Sluggish Bile, Sluggish Thyroid: The Gallbladder-Fatty Liver Connection With Olivia Haas

Introduction and guest background 0:00

Hello and welcome to the Thyroid Pharmacists Healing Conversations podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Isabella Wentz, and today we're going to be diving deep into the gallbladder fatty liver and thyroid connection with Olivia Haas. Welcome, Olivia. It's so great to have you here with us. Thank you so much for having me here and spreading more education about gall bladder health. Of course, my pleasure. A lot of women with thyroid issues seem to have gallbladder issues, and the two go hand in hand. Some of them have their gall bladders already removed, so that's another component that I would love to talk about.

Before we get started, I'm going to let everybody know a little bit about you. Olivia is passionate about empowering individuals on their Gallbladder journey to lead healthier lifestyles so they can live a long, happy, fulfilling life. with or without a gallbladder. As a Gallbladder and fatty liver nutritionist, her goal is to give people resources and sources, whether they're working to save their gall bladder, transition well through surgery, or improve health months to years post-gallblader surgery.

She has a Bachelor's of Science in Integrative Science, She's board certified nutritionist and certified professional. She became passionate about all things health and wellness from her own personal health struggles. Being diagnosed with hypothyroidism in her early 20s, she was given a choice to take several different medicines or change her lifestyle. She left the doctor's office that day and focused on changing her lifestyle. She became obsessed with learning how to heal herself naturally, not always a smooth road.

And unfortunately, Olivia developed gallbladder disease years later. Again, she made the choice to feel herself, naturally and has prevented gall bladder surgery to this day. A healing journey is difficult at times, but rewarding in the end. Olivia's struggle became her blessing, and today she works with individuals working to save their gallbladder, reverse fatty liver, or improve health without a gall bladder. So thank you so much for doing the work that you're doing. I discovered your Instagram handle, gall-blatter-nutritionist, And I was really excited about the information that you were sharing because, like I said, this is a circle that so many women are faced with.

And a lot of times they're told that they just need to remove their gallbladder. What were some of the symptoms you are experiencing on your journey? Yeah, so I struggled. I did not realize it was like gallbladder liver related for so many years, but I have always struggled with chronic constipation. And whether it is related to low thyroid function or other factors, I struggle with it. What happened was going into my 30s, I think there was stress, some hormonal shifts going on and I was working with a functional practitioner at the time and she started putting me on a Candida protocol and suggested I go a little bit higher fat.

So this is when I started doing like an ancestral based diet.

Symptoms of gallbladder dysfunction 3:10

I was eating a lot of raw meats, a lotta game or a lots of like wild game protein and was eatin' higher fat. Initially I felt good, like reduced down the bloating, but then the constipation got so bad and I didn't realize it at the time and the practitioner never really addressed it. And I just kept going with the constipation. And unfortunately, six months into that, I started, we had two trips back to back, and I think it was just kind of like a compounding effect. I start developing gallbladder attacks.

So looking back on my journey, um, always struggled with intolerance to fats and then constepation and bloating. sticky, floaty, all those things, light-colored, but I didn't know at the time. And then so it was like, I, didn' t catch these early signs until it kind of became too late. Then I started dealing with obviously the back-to-back gall butter attacks. Typically, with most individuals with gall-butter or even fatty liver dysfunction, kind of the early warning signs to catch is those intolerances to fats, whether it's, you know, gastrointestinal symptoms like constipation, bloating, maybe even diarrhea, and then just feeling nauseous after fatty foods or getting even sometimes reflux after fat foods.

And then your bowels are a really good indicator of gallbladder and liver issues. I really do use my bowls to this day. to still assess if my gallbladder is struggling a bit. I can usually tell because the clay-colored stool, the sticky stool all that stuff the bile dumping starts to come back. Bowels are a good indication to catch when the gall butter or liver are more stressed. Yeah, I think that's great. Our stool can tell us so much about our health. And I love that you mentioned those sticky, floaty, light colored stools.

