POOP <giggle, giggle>
We all do it, but how much attention do we pay to our poops? It's not a dinner table topic and you certainly won't want to discuss it around the water cooler at work. But, our poop can tell us a lot about what is going on in our gut. And we all know how important gut health is to our overall well-being.
Join me today as I chat with Dr. Lori Bouchard and get the scoop on poop! You will be enlightened (and relieved, pun intended) as we discuss the color, the consistency, the frequency and more! We even get a few giggles in as we dive into this uncomfortable topic of POOP!
Connect with Dr. Lori Bouchard at the Inside Health Clinic:
https://www.insidehealthclinic.com/our-team/dr-lori-bouchard-dickson/
Suggested Resource Links:
Your donations power our podcast's mission to support cancer patients with hope, insights, and resources. Every contribution fuels our ability to uplift and empower. Join us in making a lasting impact. Donate now! 🌟
POOP <giggle, giggle>
We all do it, but how much attention do we pay to our poops? It's not a dinner table topic and you certainly won't want to discuss it around the water cooler at work. But, our poop can tell us a lot about what is going on in our gut. And we all know how important gut health is to our overall well-being.
Join me today as I chat with Dr. Lori Bouchard and get the scoop on poop! You will be enlightened (and relieved, pun intended) as we discuss the color, the consistency, the frequency and more! We even get a few giggles in as we dive into this uncomfortable topic of POOP!
Connect with Dr. Lori Bouchard at the Inside Health Clinic:
https://www.insidehealthclinic.com/our-team/dr-lori-bouchard-dickson/
Suggested Resource Links:
Your donations power our podcast's mission to support cancer patients with hope, insights, and resources. Every contribution fuels our ability to uplift and empower. Join us in making a lasting impact. Donate now! 🌟
Welcome to today's episode on the Believe Big podcast. My name is Ivelisse Page and it's an honor to spend this time with you. Today's episode is everything you need to know about poop, gas, and bad breath. Yes, you heard me right. You will hear why these taboo topics are important when wanting to live a long and vibrant life. Dr. Lori Bouchard is an author, entrepreneur and licensed naturopathic doctor. She has been metabolically trained with a focus on cancer care. She is a best selling author of Live Longer and Stronger With Breast Cancer and Cancer Doesn't Own You. She is the host of the Breakthrough Medicine Conference for Natural Health Practitioners, the founder and medical director of Inside Health Naturopathic Healing and Detox Clinic, and she is also an amazing mother of three girls. Welcome Dr. Lori to the show.
Dr. Lori Bouchard:Hi. Thank you so much for having me. What an honor. I'm excited to be here.
Ivelisse Page:Well, we are equally excited to have you. So everyone knows that we start our podcast discovering what our guest's favorite health tip is, and I know you probably have many. So what would you say is yours?
Dr. Lori Bouchard:I would say the top one would be to ask why, when it comes to your own body, your own healing journey, all of the things even in your own life, you wanna ask the questions of why are you doing things? Why are those symptoms there? Why do you feel the way that you do and go forward with that? Cuz too many times we look for ways to suppress those feelings, whether it's through medication, through different habits we pick up, addictions that we could pick up, and just conventional therapies too. So when we can truly understand why things are happening in the body and what's going on with our health, then that I would say is my top topic cuz we know sleep, gratitude, like there's so many great things, eating healthy, but to understand why I feel like is a very empowering next step. So just to do things because someone told you to, that doesn't last very long. So those changes aren't very endearing. They're more of just like you do it because someone says to, but to understand really why and the motivation behind it, I would say that's the top one.
