Latest / Tom's Hirschsprung's Podcast / Episode 20 - With Chris Robert @thegutcoachibd

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Episode 20 - With Chris Robert @thegutcoachibd · Tom's Hirschsprung's Podcast

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You are listening to Tom's Hirshprun's podcast, where our provide a look into the
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remarkable experiences of the most inspiring people around Hirshprung's disease and sports. Hello and
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welcome to episode twenty Tom's Hirshbruns podcast. This week I am joined by Chris
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also known as the Gut Coach IBD on Instagram, where we are going to
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talk about Chris's background with IBD, how he helps people, and how he
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became the gut Coach. Welcome Chris, Thanks ver me. Time's the absolute
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pleasure to be here, no worries. Thank you for coming along. As
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we said, we're going to talk about your background, how you founded the
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Gut Coach, around what you do with the Gut Coach and how you help
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people as well. Starting with the background, and you have IBD yourself,
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do ye? So? And that was around my riding saying around about twenty
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seventeen you were diagnosed. Yeah, so the official diagnosis was twenty seventeen,
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but in all honesty, I struggled with my gut from the age of like
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twelve. So as to where it actually came about, I'm not sure,
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but yeah, officially diagnosed in twenty seventeen. So diagnosed in twenty seventeen.
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So from that point, where where did you then go from there? So
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diagnosed in twenty seventeen, did you sort of think, right, what is
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this? Or did you have more did you have sort of an understanding of
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IBD pre diagnosis? I mean, in all honesty, before I was diagnosed,
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I hadn't no clue it existed. So originally the month's leading up to
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my diagnosis, it was suspected colon cancer. I was quite concerned about that.
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So when I got the diagnosis or IBD or ulterative colitis, it was
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almost like a relief in a way because it wasn't cancer, And then it
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was kind of like, so what is that? So it became Yeah,
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it was a bit of a strange one because I genuinely had no idea what
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it was. The doctor tried explaining it, and I then went away and
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done a little bit of research. But I was essentially told that by taking
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a certain medication and I could be on it for the rest of my life,
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that that would essentially control control the disease. So I wasn't overly concerned
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about it at first. My symptoms were quite severe, and this medication did
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get them under control within about three to four months, So from that side
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of things, I wasn't overly concerned. But beyond those four months, things
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just kept yo yo in in and out. I would have a good few
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days and then I'd be straight back into a flare up and it just kept
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repeating. And Yeah, although the initial introduction of medication seemed to work really
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well for me, it was essentially three years of me just floating in and
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out of remission and flares frequently, So it was a monthly basis so to
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initially diagnosed. It's interesting you said you went away you did some research,
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because I tend to find when I talked to people, they fall into two
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counts. Really, they'd sort of go into the I want to know what's
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a lot, or I want to know everything about this, or you have
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the other camp of I don't really want to know I have this, but
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I just want to sort of keep it outside out of mind. When you
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work with people, do you find a similar sort of pattern. I feel
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like mostly people who reach out to me are people who come across me through
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doing research. So for the most part, the people I work with have
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done a significant amount of work themselves before they get to me. I have
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had one or two people that have just come across me and booked in on
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one of my three calls, and yeah, they were very early on in
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their journey. They'd been two of them had been diagnosed within a month of
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coming across me, So I got to work with them quite early on,
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and in a way that was it was difficult beca because they were quite unaware
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of what the condition was. But at the same time, they hadn't picked
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up any of the bad whether they're bad habits or not, but yeah,
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the things that people coping mechanisms that people developed through having it. So in
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a way it was easier to get these people when they were quite early on.
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But at the same time, yeah, they hadn't had any they didn't
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really have much knowledge about the condition other than what the had told them.
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And when I say I went away and researched it, I genuinely went away
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and looked up what olter typicalitis was, got a very short background of what
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it was, and that was it. The first three years of being diagnosed
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that I was not proactive in any way. I kind of just listened to
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what my doctor said was on a low residue diet for the best part of
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three years, which left me very malnourished to a certain degree. And Yeah,
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I didn't really dive into things until I was told that in order for
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me to really get rid of these symptoms long term, I might need to
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consider surgery. And that was kind of like my wake up call. It
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was it was, Yeah, that really flicked the switch, and it was
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like, Okay, this is actually quite serious. And I pretty much thought
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about it for all of about five minutes, and I remember telling the consultant
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that, like, no, I didn't I didn't want to do it.
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I wanted to. I didn't feel like I had done enough before taking that.
