the bossbabe podcast - 182. Why Healing Your Gut Should Be a Top Healthy Priority + The Steps on How to Do It with Tina Anderson

Episode Date: September 6, 2021

What if we told you one of the things that contributes THE most to your overall health is actually…your gut. Seriously. But taking care of your gut + what that has to do with other parts of your health (think: mental health, skin clarity + immune system) can feel really elusive and confusing. So this week, we invited Tina Anderson, CEO + founder of Just Thrive, to the podcast to unpack exactly what you can start doing today to take better care of your whole self – starting with your gut. If you’ve been looking to take better care of yourself and prioritize your health, but aren’t sure where to start – this is the episode you need to kickstart your journey to true self care. Listen now! Links: Just Thrive - justthrivehealth.com/discount/bossbabe for 15% off BossBabe Episode 149 - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/149-why-your-gut-health-is-linked-to-energy-and/id1453389736?i=1000509219300 Soul CBD - mysoulcbd.com/bossbabe Use code BOSSBABE15 at checkout for 15% off LinkedIn - LinkedIn.com/BossBabe Follow: BossBabe: @bossbabe.inc Natalie Ellis: @iamnatalie Danielle Canty: @daniellecanty Website: justthrivehealth.com Instagram: @justthrivehealth

Our body is beautifully designed to heal itself. And if we are supportive of our body and we're supportive of our immune system and our gut health, we are going to be able to handle things that much better. We know there's no guarantee. I mean, there's no guarantee in anything, but we just, we do know that we have to remind ourselves

that our body is so beautifully designed to naturally protect ourselves. And so if we support it, we'll hopefully do a favor and return to us by protecting us. Welcome to the Boss Babe podcast, a place where we share the real behind the scenes of building successful businesses, achieving peak performance and learning how to balance it all. I'm Natalie Ellis. And today we have an incredible podcast with Tina Anderson. So you might know of Tina from a previous episode we did. She is a litigation attorney turned health and wellness entrepreneur. Tina and her husband

founded Just Thrive after they'd both been working in the pharmaceutical industry for over 15 years and through years of experience and observation, they realized the amount of problems that can arise from a pharmaceutical's attempt to solve one problem. From starting with an infection to then experiencing gut problems, changes in energy, uncomfortability, or pain, Tina and her husband agreed that there needed to be more on the preventative side of medicine so that people can continuously maintain good health and decrease the likelihood of going down the rabbit hole of prescription medicine. Now, I think this conversation is relevant now more than ever. We're all looking for ways that we can really increase our immune health. And so we wanted Tina to come back on because we've been using Just Thrive products for a really long time now.

We were introduced them before we even had Tina on the podcast. And the probiotics have been phenomenal in mine and Danielle's, also my husband Stephen's gut health. Like they've really, really made a difference. And gut health is so foundational when it comes to immune health. I knew it was important, but I didn't know how foundational it was until we did this podcast. And I learned a lot. On top of that, you know, we like to go into the business side. So in the previous podcast with Tina, we talked about how she got a product-based business off the ground from sourcing the product to actually getting off the ground. This time I wanted to know, you know, they're an incredibly successful company now, like incredibly successful. I wanted to know,

how do you market a product-based business? Because it's so different to my skillset, marketing digital products. And we really went into nitty-gritty and she was a completely open book and so I know you're going to learn a lot and if you want to grab any probiotic which I really recommend that you do you can get some with the promo code boss babe so the link is below in the show notes to go grab some it's just thrive health.com forward slash discount forward slash boss babe. Really, really recommend these probiotics. They're phenomenal. You take one a day with food. Tina will get into why, but they've made such a big difference for my gut health. And so hopefully they can do the same for you too. So with that, we'll to the podcast. Oh, well, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited

to be here. Yeah. And for everyone listening, if you didn't already know, Tina's actually already been on the podcast and we got into the real building part of your business last time and heard a lot about your journey. So we'll not make you repeat yourself. I'm going to put the link in the show notes. So if anyone's listening and really wants to know how did Just Thrive get started and how did you build into businesses today, the link's there. Definitely go listen to that episode because it's a good one. But I'm really curious, how's business been since we last chatted a couple of years ago? Oh, it's been really great. Thank God. I thank my lucky stars every day that things have been going so well, especially after the last year with people,

businesses being turned upside down. We've been very fortunate. I think looking back from last time we spoke, I mean, one of the biggest things that we did, you know, that I don't, I didn't at the time know how important it was, but we really focused a lot on the online marketing. You know, we were, we launched originally in health food stores and we had a lot of great success there and it's been wonderful, but about, you know, probably about three or four years ago, we really started heavily diving into the online space and working on our website and working on really getting in front of the digital consumer. And little did we know that that was really going to pay off quite dramatically over the last year and a half. But it's been really great. Thank you. Yeah, good timing, I bet. So what does online