Ivelisse Page:That's excellent. Yeah, it's that sense of curiosity. It's, making sure that you're being your own advocate. So asking why is a great thing especially in a cancering process. So I love that health tip. You mentioned in your book that your mom always reinforced that the root of all diseases stem from your gut, and if your poop is off, it's an easy way to get a quick glimpse of what is going on in your body. So what should our poop look like? I'll just start it off,
Dr. Lori Bouchard:Yeah, That's such a great way to start. This was a topic at our dinner table, my mom was talking about after a meal you should go at least 18 hours later and have a healthy formed bowel movement. And she would wanna like run to the toilet and see what's actually happening. Cuz that was the best indication of what our body is doing. And when you're young, you're like, you are. Off your rocker, like this is totally mental But she would look to see is there undigested food in there, is there mucus? Is it loose? Does it all fall apart? Am I sitting on the toilet for hours and not joining people? And she would ask all of those questions. And so even if I had a sore throat or if I felt sick in any way, she would get right into the nitty gritty of fixing my gut, doing colonics, doing things to help heal the intestinal lining. Even when I'm like, Mom, that's not connected to my throat. That makes no sense at all. But as you learn more about how important the immune system is and the gut associated lymphatic tissue. All of that is so key. So yes, looking at your bowel movements is something everybody should do every single day, and it's shocking how many people don't do that. They kind of. Sit on the toilet and run away, right? They flush and run. So if you took a look at what's going on in there, it can tell you so much about your gut and your health. Another great one too is looking at transit times. Some people say they go to the bathroom every single day, but you can try doing the beet test where you have beets for dinner one night, and then you see how many hours later you're actually passing the red in the stool. I've seen where it could be up to a week later where they're going to the bathroom every day, but they don't see the beats until seven days later. So you wanna make sure that transit time is about 17, 18 hours after you have that meal. So even if you have the beets and then that night they shoot out red, then you know that it's too fast and you maybe aren't digesting enough or absorbing enough from your diet and nutrition.
Ivelisse Page:So when should you be seeing those beets? You were saying not too soon and not a week later. So what is, what would be a healthy timeframe?
Dr. Lori Bouchard:Yeah, about 18 hours. Anything much longer than that it allows the food to sit and ferment in the gut. So when you have foods that's sitting there for too long, it can create off gases. You get more bloated, more distended, and then it's more of a host environment for a candida, bacteria can overgrow. So really that optimal time is about 18 hours later.
Ivelisse Page:And it's funny cuz I thought, well if you're going every day, then you must be doing the right things. And is that not true? Should you be going more than once a day?
Dr. Lori Bouchard:It depends on how much you're eating as well. So if you're fasting, for example, then once a day is great and you should still be moving even when you're fasting. Or if you are having three large meals in a day, then you should essentially have three large bowel movements. I remember when I first graduated as a naturopathic doctor, I was doing. Colon hydrotherapy. So I was working as a colon therapist and the stuff that I would see coming out of people's bodies, I remember once seeing a cherry pit coming out and this person remembered swallowing a cherry pit at a birthday party five years earlier. like,
Ivelisse Page:What?
Dr. Lori Bouchard:It was sitting in her gut lining for that... yeah. I saw a whole, portobello mushroom coming out at one point. I'm like, do you even chew anything? You need to actually sit and chew 20 times before you even think about swallowing. Most of us are so rushed. We're eating on the go. We're not actually secreting the right digestive enzymes prior to a meal. So all those steps of chewing, getting the salivary enzymes going are so important to what's going into our gut and actually absorbing. You go in for a colon hydrotherapy session and what you see come out of there, I feel like nothing motivates you more. You can see a lot of yeast, a lot of candida. I've seen parasites coming out. It's pretty incredible. I mean, that stuff should be out and not sitting and growing in the gut.
Ivelisse Page:Yeah, I had never done a colon hydrotherapy until this past year. Due to my cancer history, I have to have a colonoscopy done every year. And the last three years I've done things differently because I discovered, I didn't realize that the prep was so toxic. They said I was drinking plastic, which is why my gut was never healing. I was told, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, that whether it's a round of antibiotics or the colonoscopy prep, it'll take a full year to get the, healthy microbiome back in your gut. And then I was going back in again for another colonoscopy. And so my integrative doctor said to me you should look at colon hydrotherapy. And there's one in town that does it specifically for colonoscopies and what an incredibly much better experience. For those who have never even heard of colon hydrotherapy, can you explain what that is and why it's so beneficial?
