How to get more energy as a busy mum

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As working moms, it can often feel like we are on that permanent hunt for that ever-elusive thing called energy. We need more mental and physical energy than anyone on the planet, in my opinion, which is what we're going to be talking more about on today's episode eight. Hi guys, Wendy here. Welcome to the healthy and thriving career moms podcast, your weekly dose of inspiration and motivation.

The thriving with your healthy habits, especially in the midst of the crazy mum juggle,

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I get that you're busy and that taking time for you is not always easy, but I'm here to help. So let's jump in.

I'm often asked where I get my energy from, which is ironic as I haven't always been someone with a lot of. Let me cost you back to me in my twenties, where I'd be the one falling asleep at my desk and mid-afternoon, and I'd be relying on caffeine to keep me going. But it's since

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becoming a mother in my thirties and now into my late thirties, that I've definitely had an increase in energy.

And that's not just because of my physics, although these have been a lifesaver. So I'll link to what I'm talking about there. But this increase in energy is because of my conscious changes I've implemented over time and it starts with one major focus that we're going to deep dive into today. But before we do, I just wanted to give a quick shout out

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to all of you.

Who've been listening to this podcast since we launched on the 2nd of November. I shared the other day that the podcast has had over a thousand downloads in its first month, which is all down to you, the listeners, your ratings, your reviews, and sharing through social media. So I'm so truly grateful to all of you and really appreciate that you are busy.

So taking the time to do that is a biggie. And I really truly appreciate it right back to the topic today.

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Uh, it's not really a sexy one as such, but it's an important one that we need to talk about. And that is our gut health. You're thinking, Wendy, why have you said this is a podcast about energy and now you're talking to me about God.

Bear with bear with, this is such a hot topic nowadays, but it's one I've actually been obsessed with for years now. It's something that I've been learning about over the past decade. And as more and more research comes out, I just become more obsessed

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with this topic. And in fact, it was Hippocrates himself who said, now Hippocrates is considered the father of modern medicine, but he said this over two and a half thousand years ago, that all disease begins in the.

How crazy is that two and a half thousand years ago, Hippocrates was saying that, and it's like, somewhere along the way, we've forgotten about that. But thankfully as more holistic medicine has coming to the fore, as we're connecting more with sort of

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Eastern medicinal theologies and things like that, we are really starting to understand that gut brain connection and how it just really affected.

Our overall health. And so what is gut health? Okay, so this, it refers to the balance of microorganisms that live in the digestive tract. So just because I like to know all the details, your digestive tract is what literally runs from your mouth to your. And it contains trillions of microbes.

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It's a whole ecosystem which lives inside your gut.

So don't panic. These are not alien invaders, but they all friendly bacteria and funghi. And when they live in the right conditions with the right numbers, they help to regulate your health, which is great. And did you also know, and I have touched on this, but your gut is also known as your second brain and here's why.

It contains as many nerve cells neurons as your spinal cord. And this network of

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neurons in the gut is called the enteric nervous system that ENS. So why is this ENS so special? Well, because it can act both independently and with the brain. So that that feeling you get it's real, your gut and your brain are interlinked like a massive.

Highway. So you might be saying, so what, well, when you've got health is out of balance, it can affect both your mental and physical wellbeing. So looking after

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your health rarely starts at the gut level and maintaining the right balance of these microorganisms is vital for physical and mental health, as well as your immunity and so much more.

Perhaps, or maybe you've experienced in the past, any of these on a regular basis, fatigue, headaches, gas, heartburn, irregular bowel movements issues. When eating certain foods, brain fog,

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sugar, cravings, skin breakouts. These are all signs that our gut is under stress and under duress, and it needs more support.

And there's lots of different things that can affect the wellbeing of your gut. So things like antibiotics, stress, oh my goodness. Stress is it's just the worst, basically. That is the worst thing for our gut health, lack of water, lack of sleep. Eating too much sugar, poor

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nutrition, a diet that lacks variety and a high percentage of processed.