marketing for your business look like? Because it's so different to our business, which is service-based. And I'm keen to learn what marketing looks like for you. Sure. Yeah. Well, one of our strongest areas of online marketing, I would say, is our email platform. I think it's, and our SMS platform also. I just think that, you know, owning the customer and having that relationship with the customer, I shouldn't say owning the customer, but having that direct relationship where we don't have to pay to send them information or talk to our customer has really been beneficial to us. It's amazing how much you develop that relationship between emails and then even with SMS marketing. We've, of course, done the Facebook and Instagram ads and all that, which obviously has changed

dramatically over the last couple months. And we've done some direct mail pieces. We started doing that when COVID hit. So we tried to pivot a little bit. That was pretty interesting. We're starting to dabble a little bit in TikTok. And we've had a lot of interest in Pinterest recently, too. A lot of really great ROAS and Pinterest. And then going to shows was a huge part of our marketing, just going to shows, meeting customers and different consumers that are in the health and wellness space, meeting influencers in the health and wellness space. Of course, we haven't been able to do that over the last year and a half, but before, you know, COVID hit, that was really a huge part of how we were growing because we had the opportunity to speak at different health and wellness events and, you know, establish ourselves as the experts in gut health. I love that. Can we just take you back to that moment when COVID hit? Because I think this is really like a real key pivotal moment for so many businesses, but particularly yours,

because you're actually in that, like you're in the health and wellness space. And I'm really curious, like, you know, that March when things started to evolve really rapidly, what were the thoughts that went through your mind at that point? Because for us, it was very much, okay, how can we step up in service? Like I am still not forgotten that panic that kind of starts hitting everyone when you start going, okay, what, what, what are the next steps is to take? And I'm curious as to how you address that in the health industry as part of your business. From a marketing perspective or from a health perspective? Yeah. Let's go from a marketing perspective first. Yeah. So from the marketing perspective, what we wanted to do was just get the message out there about how important our gut health

is to our immune system. And I felt so blessed to be in the field that we were in at that time, just from a personal perspective, from my own immediate family, to my parents, to my in-laws, to all of our family members, just knowing that we had these products that were literally going to be helping your immune system fight whatever it is that comes your way. And we've been saying this for years. We've been talking about how the immune system is in your gut. 70% to 80% of your immune system is in your gut. And yet, this was really top of mind for people during when COVID hit. So we were just trying to get that message across, like telling them about our probiotic, telling them about our IgG and how we need to be focusing on our gut

health when we're talking about our immune system. It's our immune system. I mean, it's our gut health and our bacteria that signals to our immune cells to start to get activated. So we actually, I remember we got on a Facebook live or Instagram live, my husband and I, and just started talking to people about our immune system and just educating people. Empowerment is one of our core values. And it was really important for us to empower people right now to not be so afraid, but instead to take control,

do what you could do to take control of a situation. I love that. And I definitely want to get into more of that. But before we go too much into the immune system side, I still am like, I want to ask you so many questions about your business, because I know there are so many people listening that want to build product-based businesses. So going back to what you said about your email list, I'm really curious in terms of your strategy for building your email list and text list, has it been purely enter your email and you'll save money? Or have you been putting out kind of free guides and things that's helped you build?

Like, has there been a real needle mover? Because I agree, your email list is your real estate. It's the thing you own on social media. It's kind of like your, your renting. And at any point, you know, another tenant could come in. You could, the algorithm changes. You never really know what's going to happen there. Right. So yeah, you're absolutely right. And we get most of ours from the 10%, you know, the 10% off when they go onto our website, I would say the majority of them come from there. And then we also get an, we do do free eBooks. We do lead gen campaigns on Facebook, where we're giving a free eBook out and different lifestyle guides and things like that. So,

but I would say at this point, that's actually been a newer strategy that we've used, the lead gen trying to give away like the eBooks and things like that, that are really filled with a lot of information. But it seems to be, we seem to have most success, the discount right on the website. So I guess that works really well because you've got your traffic dialed in and it sounds like you're using so many different channels to drive your traffic. How do you balance being on so many different platforms at the same time you're mentioning, you know, doing Facebook and also Pinterest? Feels like there's always so many new platforms to learn and figure out. Yes. Well, we, you know, now we've kind of grown to a size where we have agencies that do that.

And so we are working with an agency right now that handles, that they'll handle, we, you know, now we've kind of grown to a size where we have agencies that do that. And so we are working with an agency right now that handles, they'll handle, we have one agency that handles Facebook, Google, and Pinterest. But we kind of directed them to go into Pinterest because we saw that, you know, we were having the issues with Facebook. We had already kind of seen that there was this interest in Pinterest just on our own. But then we kind of directed our agency, you know, you can never just hire an agency and think that they're going to, you want them to be a true partner, but a lot of times they're not, and they're not looking at the bottom line. They're not looking at the fact that they're not getting, we're not generating the revenue that maybe we had wanted. So we kind of instructed them to kind of pivot to go to Pinterest because we started