This is going to be a big red flag for people. With that fat malabsorption, fat intolerance, we do know that we need fat as human beings. If you are finding that you have fat male absorption or intolerant to fat, what is something that can do about that? Do you recommend a low-fat diet? How do you overcome that?" Yeah. So to work on fat meal absorption symptoms, it really stems in the bile that's being produced by your liver and bio flow. Your liver produces a substance called bile, and bile is very important for fat digestion, but it also is a form of detoxification.

It helps bind to different toxins, excess estrogen, help pulls it out through your stool if you're having regular bowel movements. It also helps protect a healthy gut microbiome, supports cholesterol metabolism, and absorption of your fat soluble vitamins. Then that bile, if the gallbladders there, passes to the Gallbladder, holds that bio, it will secrete it when we eat meals with fats. The gall bladder liver work together to control the substance of bile. and making sure that it releases out. So that way then we are digesting our fats well.

When someone has intolerance to fats, typically we wanna work on strategies to target these two organs, but also that bio, the bio composition and bio flow. There's a lot you can do as far as diet and supplements to stimulate the bile in a safe matter, long term to fix the problem, it really does work on or really doesn't involve a lot of strategies that target your liver and your gallbladder function or contraction. Low fat diets, I typically don't recommend to individuals unless their gall bladder is reactive or sensitive, meaning that they're having a lots of frequent gall butter attacks.

We will temporarily suggest a low fat diet just to give the individual a break. Then after that, we work on increasing gall-butter liver support and we worked on bio flow and that helps to improve the intolerance to fats typically. Again, there's a lot you can do within the diet and lifestyle to help stimulate the bile, but sometimes improvement of the bio composition goes a little bit further outside of diet in lifestyle because there is a a of factors that can disrupt that process. And gallbladder issues are often a liver issue.

And so we have to consider that when we're talking about improving fat malabsorption and improvement of liver health. It can be sometimes other factors like hormonal fluctuations or being inundated with toxins and our body's not releasing them out. All of these can lead to bore bio composition, poor bio flow. So sometimes it goes beyond diet and lifestyle, but certainly the diet can be a huge pivotal piece that helps tremendously and some targeted supplements too. I know you have a podcast called the gallbladder diet.

Bile flow, fat intolerance, and bitters 8:40

Can you give us a little bit more of a deep dive of what some of those beneficial foods might be to support? Yes. And I just started the gallbladder diet, so I have only a couple podcasts, but it's been really fun doing it. So foods that improve your gall bladder, liver, or the biocomposition, the number one that I think helps most people is bitter foods. Bitter foods are not something that's typical in most peoples' diet. But you might find that if you do have a gall bladder or liver problem, you may be like, oh, these are good, and you start to crave them a bit.

Those are things like radish, radicchio, dandelion, root tea, lemon, apple cider vinegar. These can really help improve intolerance to fat. So when someone's starting to struggle, the first thing I look at is like, okay, are they incorporating bitters? Whether it's through herbal teas, like bitter teas before meals or doing biters in the diet, I usually suggest to most people like you, if you're gall butter sensitive, you reacting, You typically need close to two servings of bitter foods a day. Even just simply doing lemon water or apple cider vinegar in water before meals helps tremendously.

And then starting your morning with like a bitter tea. So something like dandelion and artichoke and lemon combination, and I'm coming out with a bio flow tea that it just, it helps the time to kind of kickstart your digestion but specifically target the bile especially if you know it's kind of sluggish. So I would say that bitter foods, when you're struggling with fat intolerance, really can help move the needle and help to reduce down the sensitivity pretty quick. You know, sometimes people can have gallbladder issues that present as diarrhea and sometimes constipation.

I know that there's something called bio acid malabsorption. Does that relate to gall bladder issues as well in some cases? It can, and you see that common when I would say an individual just had a gallbladder attack and the bile is just going through quickly. Sometimes people have bile dumping right before a Gallbladder attack, so that can be sometimes indications that the attack is starting. After gall bladder attacks, people fluctuate between diarrhea, constipation, When there's a function problem, so whether it's hyperkinetic gallbladder or biliary dyskinesia or poor gall bladder functions present, that bile is not being controlled properly because there are issues with the contraction, and that can certainly lead to bile acid, diarrhea, or malabsorption.

