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The Mineral, Constipation and Period Loss Connection with Dr. Heather Finley RD/N · Nourished Fertility

0:00
Welcome back to the Nourishing Women Podcast.
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I'm Victoria Myers, your podcast host, peer recovery Specialist, fertility
0:06
dietician, and I cannot wait for you to listen to today's episode.
0:11
Now, we've had Heather Finley gut health expert and fellow
0:14
dietician on the podcast.
0:16
This will actually be her third time, but I especially want you to listen to today's
0:21
episode, even if you've listened to some of her past episodes on the show, because
0:25
this one is so specific to two things.
0:28
Number one, we're really going to dig into why a history of dieting, disordered
0:33
eating, even accidental undereating.
0:36
Maybe you're someone who just thinks eating 1500 calories a day is a lot.
0:40
We're gonna help you understand how this destructs not only
0:43
you know, your period in your.
0:45
Your reproductive health, which is my focus, but uh, Heather's focus,
0:49
which is the digestive system.
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She's a gut health expert, so she's gonna help you see how undereating
0:55
may be causing the very symptoms that you're trying to alleviate
0:58
from taking foods out of the diet or trying to eat a very limited
1:02
diet to try to manage your symptoms.
1:04
Again, that may be making everything worse, and you're gonna understand why
1:08
that is by the end of this episode.
1:11
Number two, what we really chat a lot about today, which I'm just so pumped to
1:15
share more about on the show, is minerals.
1:18
We're gonna talk about the role minerals play in digestive health,
1:21
starting with the basics, like what minerals are and what they do in the
1:24
body, all the way to understanding the complexity of the role of minerals in
1:29
digestion, and how a mineral imbalance or deficiency can cause digestive issues.
1:35
So if you have not only pure loss and period irregularities,
1:39
but you are currently struggling massively with digestive issues,
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you're going to love this episode.
1:45
Now a little bit more about Heather, AKA Dr. Heather Finley, uh, is
1:50
that she's a registered dietician.
1:52
She helps people struggle with bloating, constipation, and IBS
1:55
find relief from their symptoms and feel excited about food again.
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She understands deeply what it's like to struggle with digestive issues.
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She did herself for nearly 20 years, and her biggest thing is that gut
2:07
health shouldn't be restrictive, stressful, or all consuming.
2:11
She's developed a simple way that individuals can.
2:14
Take to reduce symptoms and add foods back into their diet.
2:17
Let's jump into this guest episode with podcast frequent
2:21
guests, Dr. Heather Finley.
2:24
Hello, Heather.
2:25
Welcome to the Nourishing Women Podcast.
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I'm so glad you're here today.
2:28
Thanks for having me.
2:29
Glad to be here.
2:31
Of course, now you've been on the podcast before, I think it's been
2:34
twice, so this is actually your third episode, which is so awesome.
2:37
But for those that are like new to the show, share with them like
2:39
who you are and the work you do.
2:43
Well, yes, I, um, I guess I, what is this the third time that I've been on the show?
2:48
I think so.
2:48
Okay.
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I didn't, I, to be honest, I did not go back and look, but if I remember
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correctly, this will be the third time.
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Yeah.
2:55
Okay.
2:55
Well, welcome back to anyone that has listened to.
3:00
The past episodes and nice to meet you to all the new people.
3:04
Um, but my name is Heather Finley and I'm a registered dietician,
3:08
just like Victoria, and probably similar to many health providers.
3:14
I had my own journey with GI issues, um, which is why I do what I do now.
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But for most of my life I always tell people I was born constipated.
3:25
And that sounds really sad.
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Um, but.
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Truly.
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I honestly don't really remember a time in my life where I wasn't
3:33
struggling with GI issues.
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I. I really just kind of thought it was normal, um, until I realized that it
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wasn't, um, when I realized that nobody else was having stomach pain every time
3:44
they ate, nobody else was going days without a bowel movement, et cetera.
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And so, um, you know, kind of went on this journey to figure out what was going on
3:55
with my stomach and along that journey.
3:58
Probably much like many of you that are listening, I really struggled
4:03
with my relationship with food.
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Um, really had a lot of fear around eating.
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Uh, I was worried that anytime I ate my stomach was gonna hurt.
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I was worried, uh, that anything I ate was gonna make me bloated.