seeing that that was a platform that was responding to us because we were doing recipes and we were doing more lifestyle type of features. So we use an agency for media buying, but then for email marketing, we have that in-house and we're very dialed in with that. That is, it's our bread and butter and we nurture it and take very good care of our customers and our lists. We also did something really exciting this year is we purchased a company that is in the health and wellness space and they had a very large email list as well. And it's really fun because it's very much in line with what we're doing with empowering people. And it's about natural health and wellness. And so we have a list, know, list, we have, you know, a great platform with lots of blogs and lots of information. And so it's been a great adjunct to what we're

already doing. And that's helped us from a marketing perspective as well. And you've said this a couple of times. I just want to understand what you mean by this. You talked about taking care of your list. What does that mean for you? How do you feel like you take care of your list your customers and build that relationship well we do a lot of education you know we are very very into education this is truly one of my passions is just empowering people to take control of their health and i know it sounds so cliche but it is so important that people start to take control of their own health and and knowing when they're going to the doctor what to say. And being empowered with research and knowledge, and we're very research-based. So our emails are very research, and our blogs are very research-based. And so we speak to the customer a lot. And it's not just all sales, and it's not just promotions.

It's really about letting them have the tools and information to go into their doctor's office or to help them take care of their own health. That's one thing. We also try to listen to them by how many emails they want. We ask them if they want a different amount of emails. We hired an agency to do some cleanup, like deliverability issues to make sure our deliverability was really sound. So we've hired consultants to issues to make sure our deliverability was really sound. So we've hired consultants to help us make sure our emails are responding to the emails and the type of the form of emails we're sending. But we have invested a lot of money in our email list and how we speak to our customer and we listen to our customers. And we're really, really big

on customer service. So we're always explaining to our customers, you know, call us if you want to talk to us, because we love to hear from them, and we love to help them make these choices. And what would you say is, and this is a very broad question, but what would you say is the biggest lesson you've learned as an entrepreneur over the past, let's say 18 months, the COVID era? Well, really to take care of your team. That was, it's funny. That was, I think when there's a pandemic and when there's fear of losing sales and things like that, you, people start to hoard and to get a little bit greedy. And we decided to go the opposite way. In fact, in June, when like the riots were happening,

there was so much unrest. We gave out bonuses, which is not something we've ever done before in June. And we just wanted to just let people, let our team know that we were, we were good. You know, we were good financially. We were good. And even if we weren't, we were going to take care of our team. And that was really important. And I think that sometimes you just kind of have to go the opposite way from what everyone thinks you should be doing. And so I think the lesson is that you take care of your tribe, you know, you take care of your family, you take care and our team is our family. And so we really tried to take care of them. I started implementing daily or not daily check-ins, implementing quarterly check-ins with a team, just where I'm on the phone one-on-one with everybody just to say, how are you doing?

Not about work. We try not to talk about work. We just talk about how are you doing personally, because I think that's really important. We have such a strong team, and our culture is so important to me, and it's so important to our success that I never want to take that for granted. I love that so much. That's, yeah, that's a big one. And we're the same team is everything. And when you find great people, they really make such a difference in your business. And so I love that you shared that. So going back to what you were talking about with immune health,

I think this, well, I know this is such a big topic of conversation has been for quite a while, but you know, we're all thinking on a daily basis, what can I do to make myself healthier, to give myself the best chance of fighting off this virus or it's variant and anything else that comes with it. And I'm sure you've been asked this question a million times, but I'd really love to get into immune health and what we can all be doing to protect ourselves because not just COVID, but I haven't got time to be sick. I haven't got time. I want to be high performing as much as I possibly can be. Let's take a quick pause to talk about my new favorite all-in-one platform, Kajabi. You know I've been singing their praises lately because they have helped our business run so much smoother and with way less complexity,

which I love. Not to mention our team couldn't be happier because now everything is in one place, so it makes collecting data, creating pages, collecting payment, all the things so much simpler. One of our mottos at Boss Babe is simplify to amplify and Kajabi has really helped us do that this year. So of course I needed to share it here with you. It's the perfect time of year to do a bit of spring cleaning in your business, you know, get rid of the complexity and instead really focus on getting organized and making things as smooth as possible. I definitely recommend Kajabi to all of my clients and students. So if you're listening and haven't checked out Kajabi yet, now is the perfect time to do so

because they are offering Boss Babe listeners a 30-day free trial. Go to kajabi.com slash boss babe to claim your 30-day free trial. That's kajabi.com slash boss babe. Yeah, yeah, no, I totally agree with you. And like I said, we have been talking about this well before COVID started and how the number one thing we could do for our immune system is to support our gut health. And the reason is that our gut health, our gut, the bacteria that's in our gut is sending signals to our immune system. So if there was a study that they took

mice that had no microbiome, they had no bacteria in their gut, and then they had mice that had bacteria in their gut, those mice that didn't have bacteria in their gut literally could not send signals to the immune cells. So therefore, even if you have all these great immune cells, the natural killer cells, the dendritic cells, all these really important immune cells are there. If the gut doesn't signal to those cells, they're not going to react. So our immune system is literally signaling our immune cells to how to react and letting them know there's an invader going on. So I cannot overstate enough the importance of having a healthy and robust gut because that is the number one most important