And then after gall bladder surgery, I would say it becomes, for some individuals, unfortunately worse. And sometimes it can be a structural thing due to the changes in your digestion of no longer having your gallbladder there, which was the regulator for your bile. It can sometimes certainly be related to that, but sometimes what I have to find with individuals post-gobbler surgery struggling with that diarrhea, bile dumping, by less the diarrhea. There's typically other factors going on between their gut health through their digestive health, even thyroid, their liver, all these things can also affect the motility and kind of speed things up if they are having that excess bile getting dumped.

Would the same kind of bitter foods be helpful for that? Because I know a lot of times it seems like no matter what the gallbladder is doing, the answer from conventional medicine seems to be surgery, right? It's like, have it removed. So I'm just curious about your thoughts on whether the Same Gallbladder Diet might be able to help with that. Yeah, it does, actually. A lot people that, especially post surgery that are deal with bile acid diarrhea or diarrhea, they're often scared to do bile stimulation, but you have to take into account that sometimes bile diarrhea is a liver issue.

And so, especially in individuals post-golbe removal, and so those bitter foods also have an action on the liver. Certainly, teas like dandelion root tea, I wouldn't go in with that, certain foods to really help support this. So using those bitter foods in the diet. And for a lot of people with bile acid diarrhea, especially post gallbladder removal, they tend to struggle with more fiber. Bringing in these bitter fruits can actually be a way to help get them in those nutrients and start to work on their liver.

Thank you so much for sharing that. Why do you think gall bladder issues are so rampant? Why you do think they're so common these days? Oh, there's a lot. I would say the number one thing that we're starting to see is two. Top two things is one, the rise of metabolic issues, um, The rise have like insulin resistance. There's a big connection. Insulin resistance is a driver of gallbladder and fatty liver. It's one of the main drivers because it produces, what will happen is it will cause the liver to, basically have a buildup of fat.

and cause fatty liver. Or we have issues with the gallbladder where the insulin will cause cholesterol supersaturation in the bile. And anytime we had cholesterol super saturation in bile produced by the liver, so basically your liver is not able to do its functions and it's creating a bile that's too thick, we have a high risk of gallstones, but insulin resistance can also mess with the gallbladder function.

Bile acid diarrhea and post-surgery issues 14:20

So there's a huge metabolic issue that is increasing the risk be a rise with a lot of children because of the foods, a lots of this snack foods and stuff that the kids are, that we have nowadays. That's a big one and then I would say toxin overload. We are inundated with more toxins than ever from our food to environment and this can really affect both these main detox organs, your gallbladder and your liver, and you're liver is your main organ for detoxification. And any time that the body accumulates more toxins than it's releasing out, it is obviously going to hit the liver pretty hard.

Then you have your livers not able to process out the toxins, methylation slows down, then we have the risk of sludgy bile affecting both the gall butter and liver. So I would say those are the top two things that you're really starting to see an increase. And unfortunately, I think it's gonna get worse because of that. I see a lot of women with thyroid conditions. They do tend to have gallbladder issues. Can you explain that connection? Yes. And this was a big issue for me too along my journey.

It's kind of been up and down. it keeps coming back, but the thyroid can affect your gall bladder and liver. So there's a bi-directional relationship between the two actually. So basically, to summarize it, your low thyroid function will affect how your gallbladder contracts. So for individuals that have poor gall bladder function or the diagnosis is biliary dyskinesia, usually there is an issue with the gall bladder not contracting well. Then you also have the thyroid coming in where it's causing a cholesterol supersaturation of bile.

Basically, what low thyroid function, it'll drive that cholesterol super saturation in the bile and the liver, and then you have to gallstone risk. And then with low thyroid function, in regards to the contraction, typically hormone CCK production is weak. And hormone cck specifically is a hormone that tells your gallbladder to contract. So when we have an issue of lower hormone, cCK, the gall Bladder contraction. Then also the thyroid can affect your sphincter of Audi, which also regulates bioflow into the small intestine.

Sometimes people that have a function problem, it can also be like a spinctor problem and gall bladder function. You see this in individuals post gallbladder surgeries that still kind of, especially that have removed their gall butter and they had a function issue. They still have a lot of the presenting symptoms. And then thyroid and your liver are connected too. So we know our liver is really important for thyroid conversion, but low thyroid hormone can also increase LDL, triglycerides, insulin resistance, which promote fat buildup in the liver.