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And so I just kind of started weed whacking foods out of my diet
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until basically I was eating super, super limited amount of foods.
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Um, I was.
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Super restricted, and yet I also felt worse than I ever had, and
4:31
then kind of had this light bulb moment of maybe it's not the food.
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You know, I'm eating less variety than I ever have.
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And I actually feel worse than I ever have.
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And so went down this rabbit hole of functional medicine
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and, um, really looking at kind of the whole body approach.
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Um, and realized that it wasn't just what I was eating, it was
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what I wasn't eating, um, as well as really how my body was working.
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I know we're gonna chat a lot today about minerals and that
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was a big thing for me is.
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Being a college athlete, being a high achiever, and, uh, kind of
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more anxious, stressed person.
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Um, at the end of the day, all of those things, especially coupled with
5:17
not eating a wide variety of foods, my body was just super mineral depleted
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and did not have the resources.
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That it needed to do what it needed to do.
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And so, um, started looking at how I could basically replenish my mineral
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stores and restore my digestion.
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And now that's what I get to do with other women who are on the same journey.
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So, um, yeah, that's a kind of a brief way to describe the journey.
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But yeah, I'm so grateful that I no longer have to.
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Restrict myself from foods that I love and, um, don't struggle with chronic
5:57
constipation or bloating anymore.
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And, um, it's such a joy to be able to help other women do that as well.
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I. That's one of the many things I love about you though, Heather, is you have a
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really beautiful way of blending in this understanding of your relationship with
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food, how that impedes digestion, as well as this root cause analysis approach.
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Like you mentioned.
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We're gonna talk about minerals and the way that.
6:19
The importance of replenishing your minerals and understanding how they
6:22
play a role in digestive health.
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You know why that's so important today.
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But you also, I know you have an eating disorder, like clinical history, like
6:29
you get, you get it on like all the ends, and I think that's just really important.
6:34
I know we've touched on this before on the podcast, but I think this is a
6:37
really, you know, just really important thing to revisit each time for the
6:42
person who's listening, you know, you.
6:43
They have a history of disordered eating.
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They have a history of dieting and undereating.
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Whether that's purposeful or related to the relationship with food, or
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just someone who's an athlete and who just accidentally is undereating.
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Can you help them understand that I. The weight that this destructs the digestive
7:00
system and then can lead to symptoms.
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Yeah, totally.
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And if you're listening to this and that is you trust me when I say I get
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it and I've been there, um, like I said, I was an athlete my whole life.
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I, um, you know, it's there.
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There's a lot of things that can really disrupt digestion, even just stress.
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And I know that.
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You know, hearing, oh, it's just stress is probably the most defeating thing,
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but it's never, it's never just stress.
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Uh, what I, what I really wanna drive home with that is there's a lot of things that
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cause stressors on our body that aren't just like what we think of as stress.
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We might think of stress like, oh, I'm overwhelmed by work, or I'm overwhelmed
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by my, uh, kids, or I'm overwhelmed by, you know, whatever life situation.
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But the reality is that when we are undereating, when we have underlying
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GI issues, whether that's poor digestion, whether that's imbalances
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of bacteria in our gut, um, whatever it might be, or when we have mineral
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deficiencies or mineral imbalances, is probably a better way to put that.
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That is a stressor on our body.
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And then, uh, one thing to add to that is the way that our body deals with stress,
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or one of the ways that it deals with stress is we actually utilize minerals.
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And so the more stress you are, the more your body will just dump minerals, meaning
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that your mineral needs are higher.
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So it's kind of a catch 22 because typically.
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At a time when you need minerals is when you might not be getting them and
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your body's actually using more of them.
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Um, but all that to say.
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You know, a lot of these things can disrupt digestion, um, even just on a
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cellular level, just to kind of keep it more mineral focus, since I know that's
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the focus mostly today, is if your body doesn't have the resources that it
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needs to make the things that it needs to make from a digestive standpoint.
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Um, interestingly enough, our body uses minerals to make stomach acid,
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which helps us to break down our food.
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It uses minerals to make enzymes.
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And that also help us break down our food.
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It uses minerals to contract our gut muscles that help us to have a bowel
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movement, um, help us to expel gas.
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I know kind of a weird thing to think about, but it's true.
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Your gut is a muscle and, um, you know, it requires minerals for
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contraction and then relaxation.
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Um, and so all that to say.
