Tummy Troubles: Gas, Bloating, Constipation… Oh  My!

By Caitlyn Vanderhaeghe, B.A., B.Ed.

Are tummy troubles, constipation, IBS, and other digestive issues getting you down? In this video, Natural Health Expert & Author, Lorna Vanderhaeghe, and KidStar Nutrients Co-Founder & CEO, Caitlyn Vanderhaeghe, discuss…

• What’s causing your digestive issues
• Prebiotics and probiotics
• Bloating and burping
• Gas
• Constipation
• Diarrhea
• The “Poop Chart”
• IBS
• H. pylori
• Excess gas
• Kids and bowel troubles
• The connection between the gut and the immune system

Plus, they answer your questions on gut health, intolerances, allergies, women’s health, and more!

Video Transcript

Intro

Caitlyn Vanderhaeghe: Let’s jump right in! We are going to wait for our special guest, Lorna Vanderhaeghe. Today, we are talking about tummy troubles for all ages so make sure you get your questions ready because we are here to answer all of them for you! We had some questions come in ahead of time and we’ll make sure we get to those as well before the live ends.

Let us know where you guys are from, where you’re joining us from, and maybe how your weather is! I heard that Ontario has 20° weather right now! It might still be raining in Vancouver but, you know, it’s just the way it rolls. All right, so our special guest has joined and we will just start up and get ready to go!

Lorna Vanderhaeghe: Hey!

CV: I was like I was like, “I’m talking to myself!”

How to Get Your Digestive System Working Properly

LV: So, maybe we want to talk about how we get our digestive system working properly. We eat lots of vegetables, which are a great source of fibre, and we’re going to talk about fibre because it’s so important. Good sources of protein that are organic and free range and wild. Limit the sugar because it is the killer, and it’s really bad for the gut and for your immune system as well.

So we want to eat the right foods, we want to chew them ‘till they’re mush. We want to sit down when we eat- so if you’re the parent standing at the bar while your kids are sitting eating dinner and you’re wolfing down your food, that is not good! You have to sit in a chair and focus on digestion, so you know it really starts there. But if you’re that person who’s having gas, burping and bloating, constipation, diarrhea, tummy pain, abdominal pain, you want to go to your doctor.

Pylori Testing

LV: One of the tests I always tell people to have is an H. pylori [test]. This is a test for a bacteria that is linked to ulcers and a whole host of those symptoms that we talking about, and if you have H. Pylori, probably the whole family does because we tend to share things in our household.

Rule that one out first. Then, you want to chew your food until it’s mush, and then have digestive enzymes with your meals. I like the ones that you can just take when you’re eating, not the ones that you have to take an hour before, because nobody’s going to do that!

Then, we want to look at your fibre consumption.

Fibre Consumption

LV: None of us, I mean, I just in preparation for this talk I looked up how much fibre we’re supposed to consume: it’s 30 grams, which is a lot of fibre! We say five cups of vegetables a day, and nobody is doing that. Canadians are getting six to eight grams of fibre a day, so it is no wonder that we are seriously constipated.

Constipation in Kids

CV: I wanted to talk about what we were saying, constipation with little kids. Of course, when anyone’s constipated and they’re not going or they’re holding it in, the stool is drying out, which actually makes it worse when you do go to the washroom. This happens with school aged kids who are holding it in the entire day at school because they really don’t want to use that washroom, and it causes a lot more problems in the long run.

LV: Hemorrhoids! It causes hemorrhoids, so anybody who has hemorrhoids, that’s an indicator that your bowel movements are not right. They are not the form that they should be.

BeRegular

LV: Let’s talk a little bit about BeRegular, because it contains fibre which is a prebiotic fibre. So prebiotics are food for your probiotics, the good bacteria in your gut, and it also contains probiotics which is what we need in our gut. So we need good probiotics in our digestive system, then we need to have a prebiotic fibre which feeds the probiotics in our digestive tract, and then voila, within a couple of weeks you will never want to stop taking BeRegular again because it’s so effortless. We call it the “no-wipe-poop.”