And the poor bioflow can also cause toxin accumulation. So whenever we have a fatty liver, we an increased risk of gallstones. And then the other scenario is that if our gallbladder and liver are not functioning well, hormone converts in the liver, so we have an issue there, but poor bioflow between these two organs will also affect thyroid conversion, promote toxin buildup, and deficiencies of nutrients needed for thyroid hormone support can also effect our gut microbiome, which can affect your thyroid.

It really is a connection that's really important that I think is that they can miss with most people when they're diagnosed with gallbladder issues is not addressing their thyroid or their hormone health, especially among females. Yeah, I see fatty liver disease is something that women with thyroid issues also have more commonly.

Why gallbladder problems are increasing 18:30

And I've also found that just majority of my clients with Hashimoto's, they even without abnormal, liver labs, they still benefit from doing some liver support. In fact, it was one of the first protocols in my book, Hashimoto's Protocol. I came across this protocol on accident when I had some clients that just really weren't getting better with things. And I thought maybe, you know, It seems like they have a lot of toxicity issues going on within their bodies. and sure enough, supporting their liver and gallbladder, They started to feel so much better.

in just a couple of weeks. And a lot of times people will come to me and they'll say like, Oh, I don't have my liver enzymes are normal. Right. So I can't be my lever, but I just find supporting their pathways can be very helpful. Now. There's also signs that people might have a fatty liver even without their liver enzymes being abnormal. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yes, certainly. So fatty-liver, that's kind of the issue with it, right? Is that sometimes, you know, people aren't doing ultrasounds or fiber scans until the enzymes elevate.

And this can be an issue because obviously we want to catch fatty livers as soon as possible because it's easier to reverse. Before the enzymes elevate, there can be signs that possibly your liver is struggling or there's a possibility of fatty liver without the enzyme being elevated. So we can look at blood work. High triglycerides, low HDL, high LDL are signs of liver congestion. And there is poor cholesterol to trigliceride ratio that often is linked to poor bioflow. We have elevated CRP levels that are an indication of inflammation.

You have low total T3, reverse T 3, with elevated liver enzymes. That can be signs of fatty liver and GGT. Insulin resistance is one of the number one drivers of liver dysfunction. So any elevation of hemoglobin, A1C, glucose, insulin, high triglycerides are all signs insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome. And then you have the high risk of fat liver. Then because your liver controls over 500 plus functions in the body, that there can other issues of like The nausea and tolerance to fats are bowel movements, so light or clay-colored stools.

Waking up between 1 to 3 a.m. fatigue is a really early indication. of fatty liver, PMS, thyroid issues, blood sugar issues and unexplained anxiety. These can all be signs that our liver is under stress. And if you catch these early enough, then you can really start to work on the reversal of that liver. I tell you, I say my gallbladder liver journey has been the best one yet because I really do feel like outside of the gut, the liver is a foundational piece when it comes to your health. And if you have any hormone issue or any health issue in general, we really need to work on your liver health because it can help tremendously in so many ways.

That's why I say it's my best blessing because I have felt so much healthier since going on this journey. Thank you so much for sharing that. Would you recommend, I know I did an ESRA scan, so with an ultrasound, yes, you can certainly start with a ultrasound. And then if it shows fatty liver, typically you want to follow up with the fiber scan to get the more accurate report of the liver to see where the scarring is at. that you can typically request from like a gastroenterologist. Thank you so much for sharing that because I know a lot of times people get blood work and they're told everything looks normal and sometimes it's just like okay well we didn't actually do the right tests and if you do they right test you could be really proactive about your health.

Thyroid, liver, and gallbladder connection 22:40

100%. Can people reverse fatty liver and what does that journey look like? Yes, so the liver is amazing organ that can repair and regenerate. As I mentioned, it's best to catch it earlier if you can, because then fatty liver has a higher chance to reverse quicker. If it is not addressed, It will progress to NASH or fibrosis. And NASh can take longer to reverse, but it can reverse. For some individuals, its all about kind of slowing down the progression of the disease too. before it hits cirrhosis and then cirrhosus obviously you can't reverse so it's all about prevention and supporting the liver.