Dr. Lori Bouchard:Sure, yeah. A lot of people do associate it with a colonoscopy, so they have that fear. They're thinking a tube is gonna go all the way through their large intestine, but really the tube goes in maybe an inch. I mean, it's not a very comfortable experience, but after the tube is in there, the therapist should be sitting with you the whole time. You're lying on your back. The water that's going in is so gentle. You can change the temperature control. So if you want more of a relaxing experience, they can do more heat or just warming. And if they want the bowel to kind of wake up and constrict, then you do more of a cooling water going in. When you're lying on your back, the therapist should be massaging the abdomen, getting things moving, maybe doing different pressure points. The machine that we have, we have the truth tube, so you can see everything that is coming out of the colon. And it's a very different experience than a colonoscopy where, like you said, you are just like stripped away of all the good bacteria. So the difference with this one is you could actually do a colon hydrotherapy session prior to a colonoscopy instead of, or people can generally do high dose magnesium. So really drawing in water into colon to help get stuff moving. It's a really great assessment tool too. A lot of people like to send away their stool to a lab and understand what the good bacteria's like if there's parasites, yeast overgrowth, like to get the full picture. But there's nothing like just doing a series of colonics and seeing like you can see if parasites are coming out. You can assess if your undigested food is there or if you need to support fat metabolism, cuz there's fat pockets coming out, and then you can use it as to support your treatment plan as well. So I mean, it's great to do stool testing, but I like to use colon hydrotherapy more of the assessment and supporting the treatment plans too.
Ivelisse Page:And you just mentioned it, you said parasites and people get freaked out by that, myself included. Oh my goodness, what is living inside of my gut? So can you share with people who are hearing this maybe for the first time too, what parasites, how can one get them? How does one know if they have them, and how can you get rid of them?
Dr. Lori Bouchard:So on blood work, you would know if you have a parasite if your eosinophils, part of your white blood cells are higher. So that's one indication. If you have parasites, you're also maybe grinding in the morning, so your jaw hurts. With kids you'll see parasites cuz their bum is really itchy. If you have any pets in the family, I see my dog do this a couple times cuz he eats raw food, so probably parasites from that, but he'll drag his bum on the ground cuz he is trying to itch it. So anything to do with any of those symptoms, likely there is something else going on. You may find it hard to gain weight or you may find it hard to lose weight. Another marker, which is really interesting, I've seen where patients have tested positive for their A N A, which is an autoimmune marker. And after a series of colonics and cleaning out the gut and changing diet and doing an anti-parasitic protocol, that A N A marker was gone. And this patient, I remember after the eighth colon colonic, saw this huge worm. It can cause symptoms that you wouldn't even think. Some people may think, oh I'm not bloated, I don't have any digestive issues. I feel fine, but it can transpire in so many other immune imbalances and in the gut.
Ivelisse Page:Wow. And so you said the eighth colonic they saw the large worm. If someone wants to try and do this type of a cleanse, how often should one do a colonic?
Dr. Lori Bouchard:So usually the first one you're just more tense during the whole time. You're just like, what is happening? And your nervous system is in this like more sympathetic state and we know our digestive system, let's go and can work better when you're more in a parasympathetic state. So I feel like the first one is like going on a blind date, you're just like feeling out the water. You're just testing it out. And then I like to do them actually back to back. So we would do two in a row. I remember my first patient that I saw out of school, he was on six different medications, was on sick leave from work. He had these chronic migraines. He was so ill and he's only in his early forties. He had kids. He's like, I've seen every specialist possible. No one can figure out. They just wanna give me more medications and nothing's working. So I said, okay, he's desperate enough so we are going to completely clean out his gut. I went to his house. I helped him do these colonics over his bathroom toilet. He did these colonics morning and night for five days, along with a whole protocol with fibers, with proteolytic enzymes, with anti-parasitics. We did this every hour and a half, he was taking something for his gut along with the colonics morning and night. He has never been in better health since then. He's off all medications, he's now doing marathons. He's juicing all the time. His complete life is back and that was 14 years ago and he still messages me. He's like, you know, as much as I didn't love those colonics, they completely changed my life. It really was like the inertia that he needed just to help reset. So if you're just dealing with a flu bug or something you get once or twice a year and you just wanna really help optimize your system, maybe once a month. But it really depends on what you're dealing with, how chronic your issue is, what you're trying to detox from, the state of your gut, the state of your liver. It all has to do with if you're chronically ill or not. So everyone's different. I would say from once or twice a week to really, once every quarter, every season change, you can do it.
