aloe vera gel which tends to be a wonderful gut food healthy gut food among others yes divine

one of the biggest complaints i get is it’s so bitter which it’s really not it’s minimally bitter but to someone that is tends to be on a less healthy side that doesn’t consume bitter things remember bitter for the liver it’s healthy for detoxifying it’s a beneficial flavor to have um so detoxifying is sometimes eating things that don’t taste good to you but guess what when you get healthy they actually start tasting better right exactly that yeah

so you know i don’t know about you i haven’t done um a cleanse pretty much ever yes

you know for me um when i started actually healing you know what i consider healing um i used foods i i used one supplement at the time but i also yeah i used you know glorious fruits and veggies you know what i could consume my gut at that time was so severe that i had gotten to a place where i could only consume rice noodles and that was barely so it took me months and months to be able to work in what i call healing foods

and you know people don’t realize the you know just adding in you know healing foods at the place you’re out if you you know a lot of people can’t eat raw things at the place they’re at with gut issues and things like that but and it took me time but i mean the cleansing or the you know if you will detoxification from the foods was it was profound you know what i’m saying i didn’t have to do a bunch of other you know cleansing things i just didn’t have to that was enough and i didn’t realize how powerful they were you know

did you lose weight during that process

um well i had already become very frail and small when i became really sick at the end and i couldn’t walk couldn’t feel my legs arms poor so i was really tiny then so i will say i probably lost even more you know through the through the cleansing reactions that i had which i had severe reactions even to green smoothies so yeah

well and the reason i the reason i ask is because sometimes that’s actually where the pain and discomfort comes from um losing weight is a form of detoxification because a lot of our toxins are stored in the fat cells yes

and sometimes we have to be careful not to lose weight too fast especially if we’ve been exposed to so many toxins and allergens and molds and things like that sometimes we do have to be cautious of that yes and consuming fruits and vegetables you’re not getting the calories that you’re used to if you’re on the you know other american diet yes

right right i i didn’t have a lot to lose maybe like you know for some others in a different aspect of that but i did have you know you know places that i before i got extremely ill that i couldn’t lose weight or you know had you know storing i’m sure toxicity to you know it’s it’s a mechanism to help save us you know but yeah so but i did lose a lot just doing that not intentionally just being so ill and putting in some good stuff that a lot of things needed to leave you know right yeah

yeah replacing the bad with the good yeah yes

and you got the environment cleared up i would imagine and figured out how to rid your self of exposure to molds

yes yes um worked on the house and had breast implants removed and of course i didn’t i mean i knew of that’s another whole podcast but i i knew of that and then you know i had to get myself well enough to go into surgery to have them removed but you know knowing and seeing after the removal that there was mold and yeah that was very interesting

and [Music] you know and for other people listening it might be getting rid of mercury that are in your teeth

yes yes right i did that as well i forgot that i did have one removed once i was well enough to go in and do that um but that’s yeah that’s crazy as well being exposed and i know so many that are exposed and don’t realize that you know how toxic that is for the human body so

all right well i i think this is a a great discussion the things that we talked about that soil in the intestines nurturing that i think is the key to really providing your body with the nutrition it needs and because without that slimy you know layer of bacteria and fungi and all that other stuff you’re not absorbing the nutrients that your body needs to properly function including supporting um natural detoxification normal detoxification

yes one of the things i like to include in in this discussion uh because people might think well that’s not for me you know i i eat and absorb look at me look in the mirror i look amazing i’m so strong and healthy and you know so smart okay

do you have dry skin cracked heels any skin conditions because if you see these things showing up on your skin it’s probably an indication that you actually have a leaky gut

when you eat certain foods are you crashing you know is it affecting your your mood or your ability to you know think clearly um

are you having any kind of allergies what’s an allergy it’s kind of a hyperactive response to something that’s otherwise considered normal um you know some people smell the flowers and they’re you know sneezing for the next three days their eyes are running and everything like that well that shouldn’t necessarily cause that response why is your immune system having a hyperactive reaction yeah so those are signs of inflammatory bowels indications that your bowel could be functioning better

so i don’t know i would encourage everyone to you know eat well and think about nurturing that gut flora and avoiding chemicals that will kill it off yes agree 100.

well melissa i enjoyed this conversation thank you for joining me today where can people find out more about you about the book that you co-authored and um you have some social media accounts

yes yes um they can find me on instagram at uh healinggrace101 and they can also if they’d like to get in touch with me um my email is healing grace at outlook.com

great well thank you so much do you have any final thoughts for our listeners

i don’t think so i’m so thankful to have had this conversation with you and appreciate you dearly thank you so much and thank you for all you do

thank you [Music] you