So the main things with fatty liver is it really is focused on your diet and lifestyle. It's reducing down the toxin overload. Now the hard thing is and this was a big eye-opener for me too when I was diagnosed with fat liver, is that It goes beyond sometimes diet and lifestyle for people, especially nowadays, that sometimes it is a big component of toxin accumulation or there's the hormone piece going on. So like for me, I was diagnosed with fatty liver during postpartum and my thyroid was starting to have some issues around that time.

It's a large piece of it. The foundation always starts with your diet and lifestyle. And then we need to, for some individuals, peel back the layers and work on some other factors between your gut health, if there's hormone issues, If for any reason there is environmental toxins going on, just toxin accumulation, poor methylation, all of these things can affect and drive that fatty liver. What are some of the toxins that you're speaking to? Toxins can be from our food. It can from endotoxins. So this is where like the connection between your gut and liver.

It can be from mycotoxins, from mold, and I would say just overburden of toxins because it will start to slow down methylation and that whenever a methyulation is impaired, we have that higher risk to develop fatty liver and gall butter issues. I know a lot of times people recommend choline for fatty liver. Is that one of the supplements that you might recommend as well? Yeah. Choline is really important for both gallbladder liver health because it supports fat metabolism, biocomposition, and it prevents fat buildup in the liver, so we do want to ensure we get choline within the diet which is mostly found in obviously eggs.

Now eggs can be a trigger food for some people with gall butter issues so this is where you have to caution with it but I do typically suggest when someone is working on reversal of value liver or working we do typically supplement with choline. So whether it's in the form of like phosphatidylcholine or there's another form that typically we use is cholin CDP, our body can absorb that a bit better and help support the gallbladder of the bird. So in addition to choline, are there other supplements that you might recommend to support people through this process?

Yes, so the supplements can be a lot for gallbladder and liver health. So I'm gonna try to cover them as best as possible. The other one that I would say is probably the most helpful are bio salts. We have ox bile and Tudka. Ox bile is a different form of bio salt that will help aid in Fat intolerance, so whether your gall butter is poor functioning, maybe you're struggling with fat sensitivity or dealing with a lot of gallbladder attacks, your bioflow is impaired, ox bile can be very helpful. And then same thing if post-gallblow surgery, you struggle with intolerances to fats, may be more constipation, deficiencies in fat soluble vitamins, then you can certainly use ox bowel to help support that fat.

Digestion. Tudka is another form of bio-salt that specifically really promotes bioflow. It'll support fat digestion, but it has strong actions on the liver. So there's a lot of research that shows it can help with reduction of liver enzymes and reversal of fatty liver, so Tadka can be beneficial for individuals that have gallstones, sludge, poor gallbladder function, or even post-gallblow surgery where their liver needs some more support. then we can go in with Tedka. The biosolids do have to be individualized.

Sometimes people have different sensitivities. We all have our own bio pool. So you do you have individualize these supplements. So the bio salts, clean, ensuring you're getting amino acids. Those I prioritize within the diet. So that the amino acid support, detoxification, bio acid conjugation. Fiber is really important. Again, first prioritize with in your diet, but then you may typically most individuals do find benefit of supplementing with fiber. And so I'll often do a combination of acacia fiber, partially hydrolyzed gorgon sun fiber and coelium seed husk.

Fiber acts as a natural binder to bind to different toxins, excess estrogen and cholesterol. And if we're having regular bowel movements, it helps pull it out. Then we have magnesium. Magnesium is a very important mineral that plays over many different functions in the body, but it also supports detoxification. Phase II liver detoxifications, synthesis of glutathione, and without adequate amount, you'll see more toxin accumulation.

Fatty liver signs, testing, and reversal 28:30

Zinc is another mineral that you can use to support liver function, liver enzymes. Potassium is an important mineral to help support detoxification, digestion, and biosecretion. It's also essential for thyroid health to improve uptake of thyroid hormone. And it can support blood sugar regulation and insulin resistance. So potassium has a lot of actions for your gallbladder liver. So obviously these minerals we should prioritize within the diet, but for some individuals supplementing with them can also be helpful.