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I felt like that was too drastic of a step to go from where
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I was to surgery, and I really wanted to put the work in before
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I chose to go down that route. So I essentially did that, and
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I just spent six months really really doing my research, and that's when it
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really paid off. Within four months of medication, and by month six I
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had no symptoms whatsoever. And I stayed in remission for three long years,
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and then last year I was away traveling, I was in Cambodia and I
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caught typhoid fever, which for those who don't know, is a very savage
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bacterial infection, and I had to go on the course of antibiotics. The
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antibiotics then course C. Dificile and I was in hospital with C. Difficile.
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This then brought on all the symptoms of a colius flare, so I
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thought I had undone all my hard work. I was then again very proactive.
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When I got back to the UK in October, I was able to
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get myself back in remission. And then I had a colonoscopy last month and
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the surgeon said if he was seeing me for the first time, he wouldn't
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diagnose me as having colliis. So even after all of that, I was
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dealing remission, even though I had some of the symptoms. But those symptoms
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can surface from having those bacterial infections. So yeah, it's been been quite
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quite a journey, especially the last six months, because I generally thought I
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had undone all my hard work, but I have. I've now had the
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results from my colonoscopy and nicolitis is nowhere in sight still, so yeah,
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it goes to show it can be I don't think you can ever get rid
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of it. I think there's always the chance that it can come back.
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There's no such thing as a cure, but you can do a hell of
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a lot of work to heal it and then do a hell of a lot
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of work to keep it in a maintenance phase where it stays away for a
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long period of time. It was fantastic. What a story just starts or
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to kick us off with. That's incredible. I do want to touch on
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something you said when you said there is no cure, and that's absolutely correct
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because I have seen uncunfortunately, there is a necessarily i should we say,
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prominent Instagram video going around about IBS and IBD that I've seen several times of
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people saying that you cansure it with diet, which is totally and utterly untrue.
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So I don't know if you've seen that at all. I have,
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Yeah, I mean there's certain parts of it that I can agree with.
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I mean, you don't typically tend to end up with IBD without abusing yourself
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to some degree. And my diet before diagnosis was terrible. I drank a
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lot, I smoked a lot, I ate a lot of processed food,
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there's no arguing that I'd done the damage and then by reversing my diet and
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cleaning it up, I then was able to heal. So there is a
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level of that, but to say that that is the be all and end
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all of getting rid of the condition, I had to go through that period,
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whereas on medication to get myself to a period where I could think straight
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and actually do the work, because if I've just tried to just change my
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diet in the early stages, I might not have been as successful. So,
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yeah, I'm aware of the video Eli you're talking about, and yeah,
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yeah, although there's certain aspects that I feel are to a degree true
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that they're and you can't just rule it out, and you certainly can't compare
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IBS to IBD. No, no, So if I'm right in understanding having
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spoken to quite a few people with IBS and IBT, am I right in
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saying that IBS is more irritation of the gut and IBD is more of an
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open wound of the gut. Yeah, that's that's pretty that's a pretty good
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round up. Really. I mean it's not to take away from IBS.
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IBS can be very debilitating as well. And it's it's very frustrating because there's
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it's hugely due to stress and also irritation and of certain sensitivities towards food.
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But IBD is essentially you have yet an open wound in there. If you
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have colius, it's more of a surface less level. If it's crones,
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it can work its way through multiple layers of the intestinal track and you can
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end up with completely ruptured intestines and stuff like that, which you are not
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going to see in someone with IBS. So yeah, the severity between the
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two is, yeah, two completely ends different ends of the spectrum. But
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yeah, there are similarities in some of the symptoms. But a mild ib
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D is probably similar to quite a severe IBS. So I'm glad you said
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that because I got it from your Instagram page. So I'm glad there.
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I'm glad you backed that up and you didn't just say that was rubbish because
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then I'd be really worried. Thank you very much for that. How would
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you responded to that then? I don't know. I've absolutely no idea.
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It just probably had to be up and shut edit and have to go into
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something. But if we if we go to to what you're doing now as
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the Gut Coach. You were a production manager and you left that role circa
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around a year ago on the gut Coach full time. What made you because
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obviously you were doing little bits of advice here and there before doing this full
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time. What made you think, right, I really want to help people
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now? Well, originally when I started doing it, I was doing it.