Ivelisse Page:And what's the difference between the health benefits of doing a colonic versus, a coffee enema?
Dr. Lori Bouchard:So colon hydrotherapy is a colonic, is getting the whole large intestine. It's really working on all the diverticuli, so the pockets that are in the colon to help clean that out with a coffee enema, it's not so much about detoxing the colon as much as to help with your liver. So when you're putting coffee rectally, it's opening up the common hepatic duct. It's going straight into your liver to help release bile, and a lot of these toxins that we're exposed to are all fat soluble. So it's helping how your body is eliminating that. The other really amazing thing is it helps with producing glutathione. So we know most people who have a cancer diagnosis, they have radiation damage, they have toxicity from the chemotherapy. Their liver has extreme high enzymes, G G T, maybe high A S T, A L T all the enzymes are just screaming for help. So doing coffee enemas is a really supportive way to help how your liver is functioning and helping let go of toxicity that's been polluting your system for many years. I love coffee enemas. It's a great way to just keep your system going in between chemo sessions or even after. And even for myself, I like to do them once a week, every other week to really just give me another pep to my step. The other important thing is when you are increasing glutathione, whether it's from liposomal taken orally or through an IV or through the coffee enemas, you wanna make sure that you're replacing the co-factors that your body needs to produce this antioxidant. So looking at ascorbic acid like vitamin C, vitamin B 5, magnesium, zinc, all the things that make that antioxidant thrive and do its job because if you're pushing, too much glutathione in the body, it can exhaust those other co-factors that you need to balance.
Ivelisse Page:Wow. Great information. So is there a particular kit that you recommend, like we can put in the show notes? I know that I've heard that it's super important that you use organic coffee and things that are really great quality. Can you talk about that briefly?
Dr. Lori Bouchard:Yeah, so we order from a company that makes coffee specifically for colonics. So it's not roasted. The coffee actually looks yellow and it has almost like, a sweet smell to it. It has to be mold free. It has to be chemical free. Like anything that you're putting in your system, regardless which route it's going in, it needs to be clean. So this coffee is specific for coffee enemas and it's higher in caffeic and plumbic acid. So it really does have that opening of the common bile duct to help with detoxing. You don't wanna drink this coffee. I had a little bit of it and it shot me into almost a panic attack, so you don't absorb the coffee systemically when it's going through rectally. The company that I go through is Wilson's. I don't have any affiliation with them. I just really like their clean products. You can get them most places where you make sure it can hold at least 300 milliliters or even 500 milliliters of whatever you wanna add into it. Cause you could do two different types of enemas, like the one where it's more detoxing with the coffee and maybe you do one with bentonite clays. If you have a lot of candida overgrowth or parasites versus doing more of a nutritive enema. A lot of people post whether it's colonoscopy or any kind of conventional treatments, you can actually open up the probiotics and put that into the enema bag and have it sit there for 15 minutes so you know that the good bacteria is getting to the right place. Also, people who have a lot of inflammation in the gut or gut permeability, you can strengthen the gut lining even with aloe vera. So lots of things you can put that way where you know it's getting to the area. Cause I, I often wonder, taking probiotics is your stomach acid killing that off? Is that something that's actually getting to the place that we want it to go? So it's a really great way to just, to ensure that it's getting there.
Ivelisse Page:Great tips and also why it's so important for individuals to work with a integrative practitioner that understands this, so that they can share with you what is the best way for you and for your body and what your needs are.
Dr. Lori Bouchard:Exactly, and it's similar to when I was growing up I didn't understand why to any of this stuff. Why do I have to do this? And my mom would be like, muscle testing me in the store and giving me chloro fill and bean sprouts and all these things where I didn't understand the why. But I think for you and anyone listening, going through this journey, when they understand how your liver is actually being supported and your gut and you're feeling stronger then it's something that you can work with your integrative doctor to say like, when is the best time? What should I actually add to this? What can I do to really optimize your health?
Ivelisse Page:Was your mom a naturopathic doctor as well or was she just had an interest in natural medicine?