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If someone is really restricted, if their body is in a state of stress, uh,
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they may not have the minerals that they need to make the things that they need
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to make, to have optimal digestion or to have optimal digestive function from like
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a, you know, gut motility standpoint and moving things through the digestive tract.
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I love that you went ahead and broadened minerals.
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'cause you're right, this is the focus of today's conversation.
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So let's dig in.
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I can already tell based off of what you've shared, that
10:06
minerals are really important when it comes to digestive health.
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But let's, um, let's back up even a little bit more like
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what are, just like the basics, understandings, when you say minerals.
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What are you talking about and what did they do in the body for the person who's
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like, wait, what minerals, like mm-hmm.
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Are we talking about like vitamin C?
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Are we talking about magnesium?
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Like I, I feel like sometimes we use the term, but I really want 'em to be
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like, oh, this is what a mineral is and this is what it does in my body.
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Totally.
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So I think it is really helpful to understand what the difference is,
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um, between minerals and vitamins.
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So minerals are naturally occurring.
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In organic solids.
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Um, and basically the way that we get them is through food.
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Our body cannot make minerals, which is what makes them different from vitamins.
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So our body can make certain vitamins.
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Um.
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Uh, people are probably familiar, like you said, vitamin C. That's
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something that we get, you know, from eating oranges or eating citrus foods.
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Um, so same thing with minerals.
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We get minerals like magnesium, sodium, potassium, calcium.
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All of those are naturally occurring in the foods that we eat.
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But if we don't consume them, we don't get them.
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Our body cannot make them, whereas our body can make certain
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vitamins, um, in the body.
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Um, although we do get a lot of vitamins from our food as well.
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So minerals are basically the building blocks and kind of what I hear a lot of
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people say, the spark plugs of our body.
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So they basically turn on energy in the body.
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And then they also help us to make things like I was saying earlier.
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So the kind of foundation of stomach acid is minerals.
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The foundation of making hormones.
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I know a lot of people listening to this podcast may struggle with
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HA or other hormone imbalances.
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Um, your body cannot make hormones without minerals as well.
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So really you can think of them as like these building blocks that help us to make
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certain things like enzymes and hormones and stomach acid, um, in the body.
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And they also help.
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Different metabolic processes in the body to run.
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Uh, one thing that really stuck out to me when I really started digging
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into minerals, I was shocked because I remember, and I don't know if you can
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relate Victoria, but remember when we took like nutritional biochemistry in school
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and we learned about the Krebs cycle and citric acid cycle and all the things.
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Mm-hmm.
12:45
Mm-hmm.
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You know, we were like miserably trying to memorize these things.
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Well, a couple years ago I was like reviewing all of that
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and I'm like, wait a second.
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Okay.
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How did we skip over the fact that like every metabolic process in the
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body, like the kreb cycle, citric acid cycle, all rely on minerals.
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Like, why did nobody like connect that for me?
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Um, I don't know if that was ever connected for you.
13:12
No, no.
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But I'm like sitting there looking at that and I'm like, okay, this whole process.
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For making energy in the body literally relies on minerals and somehow they
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like totally skipped over that.
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So yeah, I couldn't agree more.
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I feel like no one talks about minerals in school and it's not really, honestly,
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even into the past couple years till I've had the awareness of the importance
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of them in our health and our digestion and our hormones and fertility.
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Like I just had no idea.
13:40
Yeah.
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I had no idea.
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They never talk about it.
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Yeah.
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We like totally glazed over that and it's like without minerals.
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Nothing in your body works like your metabolism doesn't work.
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Making energy doesn't work, making hormones, doesn't work, making digestive
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enzymes, doesn't like, nothing works.
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So I don't know why we skipped over that, but yeah, it's,
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it's, it's kind of critical.
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Okay.
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So minerals are obviously critical.
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They do a lot of things to support digestion.
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You mentioned stomach acid, uh, helping to make the muscles and
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our GI tract work efficiently.
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Expel gas, digestive enzymes.
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Is there any specific minerals that you're like, okay, these
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minerals specifically are like the.
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The ones that are the most critical for the digestive process.
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So whenever we are focusing on minerals for our clients, which is
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every client, but when we're really honing in on minerals, the first place
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that I like to start is the big four.
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So the big four are calcium, magnesium, sodium, and potassium.