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I was I was working as a project of production manager. I also
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had a few other little side hustles. And I remember speaking with a friend
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once and he was like, what are you trying to achieve? Like he's
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a very he's he's very financially aware, and he's like, what are you
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trying to achieve with building all these different things? And I said, well,
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eventually I want to get to a point where I'm financially stable enough that
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I can coach people with IBD for free. And he just said, well,
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most people don't value what is for free, and you're doing a lot
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of work on things you don't want to do to then do something you're passionate
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about, So why not just charge for the thing you're passionate about. People
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will value it more and you can provide for yourself through doing it, So
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I thought at a time that it didn't seem like a bad idea. So
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I did then start to study as a health coach because when I first started
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doing it, I was just doing it off my own experience. I had
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no qualification whatsoever in it, so I started to qualifying that and then once
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I qualified, Yeah, about a year ago, I gave up the full
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time job. We went away traveling. We went to Thailand, Cambodia,
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and because it was way cheaper to live out there, so we'd done six
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months out there while I was building up my business up and yeah, it
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was come off to a good start. And then yeah, came back to
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the UK and yeah, here we are fantastic excellence. So if we go
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towards your business as itself, one of the things which I particularly like from
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it from studying your page is that you look at all angles, so you
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don't just go right it's diets, and we'll just look at diets, or
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we'll just look at physical symptoms or whatever it might be you tend to have.
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You definitely have five perspectives that you look at being diet, mindset,
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lifestyle, exercise and stress. Why did you choose to go down the sort
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of more rounded rather than focusing on specifically sort of diet or exercise or just
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picking one of those five things. I mean, I think mainly from my
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own experience, I realized that you can't treat it by just focusing on one
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area. That it is a that the body is one complete system. That
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you can't just focus on the digestive system to fix a body that condition that
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affects the majority of the body. And it doesn't matter how well you eat
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if you're a very stressed individual. That if you're stressed all the time and
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you've got high amounts of cortisol running through your body, that's that has been
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shown to break down the lining of your gut. So you could be doing
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all of the hard work by eating all the right things to not see the
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results because you haven't managed your stress. Or you could be managing your stress
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and you're eating well, but you've got a very sedentary lifestyle which isn't allowing
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you to function right and to treat your fatigue and stuff like that. So
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yeah, I think it has to be a full approach. And there's also
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aspects where it's understanding why someone wants to heal it because if someone's trying to
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heal again, I say here not cure for anybody who's listening. If you're
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trying to heal so that you can go back to the lifestyle I used to
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have. So for me, I used to drink a lot and eat badly.
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If my purpose to heal was to go back to that lifestyle, I
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probably wouldn't have been able to do it. But my purpose was beyond those
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to see whether this was even possible. I also almost saw myself as a
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bit of a guinea pig, like, well, let's see what I can
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actually do with this in six months, and then at the end of the
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Then at the end of those six months, if that hasn't worked, then
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I was going to consider the surgery. So it's kind of like a final
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ditch effort to see what I could achieved in those six months. And within
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the first three months, I cleaned my diet up as much as I possibly
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could, but I still had symptoms there. And that's when I just I
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realized that it had to be more to this than just diet. And then
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as soon as I started integrate, integrating the stress techniques and lifestyle techniques and
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exercise and bringing all of these other aspects in then Yeah, all of a
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sudden, my symptoms just kind of vanished. It was quite scary how quickly
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they went away. But like I said, by month four I came off
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medication, and by month five I was medication and symptom free, and that
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continued for a full month, and that's when I kind of knew I was
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onto something that's fantastic. So you'd made an awful lot of progress in a
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fairly short, short tissue amount of time. Yeah, I mean I think
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I had added pressure that I It was kind of like the doctor was saying,
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you need this surgery, and I was saying, well, I don't
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really want it, but I had to kind of listen to him at some
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degree. So it was kind of like, well, I've tried six months,
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and at the end of that if it hasn't worked. So it was
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kind of like I had no other choice. It was either this was going
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to work or surgery was the next option. So I didn't want that,
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so I kind of went into it saying this was going to work. And
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it did. But so, did you give yourself that timeline of six months
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or did the doctors give you that timeline? No, I gave it,
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but I gave myself that they didn't. I'm not going to say they didn't
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support it, but they did suggest against it because obviously they've got they've got
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to be careful about these things. They can't. Yeah, so it was
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completely my choice. But yeah, it was a choice that paid off in
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the long run. And that's not to say that surgery is not viable options
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for some people. Some people will be in a worse situation than I was,
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and they may need to take that there and then. But for me,
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I just felt like it was a step too far. I was on
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probably the lowest form of medication you could be on for IBD. It was
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just the melzella mean, which is very low level in comparison comparison to all
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the other medication. So we hadn't even explored medicate different types of medication that
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I could have gone on, and then they were suggesting surgery because it had
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got quite bad. So for me, I felt like, yeah, let's
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try some other things first. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And that kind
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of needly brings us on to the next point I have about about the business
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in the site, that you treat people as individuals, which I love and
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that's something I did throughout my businesses as well, where everybody is different,
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you know, whether it was my background in teaching, whether you teach somebody
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and everybody learns differently, everybody has different abilities and skills, everybody, everybody's
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health is completely different as well. And that's what I what I really enjoy
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or really like about business and the fact that you you say, actually,
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well we'll work with people one on one and say that they they're individuals,
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rather than saying, right, this is what you have to do. Obviously,
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there are presumably some some guidelines to follow. Yeah, yeah, it's
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presumably some some sort of fairly standard things like do this or don't do that.