thing to do for your immune system. I am a huge fan of vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc. All these things are super, super important for our immune system, but nothing is more important than making sure your gut is really robust and healthy in order to signal to those immune cells. We also know that the gut lining is really important. I don't know if you probably, I'm sure most people that are listening aren't familiar with leaky gut, but maybe some people are, but leaky gut is basically what it sounds like. It's basically the leakiness of the gut lining. And so when toxins seep into the bloodstream, all of a sudden there creates this inflammatory response by your

immune system. And there's an estimate out there that's saying that 80% of the adult population has a leaky gut and doesn't even know it. So it's really important that we're taking care of that gut lining. And unfortunately, the world we live in is very disruptive to our gut health. I mean, we live in this world that's filled with antibiotics, both that we take and antibiotics that are in our food supply. Glyphosate, which is the active ingredient in a Roundup. So all these chemicals are sprayed, all of our produce, those are wreaking havoc on our gut on a daily basis. Even our cleaning supplies, household cleaning supplies, those that there's a study that showed that the cleaning

supplies that say kills 99.99% of the bacteria actually have kids that have a much... Households that use those actually have kids that have much higher incidence of autoimmune disease and allergies and asthma and things like that because those bacteria that we're killing off all the time are actually really important for our overall health. So we live in this very antimicrobial world, this antibacterial world, and yet we are more bacteria than we are human. So really important that we're taking care of our gut health when we talk about supporting our immune system. And the other really important thing that people aren't, that don't really, they're just starting to make the connection basically is that when you were talking about mental health, you know, mental health has been

a huge problem over the last year and a half. And people don't realize that there's a huge connection between the gut and the brain. There's something called the vagus nerve. And the vagus nerve they refer to as the communication superhighway. It connects the gut and the brain. And the gut and the brain are sending signals back and forth to each other all the time. And so you have that butterfly in your stomach feeling when you're excited or you're nervous. Well, that's truly your gut and your brain speaking to each other. And so when we're really stressed out, then all of a sudden

the gut sends signals to the brain. And now, I mean, I'm sorry, the brain sends signals to the gut and now you start creating this dysbiosis or this imbalance in our gut. And so, and the reverse is true. You start eating really bad, drinking a lot of alcohol, doing all the things that everybody was doing during COVID or when it started. And now it's creating more stress and more anxiety in your head because it's a two-way street. So I always will tell people when you're trying to help heal your gut, one of the most important things to do is start more mindfulness, meditation, deep breathing, whatever it is, exercise, things like that. Whatever it is that brings you peace and calm is really, really critical to your gut health and your journey in healing your gut. And then the same is true that when you start fixing your gut, you might start seeing some

improvements in your mental and emotional well-being as well. So the immune system is, it's so important. The gut is so important to how your immune system reacts. I'm really curious because I knew prior to starting Thrive, you were in the pharmaceutical world and I was actually a chiropractor and I qualified in like 2010. So like a long time ago now, but what's really stood out to me as I've gone on my health journey in the last kind of five years is the lack of conversation around the power of the gut. Like I know for a lot of people listening, hearing that your gut is responsible for 78% of your immune health, that's going to be a new, that's going to be new news to them.

They're going to be like, what? Say what? I've never been to my doctor and had a conversation on my gut. Like, yes, people might go and say, I'm suffering from IBS or I'm suffering from these things. But as far as I'm concerned, like I've never gone to a doctor and they've been like, oh, okay, let's like, we need to do this. So we're first going to look at your gut. Why do you think that is? And also just building on that, why has no one from what I've seen been also talking about probiotics while mentioning vitamin C. I feel like we've been seeing these government

agencies, you know, vitamin C, vitamin D, all of these immune boosting vitamins, but they're not mentioning probiotics. Right. Oh boy. That is one of the biggest frustrations or why aren't they telling people to go out and exercise or why aren't they telling people to focus on their metabolic health? I mean, they're not doing that. And I think that, I don't know why. I wish I knew other than, you know, is there a pharmaceutical agenda that's, you know, that's why I left the pharma industry, just because there's a place for pharmaceuticals, there's emergency type medicine situations, acute type situations. But, you know, there's not a focus on prevention or maintenance of health.

You know, there is, a focus on prevention or maintenance of health. You know, there is, it's all about treating symptoms. And that's, that seems to be more of the agenda that is out there. But I would love for people to stand up there and talk about gut health. I do think that one of the, recently, the reason why a lot of people haven't, or maybe 10 years ago is about 10 years ago, the National Institutes of Health launched the Human Microbiome Project. And that told us more about the gut than we ever knew before. And as I had mentioned before, we found out that we are 10 times more bacterial cells than we are human cells. And so that was really news to a lot of people. We always have thought we were more human cells than we were bacterial. And now we have 10 times more bacterial cells than we are human.