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Those are all really helpful for a variety of reasons for digestion.
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Like I mentioned earlier, stomach acid is made with sodium.
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It's also made with chloride.
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It's made with other minerals as well.
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Um, potassium is particularly helpful because it helps us to contract muscles.
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So you can think of your gut as a muscle and uh, just like any other muscle in
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the body, it needs energy to contract.
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Um, magnesium is really helpful 'cause it can help relax muscles and
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help, uh, bring water to the bowels.
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Um, but the other one that.
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I also like to look at, especially on testing, is something called cobalt.
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Um, this is a mineral that oftentimes when low on testing can indicate
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perhaps that somebody is really struggling with low stomach acid.
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Um.
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And so that's another one that I like to look at.
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But really any time that we are working on minerals with clients,
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we really want to start with the big four, um, that I mentioned, and then
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it can get a little bit more nuanced from there, but always the big four.
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Um, then you can get fancy.
15:47
So we understand now that minerals are important.
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We wanna focus on the big four, magnesium, potassium, sodium, and calcium.
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But of course, other minerals can impact digestion.
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You mentioned like cobalt can affect, um, or be related to low stomach acid.
16:00
How do we become deficient or imbalance in the ratios between minerals and how
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might that the deficiencies and the imbalances cause digestive symptoms?
16:12
So one of the main ways is through diet.
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So like I mentioned, you know, we're not gonna get minerals
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if we're not consuming them.
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So perhaps your diet might be lower in minerals, maybe from
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undereating, maybe from eating the same foods over and over again.
16:29
I'm guilty of that as well.
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Um, or just, yeah, not enough variety.
16:34
And then the other reason that we're seeing more of is.
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Our food is just not as rich in minerals as it once was because our soil is not
16:43
as rich in minerals as it once was.
16:46
So what, you know, we may have used to been able to get away with as far as like
16:52
getting a certain amount of magnesium.
16:54
Now we're having to actually have more of a certain food to get
16:57
that same amount of magnesium.
16:59
And then the other reason that somebody.
17:01
May deficient or imbalanced in minerals is just from stress.
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Um, like I mentioned earlier, your body dumps minerals when it's stressed.
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Um, specifically things like potassium and magnesium and sodium.
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Um, you also can see things on especially HTMA testing, which I
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know you do on your clients as well.
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Mm-hmm.
17:23
Sometimes we'll see.
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Like really high calcium when somebody is stressed or what we call a calcium shell.
17:30
Um, we'll also sometimes see really high sodium showing like
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a really kind of acute stressor.
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I. So your body may just hold onto minerals or do weird things with
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your minerals when you are stressed, um, as a result of hormones and
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aldosterone and, and all the things which I don't think we need to really
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get into the, the science of that.
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But all, all you really need to understand is that your body dumps
17:56
minerals when you're stressed.
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It also can like push minerals in the wrong place, uh, when
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you're stressed as well.
18:03
Then how might that lead to symptoms?
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Like why would not having enough magnesium, for example, or potassium,
18:08
why would that then lead to symptoms?
18:10
Uh, you know, like let's say bloating or constipation?
18:14
Yeah, great question.
18:15
So when your body doesn't have.
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Adequate amounts of certain minerals, um, or they're in the wrong ratios.
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It can lead to symptoms because you can kind of think of minerals like a symphony.
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So if you've ever been to an orchestra or symphony and like the violinist
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was off, or the piano is outta tune and never sounds right, so it's easy
18:39
to focus on like, oh, I'm, well, I'm just gonna eat more potassium, or
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I'm gonna take a bunch of magnesium.
18:45
Um, but the reality is.
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People do all the time.
18:48
Oh yeah.
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I mean, the amount of clients that we see that are like, I'm taking
18:52
1200 milligrams of magnesium and I still can't go to the bathroom.
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I'm like, well, that's because, you know, magnesium needs
18:59
other things to make it work.
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So you can't just like mega dose on one mineral and hope that it all balances out.
19:09
They all affect each other.
19:10
So for example, like magnesium, I think that's a really common one.
19:14
You know, you're constipated.
19:16
You've heard magnesium is gonna help you go to the bathroom.
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So you start taking natural, calm, or a magnesium citrate or magnesium oxide
19:24
or whatever kind of magnesium it is.
19:26
And you're wondering, why am I still constipated?