Signs and Symptoms of Tummy Troubles

CV: Most people don’t realize all the signs and symptoms of tummy troubles until they see something like the poop chart and they actually look and go, “wow, I have been a watery number six my entire life and I had no idea that wasn’t normal!” So, if we don’t say things to our practitioners like, “hey this is what’s happening every day”, or we then have kids and then the practitioner asks us what their stool looks like, we could go our entire lives and not know because people don’t like to talk about poop but it is a window to our health.

LV: It is, yeah. And I think Bryce Wylde said if you’re having to use baby wipes to wipe your adult bum then you’ve got a problem

CV: Me! I said that!

LV: I think we make jokes about bowel movements but people need to understand that your stomach, your digestive system, your mouth to your butt, it’s involved in hormone detoxification, it is involved in blood sugar management, cholesterol lowering, so even though we’ve been talking about gas, burping, bloating, constipation, and diarrhea- remember all of the major conditions, like high cholesterol, high blood sugar, weight gain, you know, especially if you’ve got that big belly from your belly button down to your pubic bone, if you’re carrying all of your weight in that area, it’s your gut! We’ve got to fix your gut. And also when you were talking about that, all I thought was our minerals, like iron, is digested in our small intestine, so if we don’t have a good digestive tract, we’re not even getting the nutrients from the foods we’re eating, and that’s another problem altogether, right?

So let’s talk about the fibre in BeRegular, so people really understand, and most of us who’ve ever taken a fibre supplement like psyllium and you put it in the glass and it turns into this gloopy, gritty, awful, and I think they even put some weird orange flavor in there or something.

CV: They do, it’s horrible.

LV: Where BeRegular goes completely clear in water.

BeRegular Demo

CV: Yeah, so I actually I thought we would do a live demo. So I have this, it’s white powder. Here’s my glass of water, and then I have a little stirrer to make it go nice and clear.

LV: And you can just use a spoon, she just happens to be using her little whizzer. There’s no taste, none! No taste, it goes completely clear in water. If you leave it on your counter all day it does not turn into a Jell-O ball, and the kids don’t even know they’re getting it. If you think about when you have an infant you know you’ve got a six-month-old or an eight-month-old who’s terribly constipated or a 14-month-old and you go to the doctor, what do they give kids? What do they recommend?

CV: PEG! [Polyethylene glycol]

LV: And is PEG actually for kids?

CV: No, it’s off label, and it’s so frightening after a kid takes PEG because it makes it so urgent that it’s scary for kids.

LV: Well plus it’s not it’s not designed for use in children, so the beautiful thing about this type of fibre is that it can be given to very, very young children. It’s a food, it’s basically a food, and you get the good probiotics which are so important for our gut, and it’s yummy! You can read the label to everybody so they know exactly what they’re getting. It’s soluble fibre it goes it dissolves into water, but this fibre does not get gloopy, gritty, and turn into a Jell-O ball.

CV: Yeah, and there’s only two ingredients, like you said, so it is just the prebiotic and just the probiotic. There just two ingredients in the product, so it’s super clean for the entire family and so safe. It’s more like a modulating effect in your intestines, you know, a middle ground. Nice and smooth. There’s no urgency, you’re not running to the bathroom, you don’t have to worry when you give it to your kids that they’re going to end up rushing to the washroom. Because if you send them off to school with some BeRegular in their water bottle, you don’t want to be worried that they’re going to end up with an accident. It is not a laxative.

LV: These fibres are so awesome at also improving, as you said, the absorption of nutrients in your gut and they because they aren’t causing- oh yeah, see, its going clear!

[Caitlyn holding up almost-clear glass of BeRegular water]

LV: Caitlyn and I just finished doing presentations across the country and women were like, “oh it’s magic water!” and I said, “wait till you’ve taken it for a week, you’re going to really believe it’s magic water!”

CV: It’s true!

LV: And it’s good for the whole family.

CV: It’s great for the whole family. I know my husband has always been a big fan of this product and he was very excited when it became part of the KidStar line and now we’re always stocked in it so he’s quite happy! But, there are lots of conditions where we need more fibre and this is a very simple way to get fibre into our diets.