And so here we are living in this antibacterial world. And so we really, I think now there's starting to be this popularity of gut health and we need to do that. But in the recent COVID episode, people haven't been talking about gut health and it absolutely baffles me. I don't understand why they're not. I just don't. No, if you talk to functional medicine doctors and you speak to people who are more on the, you know, more alternative or functional side, you will see that they're talking about gut health all the time when they're talking about supporting your immune system. But even outside of COVID, just like everything, hey, like if you are generally suffering from any autoimmune diseases, if you're just kind of suffering from like feeling fatigue and any poor

health, is this something you should be having a conversation with your general practitioner with saying, hey, I want a gut testing. Like I'm concerned. Like, is it always that, you know, you should be having symptoms in your gut before bringing this up? Or is it, okay, yes, I have other systemic issues going on and symptoms going on. I would like my gut tested. Yeah. No, I don't know why they don't do that. Because it's all about an allopathic medicine.

It really seems to be, I have a stomach issue and therefore I need to take this medication. It's not about getting to the root cause, you know, we have to get to the root cause of an issue. And it's interesting because it's really hard to find any disease, any disease out there from heart disease, back, you know, cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer's, dementia, autoimmune diseases. I mean, it's hard to find any disease that does not stem from an imbalance in the gut. I mean, and this has been proven in research studies time and time again, that we really, it is the number one foundation of our health is the health of our microbiome and our gut. And no, doctors aren't talking about it. It baffles me. And that's why I'm so passionate about

bringing this knowledge to people because we see it it all the time. And we see customers who will say, oh, my God, I started taking this. And it's like within a few days, my diarrhea that I've had forever cleared up or my constipation. And people seem to think about constipation and diarrhea and gas and bloating as being a gut issue. and they certainly are. But what people are just starting to realize is that you have a skin rash, you have, you know, blemishes on your face, acne, you have anything like that, that's directly related to your gut. You have anxiety, depression, mood issues, that's directly related to your gut. Like I said, it's hard to find any disease that's not foundationally stemming from your gut. And so that's why we always say that you start with your gut. It's not to say that there aren't other things that are super important. You should see my supplement cabinet. I'm a huge fan of supplements, but whatever it is that you do, you can't have inflammation in your gut because then you're not absorbing nutrients. So you could be eating all the healthy food that you want, but if you have inflammation in your gut, which so

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Terms and conditions apply. So to find out if you have information on your gut or that you need to do gut work, do you think you have to have tests or do you think you can just assume you have it and then start on a treatment for that. Yeah. The testing these days are still a little bit flawed. One of the best examples I like to use is if someone does a stool testing of some sort, it kind of will test one part of the digestive tract. So it may say, like if you're testing Chicago and you say they take a stool sample from the west side of Chicago, that would be different than a stool sample from the north side of Chicago. So it's not a completely accurate testing.

I would say if you have any type of issue, you want to start with the gut because we know that that's where all disease starts basically is in the gut. And I also think that we know we live in this world that is offensive to our gut health. I and I also think that we know we live in this world that is offensive to our gut health. I mean, as clean as we eat, like me personally, I never had any gut issues when we launched this company. I was just focused on trying to do something that was in the natural space that was very focused on doing good in the world. And, but I started taking it because I saw the science, I saw the research on it. And I, it was, it's amazing how much better I started to feel. Like, I didn't think I had any gut issues, but then I started becoming more regular.

I started having more energy. I started, you know, sleeping better. It was like all these side effects that come of it that are so wonderful, you know, better mood, better, more energy, just, you know, so many different, better weight management we've even noticed with people because your gut bacteria dictates how you metabolize food. And having a certain type of bacteria will help you lose weight. And there's a certain type of bacteria that helps you gain weight. And so all of those things are really, everything in the gut is really

important to every aspect of our overall health. And I love that we're talking about foundational elements of health because it's all about getting to the root cause and often it's not what you think it is. And I'm really passionate about this because for me, I found out a condition that I have because I was getting certain gut symptoms and it turned out that it was a hormonal condition that I had, but I've been able to overcome it, not by treating my hormones, but by foundational elements. One of them was really looking at my metabolic health. That was in fact, a really big one. Another one was gut health, really treating what was going on in my gut and then supporting my liver. When it comes to foundational elements, do you think gut health is more important than metabolic health and how do they kind of influence each other? Yeah, no, I think they're equally as

important. I think that they are always influencing each other. I mean, for one, you know, like all of your hormones are being produced in your gut, your neurotransmitters are being produced in your gut. So serotonin, the happy hormone, 90% of your serotonin is produced in your gut. Dopamine is produced in your gut. GABA, all of these important neurotransmitters, all your hormones, you know, all inflammation is all starting in your gut. I mean, this is where you need to focus on inflammation is in your gut. So I really think that they are very, they're equally as important and they play off of each other completely. So. Love that. Well, so let's talk