19:29
Well, that's because your body needs sodium to actually absorb magnesium.
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It also needs boron, which is another mineral to help with magnesium absorption.
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Uh, you might need a little bit of potassium in there as well.
19:44
So.
19:44
It is really helpful, um, to look at how minerals are interacting with each
19:50
other because when you look at the relationship of minerals, it can tell you
19:55
a lot more than like just one mineral.
19:58
Um, you know, looking at a magnesium level or something like that.
20:01
'cause we really wanna see, okay.
20:04
What is the ratio of sodium and potassium?
20:07
What is the ratio of, um, you know, all these other minerals that,
20:11
that might affect how you feel?
20:13
Um, the cool part about, I don't know if you want me to get into this or not,
20:17
but the cool part about HTMA tests.
20:20
Um, and looking at minerals is you will get like some of that, um,
20:25
you will get the ratios that tell you a little bit about why you
20:30
might feel the way that you do.
20:32
It's obviously not diagnostic, but there's specific ratios that can tell
20:36
you, um, insights into your thyroid and your stress and your metabolism
20:43
and your adrenals and, and all of that.
20:45
No.
20:46
I love that you brought up the HTMA because that was one of
20:48
the questions I had for you.
20:49
Now we order them now with every client we work with.
20:51
We think it's so important for, especially egg quality and fertility.
20:55
Eating enough and getting their bodies in a safe place is the most
20:58
important for period recovery.
20:59
But again, for that egg quality and for fertility in other areas, we really
21:03
think minerals are just the foundation.
21:06
But I know that you were also like fanatically obsessed with the HMA test.
21:09
Too.
21:09
So I'm curious for the person listening, who do you recommend an htm a for?
21:13
And um, explain maybe a little bit about how y'all use that test
21:16
for your clients that struggle with these digestive symptoms.
21:20
Yeah, I absolutely love HTMA testing.
21:23
Probably about three years ago we started using it a lot more regularly
21:28
with clients and the results have honestly been kind of insane.
21:33
Um, you know, obviously my practice is focused on digestive health, so we do tons
21:37
of stool testing and, and all of that.
21:40
And I still obviously love stool testing, but the thing that we
21:44
kept running into was clients that.
21:47
You know, they were, we would get their stool tests back, we'd see all this
21:51
stuff on there that we'd wanna work, and their body just wouldn't do it.
21:55
Like, you know, we'd, they'd have candida or they'd have, um, even
22:00
something like poor digestion.
22:02
Like we'd see a low elastase, which is indicating poor pancreatic output.
22:08
And the question always became like.
22:10
Why, you know, why do you have such poor digestion or why do you have this
22:15
h pylori that like will not go away?
22:18
Um.
22:20
And at the end of the day, it came down to your body is so depleted and much
22:25
like the clients that you work with, the body cannot heal if it doesn't feel safe.
22:30
Mm-hmm.
22:30
So kind of going back to that stress component, if your body is.
22:35
So stressed because it's so depleted.
22:38
It's not going to want to push out an infection like h
22:42
Pylori or whatever it might be.
22:45
So now you know, pretty much most of our clients, we start with an
22:50
HTMA because we're able to make.
22:53
A lot better progress when it comes to the gut, if the body
22:56
has mineral support on board.
22:59
Um, because we are able to see things like, you know, really severe depletion or
23:05
really just huge imbalances in minerals.
23:08
Like, um, one that we often see with our constipated clients
23:12
is like, really high calcium.
23:14
Calcium.
23:15
That's way too high, is really going to constipate somebody.
23:19
There's really no amount of like motility support or even medication that you
23:24
can take if you don't work on that.
23:26
And so.
23:27
I'm kind of a tangent, but we use HTMA for pretty much every client.
23:32
And honestly, even if somebody doesn't have digestive issues, HTMA can be
23:37
so beneficial for so many people.
23:39
It can be beneficial if you struggle with energy.
23:42
It can be beneficial if you struggle with, like, we've had some clients that have had
23:46
like crazy hair loss, um, that kind of.
23:50
Mid-afternoon slump or fatigue, sleep issues, uh, irritability or
23:57
mood issues, blood sugar issues, really, because every process in
24:01
the body comes down to minerals.
24:03
There's really nobody that can't benefit from mineral testing, um, if
24:08
they're having really severe symptoms.