Getting Enough Fibre from Foods

LV: It is, it’s a great way to get more fibre. I remember when I wrote one of my books I thought, “oh we’re going to eat five cups of vegetables a day!” My four children were revolting by day three because it’s very challenging to get that amount of plant-based food yeah into your daily diet. That’s why people are only eating six to eight grams of fibre a day. So, this is five grams of fibre per scoop and 8 billion bifidobacterium, the probiotic. So, one little scoop.

CV: [Holding up clear glass of BeRegular water] Here we go!

LV: Yeah, so no smell, no taste, no gloop, no grit, super easy for people to take.

CV: I was actually just talking today about what else can we do with this product because I love it so much, I want to make more products like it!

LV: The other thing is you can put it in protein shakes! You can add it to protein shakes as well to get extra fibre. And you can take more than one scoop a day if you really want to correct things quicker, you can take more per day and the only thing you can’t put it in is carbonated beverages.

CV: Carbonated beverages, and you can’t heat it or else the probiotic will die but the fibre would still be fine so you know if you did want to add it to something warm, the probiotic would die but the prebiotic would still be great.

LV: Plus, it’s also very affordable! When we were standing in one of the stores I looked at all the fibre supplements that were currently being sold, and none of them had the probiotic none of them had a live probiotic. So, you get the benefit of your probiotic along with your fibre and the prebiotic fibres are great, because they are food for the probiotics so that means that they’re going to build a nice, robust, healthy, happy gut microbiome.

Bloating Tips

LV: If you get a lot of bloating, first you’re going to get that H. Pylori test to make sure that you are not dealing with a bacteria in your gut but you’ll notice that your bloating disappears, and you’re able to eat foods. I had one friend who could not eat cruciferous vegetables because her stomach turned into a volcano, and after a week of taking BeRegular, [she] was able to eat cruciferous vegetables, which we should be able to eat lentils, beans, cruciferous vegetables, because our gut microbiome is not happy that we can’t.

Transit Time Test

CV: Yes, and then I wanted to talk about transit time as well! There is a trick, there’s some foods you can eat that you can follow through your digestive tract to see how long [your transit time] is. One of them is corn on the cob, so if you eat corn and then you see how long it takes to go from your mouth to your butt [when] you can see corn pieces, that is one way to tell your transit time.

LV: Correct, right, and you can also use beats because it’s very visible when the color changes. You don’t want to have a super fast transit time. A lot of the fibres that are currently sold in the pharmacy they cause this urgency, so rapid transit, which is why they all say, “don’t take your medications”, “don’t take your vitamins”, “don’t take this”, “don’t take that”, because it’s causing things to go through your system so quickly. We don’t want that, we want to have this gentle process where you get to absorb your nutrients in the small intestine, but not so quick that everything’s shooting out the other end before you get an opportunity to really get the food benefits.

CV: Of course, because if it’s going too fast, you’re not getting the nutrients from the foods you’re eating or the supplements. And that’s with the medication too, right, if the medication’s going through you that fast you’re also not going to be getting the benefits of that either.

LV: Right, and I think the other thing is that you can take it whenever you want. A lot of people are always concerned, “do I have to take this with food?” No, you can put it in your water bottle in the morning every day, you’re not going to taste it and it won’t turn into Jell-O so you’ll be able to have the benefits throughout the day.

Elevated Cholesterol and Fibre

LV: If you’ve got elevated cholesterol, we know that fibre is recommended to lower cholesterol. Why? Because fibre locks on to excess cholesterol and then it’s removed in your bowel movements in the stool.

CV: That’s… I actually just learned that, so thank you! I was also gonna say something else about fibre and then that new tidbit I am now going to retain, so thank you! Oh, sugar! I was actually going to talk about sugars.

Blood Sugar and Fibre

CV: Of course, Halloween is coming up and there is the tidbit if you look at the nutrition facts and you see how much fibre is in a product and how much sugar is in a product that fibre actually helps.