So why do you think it is nowadays that as a society, we seem to be getting sicker and sicker and sicker with more incidences of disease and serious diseases. And even if you look at the incidents of what has occurred over the last 18 months with the pandemic, How it was all around protecting the most vulnerable people because they had underlying

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conditions and that would have all come down to and being linked to an imbalanced potentially.

And they got, I'm not saying everyone categorically, but it's just, when you start to know about this, that you start thinking, oh my goodness. You know, why is it that. That person, you know, got that illness out of nowhere. And, um, if you could see me right now, air-quotes nowhere. And actually it could be because they lifestyle and the factors that they've put their body through for years and years and years,

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stress and bad diets and lack of sleep could be having an ultimate.

So how does a healthy gut give you more energy? As a busy working mom, simply put the microorganisms, break down, plant material through the process of fermentation. So this fermentation process allows us to assimilate vital nutrients like vitamin B and K from. So your B vitamins play an essential

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role in your metabolism, which is the process of breaking down food to release energy, as well as keeping your skin and your nervous system healthy.

So gut bacteria play an important role in mental health, particularly mood regulation. And studies have estimated that the vast majority of serotonin is found in the gastrointestinal tract. And as serotonin is that happy hormone, you can understand why having a healthy gut is so

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important for mood regulation.

And there is so much more to the gut and its role in our body, but for the purpose of focusing on. Looking after your gut health is very important. And here's what I recommend to start looking after your gut health on a daily basis. So my first tip is eating lots of vegetables, legumes, beans, nuts, and fruit.

They are the best source for a healthy gut. And variety is rarely the case. We can often get stuck in the trap of

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eating the same things over and over again. But variety is really the key. Number two is eating fermented foods, such as kimchi or sauerkraut or Keitha or kombucha because they are rich in lactobacilli, a type of bacteria that can benefit your gut.

Number three is to eat prebiotic foods that promote the growth of beneficial microbes in the gut. So many fruits and vegetables and whole grains contain prebiotics. And the other thing

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is simple things in nature, like actually going barefoot in the grass, you would not believe. And I do this all the time with Jesse.

I'm like, get your shoes off. Whenever the kids come around to my house, I'm that. Get your shoes off. Does it matter if you step in anything dodgy? We'll just clean it off. Not a problem. I have three dogs, so there's always something dodgy in my grass, but it's just because the grass contain. Incredible prebiotics, that when they touch the base of our feet, they get absorbed up into the body.

And it's

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just a great natural way to do it. But if nature and getting out in nature, especially in like the winter months who wants to go barefoot in the grass right now in the UK, that's. You can look at things like probiotic supplements. So I take a probiotic every day without fail. And I always joke with people, it's like the least sexy thing you can spend money on when it comes to your wellbeing.

But honestly, it makes such a difference. And I'm gonna talk a little bit more about how I use my probiotic supplements

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to make it a little bit more interesting for me on a daily basis. Collagen is also beneficial to gut health because it contains large amounts of the amino acids, glycine, glutamine, and proline, which can be beneficial to the intestinal tract as well as the stomach.

So foods rich in collagen are things like fish, chicken, egg, whites, citrus, fruits, berries, red and yellow vegetables and garlic. So. Don't worry about if you're vegan or vegetarian,

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you don't want to eat those protein, collagen meat sources. There are lots of things in nature that you can use. And I always advocate for a primarily plant-based diet and then having those good sources of protein, like fish, chicken, et cetera.

If you do want to eat meat, otherwise obviously there's such fantastic ways that you can supplement that with beans and legumes and all sorts of things. And I actually use a protein powder. For my morning breakfast and that's just the most amazing,

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concentrated way of getting protein into my diet. So let's talk a bit, a little bit more about supplements because I think again, there's so much of a misconception out there about supplements.