24:11
I am in complete agreement, agreement with that.
24:13
I think I've gotten to this point.
24:15
The more I learn about minerals and the HMA test, the more, um, I just believe
24:19
in it so deeply and it's just something that I wish every person just like did
24:23
as a yearly checkup with themselves.
24:25
And then that allows you to really tailor your supplements, um, to
24:29
what your body like needs on a personal level, rather than just
24:32
willy-nilly taking supplements and.
24:34
Considering your food for that matter, the way that most people do.
24:37
Um, I know for me personally, I took it not with digestive issues in mind,
24:41
not with, you know, any fertility or peer recovery because I didn't
24:45
discover it until a couple years ago.
24:46
But when I did take it, my energy levels, I like, I will never get over that.
24:50
Like the amount of energy I have now on a daily basis is completely
24:54
different and I wish I would've known about it, especially after my first,
24:58
when I was really struggling with so many things from sleep to, um.
25:03
You know, my stress levels to lack of energy to irritability,
25:07
I feel like it would've been so helpful in the postpartum.
25:09
And now I'm like, oh, this is just like part of how I do health now.
25:13
Totally.
25:14
Yeah.
25:14
I, um, recently had my third baby and, uh, one thing that I did this
25:20
time that's been different than the other times is I actually tested
25:24
my minerals at 38 weeks pregnant.
25:27
Right before I delivered and I ended up custom formulating myself a mineral
25:33
powder that I started basically when I was like five days postpartum.
25:37
And I can very honestly say this has been the easiest postpartum it has been.
25:44
I have like, I've not felt exhausted and my hair of course, is still falling out as
25:50
it does postpartum, but not to the extent.
25:53
Stent that it has with the other two.
25:56
And you know, you'd think, okay, third baby your body, you're just gonna be
26:00
exhausted 'cause you have two other kids to take care of that are also young
26:04
and you know, breastfeeding and all the things like, I feel good and I really
26:09
attribute a lot of that to minerals.
26:11
Like, I didn't do it for honestly any other reason than like, I cannot
26:15
afford at this moment to be exhausted.
26:17
Yeah, yeah.
26:18
And yeah, so I like, I swear by it.
26:21
I think that it is.
26:22
Just so helpful.
26:24
Um.
26:25
Yeah, for really anybody I know I got to that point too, where I was like,
26:29
I'm just tired of this narrative that because I'm a mom and I also work, that
26:33
I'm gonna be con constantly exhausted.
26:34
Now I just like, I refuse it.
26:36
I refuse it, and it's been true to my, my personal experience at least sounds
26:40
like yours too, Heather, that led, that's actually not the case, and I think that
26:45
is, you know, because of so many things, but especially because of minerals
26:50
and truly properly nourishing my body.
26:52
For what it needs based off of how my personal test came back.
26:56
Yeah, totally.
26:57
Um, I've even noticed like improvements.
26:59
I have hypothyroidism and I've noticed improvements in my thyroid numbers.
27:04
Um, being able to like decrease my medication.
27:07
We've had lots of clients be able to decrease like thyroid
27:10
meds when their minerals are.
27:12
Supported, which is pretty cool.
27:13
So yeah, it's, that is really cool.
27:14
It's just amazing.
27:16
So obviously we both love the HMA test, but I did wanna ask too, for
27:19
the person listening who's having digestive symptoms like bloating, like
27:24
constipation, which can be really common in period loss and period irregularities.
27:28
What do you recommend as far as like, how do you know it's
27:30
time to do some functional lab testing for your gut health?
27:34
I would say, you know, it's time when you've really addressed the basics
27:39
and you're not getting anywhere.
27:41
Um, you know, it can be really helpful if you're like, all right, I am,
27:45
you know, starting to eat enough.
27:47
I am, you know, chewing my food.
27:50
I'm trying to get enough sleep, I'm hydrating.
27:53
You know, maybe you fit the narrative of like, I'm taking a ton of
27:57
magnesium and I'm still constipated.
28:00
Um.
28:01
It can be really helpful to dig into what's going on mineral wise.
28:05
And sometimes we also have clients kind of on the opposite side where
28:09
they're like, I'm so miserable.
28:12
Um, I'm so bloated, I'm so constipated that I can't do what I need to do
28:18
to eat enough to restore my cycle.
28:22
So then in that case, it can be helpful as well, where it's like,
28:25
okay, well let's see what's going on.