about Just Thrive because, and we touched on this last time, but I want to go more into it because since I started using Just Thrive, which was way before I even got to meet you, I have not used another probiotic since, and I will not recommend another probiotic. It's very, very different to the probiotics that you often find on the shelf or that you might be searching for on Amazon. I think a lot of people think probiotics are created equally. I know I previously did until I dug into it and learned the difference. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you for your kind words. I appreciate it. And you're right, it is a completely different category of probiotics. So the majority of probiotics

on the market are comprised of lactobacillus and bifidobacterium strains. So that's the 95% of the probiotics that you'll find on the store or online are made up of those types of strains. Ours is a completely different approach. Ours are called spore-based bacteria, and they are made up of bacillus. So the other ones are lactobacillus and bifidobacterium. These are bacillus. And I'll call them spore-based because that's easier than saying bacillus. So the analogy I'd love to use, and I may have used it already in the other podcast, but it's a garden analogy. And if you take a garden, you envision a garden that's been stepped on and trampled on, and there's weeds growing all over that garden. And you compare that to your gut.

So inside your gut, you've got pathogenic bacteria, the harmful bacteria that's overgrowing. And now you've got your good bacteria, your beneficial bacteria that's not really thriving in your gut. So you take the seeds and you throw them in the garden of the lactobacillus and bifidobacterium. You throw those seeds in the garden, most of them never even get to the garden. They never make it to the garden. They never make it to your intestines because your stomach is very acidic. It's meant to be the gastric barrier. So these probiotics that are on the market are dead before they ever get to the intestines. And this is something that we tested. It was one of the first studies that we did was a gastric survivability study. And it showed that those strains actually died. 99.99% of those strains never made it to the intestines alive. And just to be defined as a probiotic, you need to arrive,

the probiotic needs to arrive alive in the intestines. And now we're finding the majority of probiotics on the market are really dead bacteria therapy. So if you go back to that garden analogy, those strains are, you throw the seeds in the garden, they maybe will, maybe some will get in there. And so maybe they'll plant a plant in there, but they're not making a change to that garden. Where if you look at your gut, I'm sorry, if you go look at this spore-based bacteria, you throw those seeds in the garden, they get there 100% alive. And I'll explain in a minute how that happens. But they attach to the soil in the garden. And then they have the ability of getting rid of the weeds. And they have the ability of bringing those plants that have been stepped on and trampled on back to life. So now you compare

that to your own gut. These spores have the ability to get the intestines alive because they have this endospore shell around itself. That's natural. It's not something that we've done to engineer them. These are the way these strains were found in our soil years and years ago before our soil was contaminated and over-fermed. So these strains get to the intestines, they read the microbial environment in the gut, and they have the ability to get rid of the pathogenic bacteria. And then they have the ability to bring those good bit of beneficial bacteria back to life. And so it starts to create this beautiful, lush garden in the gut. And that's why they're so effective. And that's why people see such profound changes. People will say, well, I've taken probiotics before,

the conventional kind, and they, you know, I've seen a little bit of an improvement. And you may see some symptomatic relief, but these are getting to that root cause. Think of these spores as the gardener of the gut. They're going in, helping clean up that garden, getting rid of the pathogenic bacteria and helping bring that good bacteria back to life. Can you take these probiotics even if you... let's say you're symptom free is there any challenge in just taking them anyway can you take too many of them like how do you know yeah no not at all there's no problem i mean that was me i had no symptoms that's my kids they all take it but i know that it's helping combat that leakiness of the gut you know leaky gut is it's helping combat that leakiness of the gut. Leaky gut is, it's like that drippy faucet that

just slowly, you have this seep of toxins going into your bloodstream. And it's not a problem. It's not a problem. You have no symptoms. And then all of a sudden, that tub overflows. And that's exactly what happens. So that's why I'm trying to stay on top of it with myself, with my own health, and with my kids my kids and my parents and everybody else in my life. But there is absolutely no problem with taking it. In fact, just like people take a multivitamin because they know they can't get all the nutrients that they want to from food, people will take a multivitamin. It's the same concept. I mean, if there's one thing we're going to be taking care of, it's the bacteria that live in and on us. And taking a spore-based probiotic

is really one of the most effective ways to help support that. So let's say in the garden analogy, your garden is a total shit show. There's so many things going on. You have not prioritized it for the longest time. And you're listening to this and you're like, okay, it's time. I'm going to do it. Firstly, is a probiotic enough to really make a difference in that crazy garden? And secondly, if so, how long would it take? Yeah, well, it's certainly an individualized answer, but a lot of people will start out with the probiotic and they seem to see some results. And most people I would say within a couple of weeks, like two weeks, 30 days, I would of course

say 30 days. There's always the outliers where we just got a testimonial email today saying within a day, they felt a huge difference. Some people, it takes three months, but for the most part, it's been two weeks to 30 days that you're going to see some improvement. You'll feel some differences depending on what you're feeling. Obviously, if you already feel good, you're not going to feel something dramatic. But if you're not feeling great and you have some gas and bloating, diarrhea, constipation, you may see something sooner. And then we have other things that will further support the gut. So our prebiotic is the fertilizer in that garden. So we know that the gardener is working really hard, but sometimes the gardener needs a little bit of help and they need the food for that beneficial bacteria, the food for the good plants. And so

one of the problems with a lot of prebiotics on the market is they don't know how to distinguish between feeding the good plants and the weeds. And so we certainly don't want, if somebody has gut dysbiosis and they have this overgrowth of pathogenic bacteria, now they start taking a prebiotic and the prebiotic starts to feed the bad. Now they start taking a prebiotic, and the prebiotic starts to feed the bad bacteria. That can make a problem much worse. So we waited for a while to launch a prebiotic until we found oligosaccharides that actually target only the beneficial bacteria. So our prebiotic seems to be really helpful for people. I'm a huge fan of it because we just, we know it's helping create diversity.

