About a year ago, one of my best friends was visiting and, while she was staying with me, I was in the throes of a pretty intense gut detox.
Why? Because that summer, I developed a sneaking suspicion that I had a candida overgrowth in my small intestine and, when I started targeting it, my body had some pretty wild die-off effects.
Those effects included intense itching at first, transformed into swelling and redness in my upper body (especially my arms), and ended with scaling and peeling of some skin. The gut-skin connection is real omg.
It was like my immune response had been sleeping on this for years and when it realized what was happening, it went into overdrive. After about a week, the bulk of the detox was done and I felt so much better.
Let's be clear, I'm not a physician and don't pretend to be one but before I did this, I had little to no symptoms other than some irregular bumps near my neck, the occasional fungal infection, and suboptimal digestion.
I could've easily lived like that for another decade. I had no pain, no discomfort. No real signs of illness from the lens of Western medicine.
But when I went to my ob-gyn, she found discharge from what she thought was a yeast infection (even though it tested as negative). Seemed like another clear sign that there was a candida overgrowth in my gut.
At the very least, something wasn't right and I felt that taking prescription medication for just one part of the body wasn't gonna cut it so I took matters into my own hands.
I did my own research, bought some homeopathic remedies to address the root cause, and went to town.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, I had my friend and my parents visiting back-to-back around then...and my body was having...a moment LOL. Nothing was painful, but I was uncomfortable and my loved ones were concerned.
That's one setback with targeting the root cause without a proper guide. When you DIY, it's sometimes not ideal or even safe, so I don't recommend it, but I was desperate.
I trusted myself enough to stick with it and once my parents left, I sought help from a functional health clinic. For almost a year, I've been working with them and got my body back to where I want it to be.
With that same friend back visiting me again this week, we've been reminiscing on that time and talking lots about health (also laughing at the many supplements we've both been taking recently).
In the past few months, she's even found her own holistic health practitioner and has felt so encouraged by the whole-body view they've been working with.
What a relief because your body parts aren't isolated. The endocrine and nervous system inform your digestive tract. Your digestive tract informs your skin, your brain, and so on.
Those are just two examples of how body parts and systems work together. There's so many more to explore but I digress.
My intention isn't to educate you on holistic health, but rather to give you some of the most helpful tips I've found for optimizing health.
Because when you optimize your health, you optimize your relationships, your business, your career, and literally every other part of your lived experience.
If you want in on those full-body health secrets, you're gonna wanna watch this video.
In it, I share...
- Intimate details of my holistic health journey this past year.
- Why I'm not a vegetarian anymore, but still mostly plant-based.
- The role blood sugar plays (plus the secret culprit that might've caused a slight uptick in mine overnight)!
- Simple methods to regulate your endocrine and nervous system.
- How these tips can help your business and overall success.
Watch it on YouTube and cheers to your optimal health!
Love and hugs,
Kimberly
P.s. My flight to Italy is on Friday and I'll be away for two weeks! I'll be sending you some short and sweet emails from there but will otherwise be out of office or OOO like the corporate peeps say :)
If you haven't had a moment to ditch your computer this summer, this is your permission slip to disconnect and go offline in whatever way feels right. Could be five minutes, could be five weeks <3
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