LV: Correct, yes, it lowers the glycemic index of what you’re eating so here we’re coming up on Halloween. Give your kids a big scoop of BeRegular before Halloween so that things will move along! Yeah, fibre is involved in helping to balance blood sugar. When we eat food, our blood sugar spikes up and then drops. You’d rather have a nice slow post-prandial blood sugar level which we can do using fibre.

Fibre takes out excess estrogens in the body as well so if you’ve got estrogen dominant conditions like ovarian cysts, uterine fibroids, breast lumps, all those types of things. You’re able to then lock on to these excess estrogens that are floating around the body as well. It’s [BeRegular is] gluten-free, so there’s no problem there.

CV: It’s low-FODMAP and a lot of people who have digestive conditions can’t do high-FODMAPs because it causes the bloating and the gas, so it’s also really great because it has the low-FODMAP you’re not going to get that. Because some do some do! Some fibres do make you gassy and this one does not.

LV: Yeah like inulin! Inulin, we basically call it a “Gas Factory” because when people take it they often get a lot of gas as a result of it and that’s not a true [regulating fibre]. This is a true regulating fibre [BeRegular].

Question: “How do you know if you have a yeast or wheat sensitivity without eliminating either of them?”

LV: Oh I see we have a question now. So how do you know if you have a yeast or wheat sensitivity or allergy without eliminating either of them? Well, for celiac disease there is no blood work other than you could have an anti-gliadin antibody test, and if you have an elevated anti-gliadin antibody then it’s probably- especially if it’s super high- you most likely have a real severe gluten allergy or at least a true gluten intolerance. Celiac disease is much more complicated, and you would have to go see a gastrointestinal doctor to deal with that particular condition.

Eliminating yeast or wheat and interestingly enough some people will have a wheat sensitivity only when they eat it with yeast. If you eliminate something for 10 days and then you eat it, if your joints hurt, if you start to get bloating, if you have itchy ears, itchy skin, it could be that you have an intolerance.

BeRegular Promo Code

CV: Oh we do have a promo code on the KidStar Nutrients website for BeRegular and is actually 20% off to try it. The promo code is TRYBEREGULAR. That’s it, and it’s not combined with anything else so it’s just your BeRegular promo code so if you do want to try that one from KidStar Nutrients website put that promo code in so that you have a little discount there.

LV: (Holding up BeRegular) And this is what it looks like. So, BeRegular for RegularKids and regular adults.

Question: “Why do I become bloated before my period?”

LV: Oh yes, well, some people have bloating that’s worse before their period absolutely because there’s a big change in your hormones right before your period starts so you know give [BeRegular] a try to see if that helps you deal with the bloating.

Question: “Does it matter which Moducare® I purchase?”

LV: There’s only one Moducare, somebody has asked does it matter which brand of Moducare to buy. There is only one Moducare, there is no other Moducare so here is what Moducare looks like in the little chewables, we also have it in capsules. If it says Moducare, there only one Moducare. If you go to KidStar Nutrients they have the exclusive distribution rights in Canada so you’ll be able to find it there.

Where You Can Find BeRegular

CV: BeRegular is for sale on the KidStar Nutrients website, so kidstarnutrients.com, and then also some health food stores and online retailers across Canada also already have stocked it up, but the promo code is currently only valid on the KidStar Nutrients page.

LV: And who in Vancouver has BeRegular?

CV: I actually think currently it’s just us [in Vancouver]! So its just on kidstarnutrients.com right now.

LV: It just came out like two weeks ago right?

CV: Yeah! Ontario’s got a few locations that have now picked it up.

LV: It’s going out the door so some health food stores will have it shortly. BeRegular everybody!

CV: Very very excited for it! Adults and RegularKids!

LV: So I’m very excited because I missed Regular Girl so badly, and we had people all across the country writing and complaining that they couldn’t import it because it was too expensive to have it shipped here so now you can use BeRegular!

CV: Thank you very much Lorna, and if anybody has any additional questions they can always put them onto the post after we um put this live on the site so thank you very much for today’s tummy troubles and the next [live] we have is our omega-3 so stay tuned for that one! Have a lovely day, chat soon!

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