And the first thing I want to say about using supplements and full disclosure caveat to all of this, I am not a medical professional. The information that I'm providing in this podcast is simply from my personal knowledge, my personal experience, the learning that I've done over the years and as a certified health and wellness

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coach, what I've learned over time, just because I absolutely love to read about this.

For fun. So for me, for supplements, I remember years and years ago, because my best friend is actually a dietician. So she's like hardcore years and years at university. And she would always say to me, and this is going back 20 years ago, she'd say, Wendy, you don't need supplements. What we eat in our diets is sufficient.

And 20 years ago, living in South Africa, I would have agreed with her 20 years on living in the UK. I

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disagree. Personally, I don't believe that our food provides enough of a vitamin, mineral and nutrient component in it and less you were to spend tons and tons on eating purely organic food, which I know isn't accessible for the majority of the population.

And the other thing about supplements is again, I used to, you know, I've heard people say over time, oh, well, supplements are a waste of time. You just wasted. And it's like, okay, yes, your body will excrete any

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excess that you might not use, but what is actually happening when that happens, if your body is not absorbing vitamins and minerals, it's actually because you'll gut is out of balance.

And so yes, that would be a complete waste because it's not absorbing it. And I just want to share really personal story with you about something that I've really. Working on the last year. So I've always been obsessed with gut health. As I've said, always been really interested in the subject have really found it to be a way that

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I have managed my IBS over the past decade.

And it was at the start of this year that I found myself feeling really tired, just abnormally tired. Now for someone like me, who has a lot of energy, not just because of the fist sticks, but I do have a lot of. I thought what is going on here? I mean, I do not necessarily like the long dark winters in the UK, so I was thinking, well, maybe it's the darkness.

Maybe I'm sad because also I I'd recently

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lost my dad at the time and I just could have put it down to a bit of grief, but have seasonal, effective disorder, that kind of thing. And actually after a few months, your body, your body tells you everything. It needs to know. I just knew something wasn't right.

So I rang one of my besties. Who's a nutritionist and said to her, look, something's not right. I know my body, and this is the other thing is knowing your body and really being able to advocate for yourself. And I said, I really, I really want to come and speak to you. I think we need to run some tests. I really want to get to the root of what's going on.

Long story

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Africa, which would be March: 2020

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October,: 2020

So, and it was potentially from unwashed food. And so, oh my goodness, no matter what I was doing, no matter how many fantastic supplements I was taking. She was looking at my supplement list and going, these are incredible high-quality supplements. Like levels should be off the charts for you, but because this parasite was affecting my gut balance and basically leaching all the nutrients, I could not absorb it.

And what I noticed, and it's amazing when you bring these things

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into your consciousness is that I had cracks on my tongue. Because I had a vitamin deficiency because this parasite was taking all my good stuff out me. Now I know this is a very extreme, disgusting story to share with you, but I share it to illustrate.

The power of gut balanced and gut health. Now that was an extreme situation. I'm not advocating. I'm not saying that now you've woke up with parasitic infections and you need to go and get this checked out, but it's just being aware of what your normal feels like. So that when you feel like things might be out of kilter

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or you might be feeling quite tired, or maybe you're getting headaches, or maybe you bloating, or maybe.

You know, things are going on coming back to that list that I shared earlier, you know, with the gas and the heartburn or irritable irregular bowel movements, whatever it is, brain fog, that could be your body's way of screaming at you. Hello? Hello. Hello? Hello. Hello. I need you to support me. I need you to help me reset and the great news, the positive news out of all of this, as what as the fact that I'm feeling a million times better, because what I was able to

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do was take some natural.

Supplements to basically knock that little sucker out my guts, which it did. And I feel great, again, something so simple yet made such a big difference to my life. And now just that energy that I'm getting absorbing my supplements again, et cetera, is just incredible. And the good news is that you can, whatever your situation is right now, actually reset.