Diversity is the key to a healthy microbiome. So first we want to kind of recondition the gut. Then we want to, you know, help reinforce what we're doing, what the gardeners already doing. And then we also, there are other, we have a gut fortify product that's really good to help support the mucosal layer. A lot of people are, the mucosal layer is really important. But I always tell people to start simply.

You know, it becomes kind of like addictive almost because you start feeling so much better when you start taking care of your gut health. And you're like, I want to keep making sure that I'm doing things to further support it. So we have a plan of doing the probiotic, the prebiotic, and the gut fortify, which are, it's a great, it's kind of like a whole system that we're working on in your gut. But a lot of people, you know, just start out with the probiotic and then just build onto the other products later. And is IgG different to the fortifier? Yes. So IgG is such a cool product. IgG basically stands for immunoglobulin G. And immunoglobulins are basically a defense mechanism to fight off pathogens in our body,

in our gut. And so our IgG product actually helps support the gut lining even more. And it also goes in and binds and neutralizes toxins in the gut and helps your body remove them safely. So really, really exciting product, especially for immune health. I know I call my parents, my in-laws, and I'm like, if you're not taking the IgG right now, you better start taking it because it's really supportive of our immune system. Yeah. And I totally agree. And also just sharing when I got COVID, I did get good gut symptoms with COVID. I had such crazy nausea and it really, I could tell was affecting me on so many levels and I had nausea for weeks after it. So building up my gut health was such a big priority for me. And I wondered if I was slightly healthier before that I'd been on vacation,

I'd been drinking, I'd been not taking my supplements. I'm like, Oh, I wonder if I was slightly healthier before that. I'd been on vacation, I'd been drinking, I'd been not taking my supplements. I'm like, oh, I wonder if I was doing that if I would have had a slightly easier time. So that was definitely a really big priority for me. And so for someone that's listening and is thinking about, oh, actually I never thought about my gut health in this way and I'm not really sure

if my symptoms are normal or not. Can you give some kind of indication of what symptoms would show that your gut health probably isn't where it needs to be? Yeah. So I think most people will associate like gas and bloating, diarrhea, constipation, heartburn, all of those types of things. Those are certainly signs that your gut is imbalanced. But like I mentioned, mood issues, maybe more anxiety, maybe some depression, maybe some just more anxious feelings all around. Any type of autoimmune issue, any type of allergy, those are all indications that you've got a leaky gut. In fact, if you have allergies or autoimmune issues, you definitely have a leaky gut. In fact, if you have allergies or autoimmune issues, you definitely have a leaky gut. Brain fog, of course, is another big one that people will start to see some results

when they start taking care of their gut health, when you have some brain fog, even like energy. We see that all the time. I have a friend who started to just, she started taking the product and she's like, oh my gosh, I finally have more energy. But it makes so much sense because if you're not regular, you're not going to the bathroom as regularly as you really should be, you're hanging on to all those toxins. You're not allowing your body to rid themselves, it rids itself of the toxins. So it's really important that you just are always taking care of making sure you're regular. But I mean, like I said, skin conditions is another big one. The other thing I love to talk about really quickly is kids and pregnancy.

Like for both when you're pregnant, moms are just starting to realize that when a child is inoculated with their microbiome during vaginal childbirth. So there is never a more important time for a mom to take care of their microbiome when they're pregnant than when they're pregnant. That is when you are basically handing over your child its microbiome that it will have for the rest of its life. And so it is so important to be taking care of your microbiome because you're passing that along to your child during vaginal childbirth and breastfeeding in close skin to skin contact. And then with kids, it's so super important too. Kids are being brought up in this world that's so, so chemically laden and toxic.