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But I do love the way that you you treat people as individuals.
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I mean, I wish there was a formula do X, Y and Z
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and you will get why. But sadly it doesn't work like that. So
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there is certain tools and stuff that I use along the way that all of
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my clients will use along the way, but they might just need them at
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different times. But yeah, everyone is completely different, everyone in different stages.
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As I said before, I've worked with people who were diagnosed within that
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month that I worked with them as people that I've worked with who have had
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it for fifteen years. So obviously the degree of what they know as well
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can limit what I can kind of do to work with them. But the
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main thing is we all tend to know what we need to do. Sometimes
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it's just having that accountability and someone in your corner to help you do it.
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So sometimes it's a question of so what do you feel you need to
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do, and they come up with all the answers. It's quite a beautiful
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process really. When it happens that way, they kind of know, I
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know I should be doing this, so let's look at that, and how
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can I assist you to make sure this gets done this week kind of thing,
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and just working through it that way. It becomes very once you get
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the route to what their problem is, whether it's diret stress, lack of
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exercise, and mental barrier. People have anxiety around foods, different types of
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foods. So once you can pinpoint the specific areas that someone's struggling with,
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it becomes quite systematic to get them to take the actions week by week,
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and then that just compounds over time and yeah, within three months, you
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can make a significant change to someone who's suffering with this condition. Some of
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some of my clients are with me for six months, but most people do
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three three months and see very good results. And speaking of clients, one
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of your really important points is client feedback. How important in take all is
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that to you and your business? I mean, it's super important because people.
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I don't think many people are aware of how much you can do for
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yourself with this condition. When you're diagnosed, you're told you're with it for
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life, and there is some truth to that, but it doesn't mean you
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have to suffer for your whole life with it, Like you can live very
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well with this condition, and you can end up about myself four years in
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remission, even with all that crazy stuff that happened last year, I still
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managed to remain in remission to some degree and it's still gone. So yeah,
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I think just being able to help people see that and seeing in each
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person, because if I just talk about my journey, that's great, but
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that's only going to relate to certain people. But by seeing all these different
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testimonials some different clients, there's always something someone can take from it and see
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how they can they if they need that for themselves kind of thing yeah,
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definitely. And you say as well that you have a community of success stories
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as well as providing ongoing support as well. And I think it's one thing
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where if your your coach in whatever it might be in a sporting sporting context
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or more as you're doing an IBT, you can have one person saying something,
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but if you can read lots and lots of people's stories and this person's
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helped me this way, this person's helped me this way, and that can
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often sink in a lot easier. Do you find that as well? Yeah,
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definitely, I think not of my words. Sorry, someone's doing the
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hoovering. Can you hear it? Okay, I've just been sorry. Could
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you just repeat that question? It was just getting louder and louder and I
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was thinking, God, can you hear that? Yeah, that's all right.
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So we're just talking about all of the success stories you have and you've
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built not only built a business, but you've built a community as well.
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And when we're talking about you saying something or maybe like be a doctor says
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something to you, what can can often be impactful. But also something else
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that's impactful is having lots of people with some conditions similar to you sharing their
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stories and saying especially yourself helping other people and saying, well, Chris helped
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me this way, Chris helped me that way, and just talking about how
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that how important that is to you to have a community of people rather than
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just one person saying yeah, I mean it's immensely important. I mean I
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actually had two clients that I didn't know at the time, knew each other,
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and they would like work together in between the sessions with me, and
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it was that the relationship those two built and the progress they made was just
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incredible to see because I'd come back to the session and they'd be telling me
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about what the other person had done in that and it was just, yeah,
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it was quite this first time that's ever happened, but yeah, it
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was really cool to see. But yeah, just I think it's beautiful just
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to be around other people that are in the same situation and just having just
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seeing other people progress. It's not competition, but if you see someone else
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who was suffering in the same way you were is now in a good place,
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that's just encouragement to you that, oh, actually I could do that.