And then I personally love herbal medicine. I found a lot of benefit using herbs through my journey. There's two different types of herbs that you can use. One is called a choleretic, which has actions on the liver and bile production. An example of this would be milk thistle. Then we have cholagogues, would stimulate bile secretion from your gallbladder. Examples of these would dandelion and artichoke. And so we can use a combination of both of these. Now, if your gallbladder is sensitive, sometimes the colagog herbs are best to hold off and only use choleretic herbs like milk thistle until your Gallbladder calms down and then you can start to go in and push the bioflow a lot more.

But I would say those are kind of the top priority. And then certainly, you know, there's a lots of other supplements that you could target to hit your liver more and B vitamins also are very essential. for liver, gallbladder health, improving biocomposition. So whether you supplement a B complex or if you do individual B vitamins with their cofactors, it's up to you. but your B vitamins are typically also really important. The one thing that we just watch with most individuals with gallbladder liver issues is selecting forms that have methylfolate or folinic acid for people that would have sensitivities to methyl folate.

Thank you so much for that. Do you think a lot of times fatty liver can be reversed? I do. Yes. Yeah. You do see it quite often. But it does need to, I think there's some misconception that's not a big deal. And it is a big deal because your liver has so many actions or functions in the body. And so we need to consider it a bit deal. But unfortunately, some individuals in a medical community don't deem it that important or often will say, well, everybody has a fatty liver. So then it seems like it's not a good deal, but it it, especially if it continues to progress.

And like I said, because it has over 500 plus functions in your body, when your liver is fatty, it's not functioning properly, you're going to struggle with more metabolic issues, thyroid issues. Your immunity is going be weak. You're gonna deal with digestive problems. And so that's why your lever really is a foundational piece when it comes to your health. We talked a lot about treatment options. So if you have an issue with your gallbladder, you don't necessarily need to get it removed. Maybe you can try some of these lifestyle changes and supplements.

If you've got fatty liver, You can also go down the lifestyle change and supplement route, work with a qualified practitioner like yourself to to Get yourself on the right path. What about people who are like, oh, I'm listening to this now, but I've already had my gallbladder removed. What are your recommendations for them? How do they support themselves at this point? Yes. The top three things I typically work on with individuals post-gallblad removal is their diet. their digestion, so making sure fat digestion is optimized, and their liver health is supported.

Because we know gallbladder surgery changes the physiology of your digestion specifically around fat digesting. And if we aren't digesting, absorbing our fats well, this is gonna lead to a whole host of digestive issues, deficiencies in fat-soluble vitamins. This can also affect your thyroid, because we're not absorbing your fats. Well, it can affect you blood sugar. And so we look at the digestion as a foundational piece. Then the liver takes on added stress without the gall butter. So without gall-butter, your liver will continuously produce the bile, but it's no longer controlled.

It'll constantly drip into your intestines. The liver over time, the change in the bile can affect the liver in multiple ways. One, we lead to, again, toxin buildup. If someone is dealing with constipation, let's say, because they have that loss of concentrated bile, they're going to lean more constepated and toxine accumulation, or even individuals that struggle with more bile dumping or bile acid diarrhea. This can irritate the intestines quite a bit, affects the gut microbiome, which can affect the liver.

So for individuals post-golvar surgery, we have to start with the basics and just work on a diet. And so I usually tell, and a lot of people are often confused, like, you know, I don't know what to eat after gallbladder surgery because maybe they're dealing with a lots of food sensitivities. and so, usually just encourage them to focus in on key nutrients within that diet to support your liver and start to increase those a ton and then work on supporting your digestion. And this has to be individualized because it can depend on what's going on in the individual.

If they're hypersensitive to so many supplements, which is common, you can't just throw bio salts on them and often they are reactive to it. you have to individualize these functional digestive supplements. So digestive enzymes, you know, betaine HCl or apple cider vinegar or ox bile or Tedka, these are all methods that can support fat digestion, but they do have be individualized. Thank you so much for sharing that. I feel like it's such a common condition, that most practitioners aren't recommending to support yourself after having your gallbladder removed.