It takes around 30 days to heal the gut. And

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we booted and just to really help that microbiome, which is the lining of your gut and your whole digestive tract, et cetera, to really heal itself. And it's just so important and things that put such a strain on that or things like. High sugar diets. As I said, excess carbohydrates, lack of sleep, stress, all those things, gluten dairy, they're all just pummeling.

I've got health all the time. And that is why when I do a gut reset and

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I do this around two to three times a year. Just to get me back on an even keel and then 80% of the time I'm following the principles of that. And then 20% of the time allowing myself the treats and the glass of wine or the GNC or whatever it is, and enjoying every day.

But I know that it's how I want to feel in myself and why I want to feel like that. Cause it's just so good. I just felt when you have so much energy, you can just take on the world more and you can function better and you can cope with life's stresses that it

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throws at you. And that was the thing is prior to feeling the way that I was feeling, I was taking the knocks on the chin so well, and suddenly everything just felt like it was getting on top of me and my mental health was suffering and it was just all linked.

Gut-brain connection. It's just so, so powerful. So something that you may have seen me doing, if you follow me on Instagram, it's I'm Wendy Griffith live healthy as something that you'll see me doing regularly is my daily green shot gut shots. You know, I call it it's the same thing as the green shot, a gutshot.

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And what that is is I have a little concoction that I make with a digestive health supplement that I use. And some days I put a cognitive booster in there or a collagen builder and. And I put a scoop of greens in there. So this is a one scoop is the equivalent of one portion of fruits and veggies a day.

So that's a great way for me to supplement and it's got 37 powerful fruits and vegetables and antioxidants and all sorts of things in there. And then I put a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, which is great for your

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tummy. And I mixed this in half a glass of water and I drink it back. And honestly, that hydration and that got held all in one quick time, saving glass is just such an easy solution for a busy mom.

And I can promise you if you did this for 30 days, you would feel absolutely incredible. So I'll link to all of this in the show notes, and I've actually got a little. Video on my Instagram, which shows you how I make it and what I put in there. And it's just really quick for you to watch. So again, I'll link to that.

So you can have a look, but

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that's just something that I do that you might consider doing yourself. And if you have any questions on that, please do get in touch. As I say, I'm no medical doctor or anything, but that is just something that I do. And as I say, I do that gut reset, which is actually my healthy habits reset.

So. If you help everyone in my website, Wendy griffith.co.uk, you can read more about what that healthy habits reset looks like. And as I say, I do that two to three times a year and to really reset and give my guts arrest for the onslaught of modern

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living. So I've actually got a healthy habits reset, starting on Monday the 3rd of January.

So I'll link to that in the show notes. So you can find out more. But whenever I do this program, my energy absolutely goes through the roof. Unsurprisingly. And this is why when people say to me, how do you have so much energy? And I'm like, it's not a secret. This is why I love telling people about gut health.

Cause they just, you just don't know what you don't know. All that being said, there is no miracle, fast facts for more

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energy, but God health is certainly an area where you can focus and work on and find your energy improving. So I really hope this episode has helped and inspired you to do. Do you share this episode with someone you think would really benefit from this information and what I appreciate?

You're super busy. I'd be so grateful if you could jump on and leave a quick review for me. So until next week, take care and look after those guts DIA diet. It's not

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me. It's you. I just don't think it's going to work between us. You're boring. You're tasteless and I can't stop cheating. I don't know about you, but I hate all the diet, diet, diet, and new year's resolutions talk at this time of year.

, you don't need a new you in: 2022

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consider my healthy habits reset, which starts on Monday.

The third of. This is a healthy, supportive environment, where we will teach you how to use food for fuel and for energy and a program that helps you in resetting your body with clean eating and mindful habits, giving you what your body, what it needs and eliminating the things that it doesn't. So if you are someone who is wanting to improve your health, you'd like to improve your eating habits, boost your energy, identify food sensitivities.

Oh, you're ready to find

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for weight management system without a diet, then this could be for you. So I'll link to this in the show notes, and we would love to see you getting started with us on Monday. The third of Jan.