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Like some people might think, oh, Chris has done this, but
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maybe he's got unique circumstances that that's not the case. I think everyone to
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some degree can improve their health, regardless of the condition that they might have.
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There's always a little something you can do to improve your health. And
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yeah, just by seeing other people's success stories, I think that just really
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helps to drive home like exactly what is achievable and that it's not that health
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is not something that's fit for the view that is open to everyone, Like
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you can achieve a very healthy lifestyle with any auto immune condition to some degree
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if you put the work in and do what's necessary. Definitely, I think
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we're very much on the same lines with that. In sharing stories as well,
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whether it be through this podcast or whether it be through your community sharing
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success stories, I think is incredibly important and just for it last as we
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come towards the end, what are your plans for the future in terms of
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the business itself. So I mean I have a personal mission of helping one
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hundred thousand people with IBD to live better lifestyles and achieve the freedom that I've
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achieved. So that will forever be my mission even if I or should I
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say, when I achieve it, I will then continue I don't think I
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will stop there, but yeah, that's that is My main goal is just
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to reach as many people. And that's not to say coach by me.
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I've had people that follow me on Instagram and they've messaged me and saying I
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had no idea that cow's milk and gluten could be such a problem. They've
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cut it out and their symptoms have gone away, and I've had no coaching
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or one to one experience with them, But that's someone I count as helping
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because they've just seen it from me. So yeah, I think, just
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keep doing what I'm going to do. What I'm doing. I've just launched
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a YouTube channel, so I'm planning on yeah, posting once a week on
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their So I'm currently just making content from that. And yeah, about to
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launch a podcast myself as well with a friend of mine, Dennis that's called
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that I've Become Determined podcast, so a little spin on IBD and yeah,
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that would be hopefully launching it launching next month. And yeah, just keep
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spreading, spreading the word, and just keep spreading the information and yeah,
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hopefully just help as many people as I possibly can and keep meeting people like
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yourself and collaborating and hearing everyone's story because it's it's so inspiring to see what
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everyone's achieving, people with all sorts of conditions that are achieving amazing things.
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And I think Instagram's like a great platform for seeing this because I've got so
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many people on my Instagram that achieve amazing, amazing things and they've basically at
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one point in their type life being written off as having this condition. And
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I think it just depends on what you allow to come of it is what
29:47
will happen. Basically, there's something wholeheartedly agree. And you've mentioned the YouTube
29:52
channel and the podcast and the Instagram. So if people want to find you,
29:59
get in contact with you, get in contact with your business, how
30:03
would they go about that? I mean the best place to start is on
30:08
my Instagram. So at the gut Coach IBD on there I have you can
30:15
obviously contact me directly through there, but I also have a link tree in
30:18
there that will take you straight to my website, the gutcoach dot co dot
30:22
uk, where you can book a really consultation call. So this is an
30:27
hour of completely free coaching. We can discuss kind of where you are,
30:33
what you're trying to achieve. And how you can do it, and then
30:36
if working with me is something you want to do, that is something we
30:38
can discuss as well. I've also got a free ebook on my website,
30:44
so you can download that and get a bit more of an insight of my
30:47
journey and how I've kind of got to the position I am now. And
30:52
the YouTube is also in that link treat link as well. There's only a
30:55
few videos up there now, but I plan on growing that week by week.
30:59
So yeah, tuned and see what comes of that. Fantastic you do
31:03
need hell with IBT, definitely definitely contact Chris on those channels. I just
31:10
want to say thank you ever so much for your time and I wish you
31:15
every success with the next one hundred thousand people that you HELPAH lovely, thank
31:18
you very much, and thanks for having me on. It's been an absolute
31:22
pleasure meeting you and hearing a little bit about your story. Thank you very
31:26
much. Yes, thank you for listening to the podcast. Find us on
31:33
Instagram Tom's Underscore Hirshbrun's Underscore Podcast. Listen to previous episodes on Spotify by searching
31:40
Tom's Hirshbrun's Podcast.