It's just sort of like, okay, it is gone. Go on with your life, right? Yep. Unfortunately, yes. Most, I think that's the biggest issue and why people struggle after gallbladder surgery is because it's deemed as like a no big deal surgery. And then two, a lot of people are told you can eat whatever you want after surgery, they're not educated on the fact that their digestion is different and this can have a downstream effect on their whole body. That's that biggest problem. And that's why I try to really emphasize with people post-Galvary surgery, even though they say, I'm doing great.

Well, it's like, great, i'm glad you're doing good, but you need to work on these things still. It's really important because if not, sometimes some of this stuff can come up like months to years later. You're talking like 15 to 20 years. Later, you'll start to hear people complain about some issues. Yeah. And a lot of times I find women will start having hormonal issues after getting their gallbladders removed, it's like something that they didn't maybe

Supplements and support strategies 35:40

have before or perhaps it got exacerbated. Totally. Are there any myths about gall bladder or fatty liver health that you would like to bust? Yes. So on the topic of surgery, one is that you can eat whatever you want after gallbladder removal. Definitely, you know, everyone's diet can be different, so this can mean different for everybody. But it is once our gall blood is removed, we still want to maintain a health promoting diet because your liver will take on added stress without the gall butter.

And so if we don't support the liver, then that's where a lot of these issues can start to come up. Low-fat diets save your gall butter. No, I miss it. They don't. Um, they can be super supportive when the gallbladers reactive, when it's sensitive, When you're dealing with chronic gall-bladder attacks when its inflamed. Low fat diets are a very helpful tool, but you should not remain on a low- fat diet forever. Whether you are working to save you gall button or post-gall-butter removal, we need to work on the issue, which often is an issue with bio-flow and poor fat digestion.

Another one is genetics are the main driver of gallbladder problems, so I hear this all the time. I have gall bladder issues because my mother did, I had gall blood issues cause my father did. You know, certainly genetics is a big driver for gall bladder problem, but our individual diet and lifestyle choices over the years turn on these genetics. So this is only a small piece to the puzzle and we do need to look at our choices too, when we're considering our gallbladder diagnosis and what led to it in the first place.

And then the last one, like I said, is fatty liver is no big deal. It is a big and it does need to be considered. Um, and, it is really important and the quicker you work on it, the better you'll be and I promise you will feel a lot better when you can reverse the fatty and learn to support your liver health. Thank you so much for sharing that. And I know people are listening or are going to be wondering how they can learn more about your work and where to connect with you. Could you give us that information?

Yes. So I'm mostly on Instagram at gallbetter.nutritionist. I have started a podcast, only a couple of episodes so far, but it is called the gall butter diet. Then you can connect me on my website gallbutterdiet.com. Thank you so much. And you also have a downloadable resource for our community. I'm going to put the link in the show notes. Can you tell us a little bit about that resource? Yes. So I have different master classes. Um, and so I believe the one I shared with you may be a master class, if I remember.

But, um, yes. And a lot of my free resources you'll find on my page are around different masters, just free master classes on common topics. So the link you gave us is how to reverse digestive issues, fatty liver and metabolic challenges with no gallbladder. Thank you so much for creating this free training. We really appreciate it. Yes, thank you. My pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Before I let you go, I wanted to put you on a spot and ask you some fun rapid fire questions. My first question is, are there any wellness hacks that you refuse to participate in?

I'm not ready for that. No, No, I push my body. I'll be honest with you. So if someone tells me sometimes things are beneficial, sometimes I will do them. But I can't think of any right now that I would avoid. Yeah. Some people will try anything once and some people are like, this is a definite no for me. It all depends on us. I would say, okay, one thing, I will never do a juice cleanse. To live off juices every day, forever, whatever, if it's like five to seven days, it is not for me. I don't want to do it.

Yeah, I tried one of those, but like halfway through there was like a pig roast happening in my neighborhood and I got Facebook ads for it. And I was, like, oh, this is a sign from the universe that I'm not meant to do this. I saw any benefit. Are there any outlandish things you've tried for your health? Like some really weird stuff that you look back on and people might be like, oh, that's interesting. There's certainly things that people don't feel comfortable with. So I love colonics. I loved enemas.