When I was a kid, which is a long, long time ago, I knew one child K K through 12, that had a peanut allergy. Now there are so many allergies. The epidemic of autism is off the charts because this is all stemming from the gut. We speak at a lot of autism conferences throughout the year because we see kids that have autism have a lot of gut dysbiosis, have a lot of gut imbalance going on. So I'm particularly passionate about children because from the minute they're born, they're born into this very antibacterial and antimicrobial world. And yet they need the bacteria and the microbes to be supportive of their overall health. Yeah. I'm really curious actually what's going to come because obviously with us being in a pandemic, everyone's hygiene has really been a a lot better everyone's washing their hands more and keeping their houses really

clean which is amazing but also now we're also gone the other way where we're probably using hand sanitizer way more than we actually should do or you know being overly I don't want to say overly cautious because obviously COVID is such a big deal but I'm kind of like understanding what you're saying with a knock-on effect that we're not actually exposing our bodies to some of the bacteria that it actually does need to build the immune system. So. Yeah. You know, I've always been against hand sanitizers and I, and I continue to be, I will admit the first couple of weeks of COVID, I was like, Oh, maybe I should be doing this, you know, but I know better that, you know, when we're using the hand sanitizer, it's actually killing the bacteria that is, and it is the best defense we have of COVID is our

own immune system. So we have to be taking care of our immune system. But, you know, if you're in a bind, of course, you know, and you're bit with people and you're touching handles and you don't have soap and water, but I would always suggest, you know, soap and water before. Do you know what, I think that's something really important just to accent the fact that with all of this, the biggest thing you can do is take care of yourself. It's very easy to do external things and be like, oh yes, I'll wash these down. I will hand sanitize here. I'll wear these masks. But actually the real empowerment comes from, okay, what am I doing in? Am I exercising? Am I meditating? Am I taking my probiotics? Am I taking my prebiotics? What am I

doing for my mental and physical health on this island? You know, as me, what am I doing here? That's actually going to have a exponential difference in whether I get COVID or not. And I think Natalie just touched on it earlier. You know, she had COVID after traveling. I, I actually did get COVID too. And again, it was after traveling, it was traveling. I was in different hotels. I was in different places. I was tired. Like I was not surprised that I'd got it because I was exhausted. Like I'd been like doing three trips close together. I had been partying a little bit as well. Like it was just a bad combination, bad food, drinking and all those things. And that for me is like a real sign that when you don't, when you don't look after yourself, that's when

you're most vulnerable. So taking responsibility and really addressing what you can do is so, so important. I just have a quick question. It's something I've always been curious about with the prebiotics and the probiotics. Is there like a good or bad time to take them? Should you always be taking them first thing in the morning or end of night? Like what's your, what's the ideal to get the most out of them? Yeah. So for the probiotic, it doesn't matter. You know, time of day doesn't matter.

The biggest thing is we did a study showing that it works better in the presence of food. So we would suggest taking it at the end of a meal. So, or you could open the capsules in the presence of food. So we would suggest taking it at the end of a meal. Or you could open the capsules and mix it with food. A lot of moms do that with their kids. And you could actually even bake with them. They're so robust, you could bake with them. You could put them in a smoothie.

You could do them whatever way you want to. But the time of day doesn't matter, just as long as you try to take it with your biggest meal of the day. It's not bad to take it on an empty stomach. It just will work. We now know they'll work so much better if you take it in the presence of food. And then as far as the prebiotic, we have two forms of it. One is a powder. So I would always suggest that you just put it in your water and sip it throughout the day. And we also have capsules. And then we would say to take two in the morning or afternoon, whenever you have your first meal and then two later when you have your next meal.

So just to spread those out a little bit more during the day. And those that don't like swallowing things, can you just open it and put the powder and stuff? I always wonder that. Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You could. That's what I want to do.

Yeah. It doesn't taste like anything at all. So, I mean, I used to sneak it into my son's piping hot oatmeal. I mean, you can put it wherever you want. No, I'm just so glad that you said that, Danielle, about, you know, our body is so, I mean, that's what I think I want to remind people is that our body is beautifully designed to heal itself. And if we are supportive of our body and we're supportive of our immune system and our gut health, we are going to be able to handle things that much better. We know there's no guarantee. I mean, there's no guarantee in anything, but we just, we do know that we have to remind ourselves that our body is so beautifully designed to naturally protect ourselves. And so if we support it, we'll hopefully we'll do the favor and return

to us by protecting us. Yeah. And I'm glad that Danielle, you asked that question because before we had chatted, I was taking mine without food and taking it with food. I noticed it was better. So now it's just part of my lunchtime routine. And I find that so much easier to take supplements when I make it part of my routine. So I know when I make my lunch, there's certain supplements I take with it, which has been really, really helpful. So Tina, thank you so much for coming on and sharing all of this. It's, I think now more important than ever. And I love how easily you break it down because I think probiotics and meat health supplements can be one of those things that's really confusing. Before you go, you do have a code for the Boss Babe audience, right?

Yes. Yes. It's Boss Babe. Easy. And it's 15% off. And if you just go to justthrivehealth.com, if you have any questions, we're always happy to talk to everybody. Love it. And where can everyone find you on social? Justthrivehealth on Instagram. And yeah, that's probably the best place, Just Thrive Health. Amazing. Well, Tina, thank you so, so much. Oh, thank you guys so much. I love your platform. I love what you guys are doing. If you enjoyed this episode, we would love it if you subscribed and left us a review. Let us know what you enjoyed, what your main takeaways were and who you'd like to see appear on the show. As a special thanks, we'll send you a copy of our Boss Babe 25. Now this is an

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