Dr. Lori Bouchard:She was a registered nurse, but her aunt was an iridologist. She wasn't a medical doctor, but she was definitely in the health field, she may have been an herbalist and very root cause medicine and so even when I was young and wanting to go to the doctor and I wanted to be on antibiotics cuz my friends would go and take the pill. And it blew my mind thinking why can't I go and do those things? But she was really enforcing how amazing our body is and how we have to just give it the right tools and listen to it. And, taking a magic pill is not gonna solve anything. It may make you feel better temporarily, but you're just suppressing what your body's really trying to do. She raised me like that. And it was only until late high school where I hardly ever got sick. Whereas my friends were getting their tonsils out, their appendix out, getting migraines, all these other issues, and I'm thinking, okay, there's something to this voodoo medicine. Actually is quite amazing.
Ivelisse Page:I had a friend who told me and she said, it's not woo-woo, it's true, true. And, I loved that statement and what an advantage you had growing up with that. And myself as well, my grandmother in Puerto Rico, when growing up in the summers there that's my first experience with natural medicine. If I had a sore throat, she would go out to her lemon tree and she'd squeeze lemon in my throat. If I had an upset stomach, she would go to her orange tree in her backyard, get the leaves and make me a tea. And I mean, it was amazing how great I felt quickly and she knew exactly what to give me. But going back to bowel movements and how can one have healthier poops?
Dr. Lori Bouchard:So the diet that you're eating, there is a certain class of food that is high in a probiotic called akkermansia. So there's certain foods that help feed the good bacteria in the gut, cuz we know there's trillions of bacteria in the gut that helps make up the whole ecosystem and the environment. And you need to be supporting your body with enough foods that actually make this environment thrive. So one example would be bananas, and you need to have them in the unripe state. So when they're very green, that's gonna be higher in akkermansia versus when they're very ripe and brown. That's where they're gonna have a lot more sugar, higher in the glycemic index and it can actually spike insulin and cause another cascade of glucose dysregulation. So green bananas are one that's really great. You can do asparagus, apples, flax seeds, turnips. A lot of those, even root vegetables, are very high in prebiotics to help feed the gut. Another really good way to help produce akkermansia is through fasting. So there's tons of studies on this where the environment of the gut, even after a 17 hour fast, intermittent fasting, is one of the best ways to help change the microbiome and make the healthy bacteria flourish. And there's also studies with immunotherapy, how you get better success with certain cancer medications when you have higher akkermansia in the gut. So fasting and the proper foods are the two there's nothing that beats that. You can take probiotics as well, and you can take the prebiotics if you know that you don't like any of those foods on the prebiotic list. But really combining all of that together is how you can ensure that your gut is thriving.
Ivelisse Page:What about someone who has terrible gas? What can they do differently?
Dr. Lori Bouchard:So you wanna find out why? Why is the gas there? So if you are having issues with your digestive system, it's usually because something along the digestive track is not breaking up the food properly. So that can go from starting even when you see a meal or you're about to eat, just the smell of the food will help release salivary enzymes and it gets your stomach acid moving. So it's the people who are so stressed from work. They run home, they grab a bag of chips. They're just getting something and they're quick. They're not really thinking about and mindful about what they're putting in their body. You're already skipping that first very important stage of digestion. So chewing would be the next one. Like we said, 20 chews before you swallow. And also some people can be very sensitive to having liquids or just water with their meal. So if you're diluting the digestive enzymes in the mouth and the stomach acid, then that can actually cause a lot of gas. And when the food is sitting there not breaking up properly, it's fermenting and you're passing more gas. So some people find it a very easy solution, just keep your water and your drinks away from your meals even by 30, 40 minutes, and that can make a world of a difference of how your bodies break up the food and releasing gases. The other part is you wanna look to see if there's any bacteria overgrowth. So if you have small intestinal bacterial overgrowth or sibo, you can also just feel really bloated and gassy a lot, or if there's h pylori,. Any bacteria whether it's in the stomach, small intestine, large intestine, you wanna address that. So using different antibacterials to help alleviate that, which is more the root cause of why the gas is there. You can try supplementing with hydrochloric acid or apple cider vinegar, all the ones that really pump up how your body is breaking up the food.
Ivelisse Page:Okay. Why in particular is it like known when you have a bowl of chili, I know with the beans, why is that typically cause so much gas?