And I know with clients, those are kind of the things people typically are the last detox tools they'll try because it's just scary. It's uncomfortable. My husband still makes comments about asking me how I do enemus every time. But I would say those, but outside of that, I can't think of anything else extreme. But it's just getting over the hurdle to do those. And once you do them, you become addicted to... You do feel a lot of benefit from them. What are some of the benefits you've seen? My skin, so like after colonics, my skin and my eyes, how clear they become after is amazing.

Myths, post-surgery care, and resources 41:10

My hormones, doing the enemas, I have noticed the biggest change with my hormones especially with like my estrogen levels. I would say those, because I typically have always leaned more constipated because of dealing with thyroid problems, that anything that deals with clearing out my bowels and my colon and everything, you just feel so much better, right? From the inside out, cause the stuff's not sitting in you anymore. And it can get really frustrating when you do all this stuff for constepation and it's still not improving that using these tools just are something benefit to do on occasion.

I'm not saying do them all the time, because obviously it can mess with your bowels and the motility, but on occasionally they can be really nice. Thank you so much for sharing that. I know that this is probably a no on some people's list, but then other people might be curious and want to know how they could benefit from something like that? If you had the supplement police come to your house and say, we're going to take all of your supplements, you could keep one, which supplement would you keep?

So for me, I have a low-function gallbladder. And so I have found the most benefit using ox bile in my situation. And, so, I would say my ox bio would be pretty sad if I didn't have it. I don't know if this is considered a supplement, but apple cider vinegar. It would take that everywhere with me. How do you use apple-cider vinegar? I use it before meals. If my gallbladder starts to get sensitive. So it's really powerful for gall bladder attacks and intolerances to fats. and it's typically more gentle.

So yeah, I've used it even for like blood sugar issues, intolerances after meals, before meals. You name it, just many different things. It's been a very important piece on my gallbladder journey that I would be very sad if I didn't have it. Do you put a teaspoon in a cup of water? Is that how you typically use it? Yeah, I'll add it just to water. Sometimes I do it with my herbal teas. What about gummies? What do you think of the apple cider vinegar gummys? I don't think they have the same effect as just drinking it straight.

I get asked this question all the time because most people are like, ''I don''t want to drink apple-cider vinegar.'' And if you're using apple cider-vinegar for gallbladder attacks, it's not going to be the thing for using gummiess. And then personally, I don't know if you know of any, but I haven't found any good apple cider vinegar gummies on the market that are a high concentration and low sugar. It seems to be that there's usually issues there. So I tell people just pluck your nose and you gotta drink it, especially if your using it for attacks.

Yeah, sometimes gummies are much easier to take and tastier to eat. Sometimes we just have to do our regular supplements or the medicinal stuff that doesn't taste as good, right? Yes. As long as it stops gallbladder pain, I'm up for it. Do you have any guilty pleasures that maybe aren't nutritionist approved?

Rapid fire questions and closing 44:45

My guilty pleasure? I love French pastries. I would say that I got into habit during postpartum where like every Sunday we would go to a coffee shop and I'd get like a French pastry. And I think this was part of the problem of why I also got fatty liver post-partem. But yeah, that was one that, I introduced post partem that like something to do with the stress and everything. It was just so comforting, but I definitely paid the price for that one. Oh man, I heard like French pastries have negative calories, right?

As long as they're prepared properly or maybe if they are eaten in French. Yeah, i don't think this one is prepared proper. But I call it a French pastry because it was like a french bakery, but I can tell you is a lot thicker, more bready compared to what you get. So I do know there's a little bit of difference and definitely probably more sugar in ours. Yeah, a lot of times people find that they can go to Europe and whatever is it because of all the walking they're doing or just the less toxic foods or perhaps the proteins are a bit different inside of like the gluten or wheat products that just tend to do.

better with that. It can be quite a challenge in the States. I know some people will come to the US and they'll say, really, I can't eat American bread. What's going on here? I'm sorry to hear that the French pastries were not neutral for your liver either. Thank you so much for taking the time to join me on my podcast. I think this has been a really incredible conversation and everybody listening, I hope this conversation can be helpful to you on your healing journey.