What do the following symptoms have in common? The commonality in all those symptoms is that they share a root cause.
That’s right. All those disparate manifestations, from your belly to your skin to your brain, stem from the same place.
Do you know what it is?
It’s your gut.
If you know anything about gardening, you know that pulling a dandelion out by its leaves will not make it go away. It’ll grow right back. Dandelions proliferate from their long taproot. If any part of the taproot remains, then the weed will quickly regenerate.
Your health is like this too.
The health of your digestion. The health of your respiratory function. The health of your skin, your immune health, and even your mental health. They all need to be addressed at the root to seek resolution.
To take that dandelion analogy a step further, the root of all those seemingly diverse health concerns listed above lies deep inside you. If we ignore the core inner workings, then the symptoms described will continue to crop up like the most pernicious weed.
I know it may be odd to consider that the state of that long twisting tube buried in your abdomen is a key factor in a host, if not most, health conditions. Yet the symptom you experience might not be a “condition” in and of itself, but instead a warning sign that something’s gone awry in your primary organ of digestion and absorption.
This is where the principles of functional nutrition come into play. If your health care addresses only the weed, it’s unlikely that it will lead to your long-term relief and vitality. Yet by identifying, addressing and gaining knowledge about the underlying root cause or causes, you have a much greater chance of finding success with your own particular health challenges.
When your small intestine is suffering, you are too. And who knows where it’ll crop up?!
Though you might not think of your splotchy skin as having anything to do with your innards, their impairment is the reason that all those fancy creams only work for a short time, if that.
Again, you can pull the weeds out of the garden, but if you don’t tend to the root, they keep coming back, again and again. The very first root that needs your attention, is your gut.
The small intestine, when in good repair, is your core gatekeeper for optimal health.
Ultimately, your gut decides what will travel into the circulatory system and what will not.
But let’s back up a bit, shall we?
Let’s get gut savvy. . .
Your food is broken down into smaller nutrients higher up in the digestive system ~ in the mouth, in the esophagus and in the stomach. Auxiliary organs of digestion, the pancreas and gallbladder, produce enzymes to help the food decompose a little further. Those enzymes are pumped into the “gates” of the gut.
Yet what comes out of those gates is dependent on the health of that primary organ of digestion and absorption. . . your small intestine.
It may be called ‘small’, but it’s got a BIG job! Perhaps the biggest job when it comes to what you consume and how you feel.
There are intricate chemical processes that selectively sort and choose what will be introduced into circulation. If nutrients that aren’t properly digested leak into the bloodstream then the suffering begins. Uh oh. This can even happen from the very best foods and your very best intentions.
It’s not just about the food. It’s about what your body can do with the food you choose.
This means that your health is about the state of your insides as much as it is about what you eat. That grief can take the form of gas, bloating and indigestion, as I mentioned, but also create more systemic problems from disrupting your mental health to increasing your internal toxic load to inciting hormonal dysregulation.
At Replenish we’re always looking to find the root cause of symptoms. We know well that when it comes to chronic health issues, the Band-Aids just don’t work. Like so many others, you may have discovered this the hard way.
Because one of the root causes of all symptoms is typically the health of the gut ~ even if you don’t experience any symptoms related to your digestive system ~ we make it a top priority. It needs to be in good repair.
And repair in can!
In Refresh: A TrulyFood Summer Cleanse, we’ll be focusing on learning to repair your gut. This is why I love this cleanse so much ~ it gets right to the root of the matter, many matters, giving you the tools to clean and restore your ultimate gatekeeper during the week of cleansing and beyond.
You can learn more about the Summer Refresh Cleanse by clicking right here.
You can also join me on Saturday, for a live Facebook Q&A, hosted on the Replenish PDX Facebook Page, to ask your questions and get answers about what an intestinal cleanse can do, why it can be helpful, what the process will be like for you, how this differs from other Replenish programs, and anything else that’s keeping you from diving in and getting to the root of it all.
I’ve been thinking of this cleanse as boot camp (or root camp) for your gut.
Hey, it’s summer time! Send your gut to camp!
Warmly,
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