Dr. Lori Bouchard:So it depends how you cook it actually. So if you haven't discovered the pressure cooker, high pressure on beans can actually help break up a lot of the lectins. I actually would pour apple cider vinegar with the bean combination and put that with the pressure cooker. Cook that for however long you would normally cook beans for 40 minutes and you'll find that your whole digestive tract just has that support to break it up. So a lot of us just don't have the enzymes to even break up those beans. So the way you cook it can make a world of a difference. So apple cider vinegar add that to almost every meal. You really can't go wrong with supporting how your enzymes are breaking up food. And then beans, you might need to supplement with certain enzymes if you find even after cooking it that it's still an issue. The other thing to be careful with beans and legumes and lentils is that they tend to be higher in glyphosates and herbicides and pesticides. A lot of beans, including coffee, is very heavily sprayed. So sometimes people are reacting to the chemicals that's on the food, not necessarily the food itself. So genetically, some of us just do not detox chemicals very well, and so our body has a hard time getting rid of it. So that can really disrupt the gut microbiome, especially how your body's breaking up stuff. So looking at what kinda like organic foods you're choosing. Always get the ones that are without the sprays because we just wanna assume that our body doesn't want to tolerate that along with everything else in our environment that we could be exposed to.
Ivelisse Page:Wow, what an incredible tip. And I didn't realize that about the beans. And maybe that's why when I eat chili out or Jimmy and I eat chili out, we have issues. Whereas when I make it at home, we really don't. And I bet it's because I use organic beans and all my ingredients are organic at home, but when we eat out it's not. Wow, that's fascinating. I had no idea.
Dr. Lori Bouchard:It's really sad I love eating out. I love going out for dinner with friends, and I always choose the healthier options. But then even those healthy options, you wonder are they putting MSG on the food to make it last longer? Why does it taste so good? What are they putting on there that is preserving the food? My brother owns a restaurant and he's like, nobody buys the most organic, the cleanest version. They're all about profit margin, right? So they're gonna choose the ones that are mass produced and the ones that just taste really good, like they want to sell their food and have people come back. So going out for dinner can be really tough when you're health conscious and you don't wanna have the excess garbage that is associated with it.
Ivelisse Page:Let alone the oils, the seed oils that affect us so poorly, that's in everything as well. What about bad breath It happens to all of us, but what about someone that no matter how much they brush, they still have bad breath? What is causing this and what can be done about it?
Dr. Lori Bouchard:So halitosis or bad breath is always coming from the gut. Even brushing your teeth too much could cause a problem because you need a certain amount of bacteria in the mouth. So you can get probiotics that are specific to the microbiome in the mouth, and they're chewables. They're ones that can help replenish the good bacteria there. But you wanna assume that it's coming from the gut, it's coming deeper down. So often it is some sort of bacterial overgrowth and bumping up the hydrochloric acid, how your body is dealing with that bacteria, or how your immune system is getting rid of that bacteria will help with the bad breath. Having gum and whatever you're doing to help cover that up, that may temporarily help you, but you want to dig deeper and help on the digestive system. I find a lot of people who get heartburn, it's not necessarily because they have too much acid, it can be because they don't have enough acid so that esophageal valve isn't closing properly. So if you are experiencing heartburn or any digestive issue, then you wanna look at supporting that, and that'll help with the breath.
Ivelisse Page:Okay. That's great advice. I really cannot believe we have already passed the 30 minute mark, but, is there anything else in regards to the topics we've been discussing that I haven't asked you that you feel would be important to add?
Dr. Lori Bouchard:Like we said at the very beginning, listening to your gut, asking the why's, and really understanding what you're putting in your body and around it and how it can affect your health. So every symptom that you have really dig deeper in why it's happening and ask the question, and that's what I talk about in my book, Cancer Doesn't Own You. It's not do this because you have the symptom. It's more about why those symptoms could happen and all of the different avenues that you could really take ownership of your own health. So it's a great way to empower yourself and educate yourself and understanding your body more.
Ivelisse Page:Thank you so much Dr. Lori for joining us today. We'd love to have you back and discuss the many other topics that you have in your book. And we know that today's episode will be very informative for all who would listen.
Dr. Lori Bouchard:Thank you so much for having me. I had lots of fun.