28:27
Where, you know.
28:29
Maybe you do have really high calcium and that's what's constipating you.
28:33
Or maybe you do have like some pretty significant imbalances that are making
28:38
it hard for your body to respond.
28:41
Um, and so that can be a situation as well where you're like, I, this is a barrier.
28:46
You know, my GI issues are, are inhibiting me from being able to do
28:50
what I need to do to recover my cycle or eat enough, or whatever it might be.
28:57
Amazing.
28:57
Thank you so much for that advice.
28:59
For everyone listening who may most likely they're listening to this episode,
29:03
really be struggling right now, and I hope that gives them some hope and
29:05
clarity of knowing how to proceed, like have those foundations and the basics
29:09
of your health, especially gut health.
29:11
Like chewing your food taken care of, but also, you know, HMA for everybody.
29:16
And then consider some functional lab testing from there.
29:19
I wanna ask you the question I ask every guest as we end our show.
29:22
I know you already know this question.
29:24
So how do you personally live wellness without obsession right now?
29:27
Heather, I. Well, I mean, on the topic, I take my minerals.
29:32
Um, minerals are a, a big part of my daily routine.
29:37
Um, whether it's that kind of custom blend that I am doing or whether
29:42
it's just, you know, an adrenal cocktail each day or a mineral,
29:45
mocktail, whatever you wanna call it.
29:47
Um, but I noticed a difference.
29:49
You know, there was a, a day or two last week actually, I was at a conference
29:53
and I didn't have like, all the normal minerals that I take and I felt it.
29:59
Um, and you know, the first thing I did when I got home was I. Made
30:03
myself a, a mineral mocktail.
30:05
'cause I knew it would make me feel better almost instantly.
30:07
And that's kind of the best thing about minerals is unlike, you know,
30:11
gut protocols or really anything else, you do see the benefits oftentimes,
30:16
almost like instantaneously, especially when it comes to energy.
30:20
Um, so yeah.
30:22
I mineral mocktails.
30:23
That's how I, that's how I take care of myself.
30:26
I love, that was such like an on-brand answer for the topic of today's episode.
30:31
This has been as always, such a fun conversation and I just
30:34
feel like I even learned so much through listening to you today.
30:37
Heather, tell everyone who's listening where they can find you, where
30:40
they can potentially work with you.
30:41
Tell us all the places.
30:43
Awesome.
30:43
Well thanks for having me again.
30:45
Such an honor to be able to come back a third time.
30:48
Um, you can find me on Instagram, just it's my name at Dr. Heather Finley.
30:53
And if you're curious about trying some mineral mocktails,
30:56
I do have a free download.
30:58
If you just DM me the word minerals, you can download my free.
31:01
Mineral guide.
31:02
There's links, there's recipes, there's all the things that you
31:05
need to get started if you're curious, um, by my, like by topic.
31:10
So there's like a mocktail for gut health, there's one for thyroid health.
31:15
So regardless of what you're struggling with, um, there is a recipe or concoction
31:20
for you on that guide, and I'll make sure to put all of that in the show notes.
31:24
Heather, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
31:27
Thanks for having me.
31:28
Bye.
31:29
Heather, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast.
31:31
Thank you, my incredible community for listening to today's episode.
31:35
If you wanna learn more about Heather, potentially work with her
31:39
practice, you can learn all about Heather and her incredible resources
31:43
with the link in our show notes.
31:45
I also wanna remind you that mineral testing is something we now do with.
31:48
Every single client we work with inside the premiere
31:51
period, recovery for fertility.
31:52
So if you are actively trying to get pregnant, but you have period loss,
31:56
you're struggling massively with digestive issues, and you have a lot of what we
32:00
talked about today, namely, you know, a history of dieting, disordered eating.
32:04
You're someone who loves to be active, but eating, you know, freely with
32:08
your food is very difficult for you.
32:10
These are some signs that we can help you and we would love to help you do
32:14
just that by healing your relationship with food so that you can get your period
32:19
back and go on to get pregnant naturally.
32:22
The link to learn more and apply for one of our limited
32:24
spots inside the premier period.
32:26
Recovery for Fertility is included in our show notes.
32:29
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode.
32:32
As always, feedback for another episode next week.
32:35
Until then, know that a nourish body is a powerful one.