Heal your gut. Heal your life.
Many a moon ago when I featured a supplement on Instagram for Supplement Sunday, someone asked, “What is Supplement Sunday?” A couple weeks ago I made Supplement Sunday a mainstay feature on Instagram, so I want to use this post to explain what it is, with the hopes that you’ll join us each Sunday.
I’m sharing 22 adaptogens for hormones today, and I think you’ll enjoy this post if you have now (or have ever had) hormone problems.
I was invited to a private NOW Foods event in the suburbs of Illinois mid-May.
{Disclosure: This post was paid, and the trip was fully covered and sponsored. I rarely do sponsored posts or trips and when I do, you better believe it’s because I personally use the products and/or services.}
If you want the honest truth, I went because I wanted to learn more about my beloved L-Glutamine, which I am constantly talking about both here on my blog and via the A Gutsy Girl Instagram. But beyond that, I was sort of on the fence with how I felt about the company. My mind told me, “It’s all supplements; maybe minimal at that.” But again, since I’m so passionate about L-Glutamine for gut healing, I thought (maybe hoped) that possibly they would have other products I’d feel excited to share.
Spoiler alert: They do have other products besides just supplements; 1,500-ish to be exact. If you want to know some of my favorites, just skip to the bottom of this post where I share them PLUS enter to win them ALL!
NOW Foods flew about 15-20 of us in from all over the United States on Thursday, May 17.
I shared a plane ride with two other women from Minnesota and one from Washington. I sat right next to Sarah Carlson for a lovely hour conversation.
They had a car waiting for us when we arrived, and our driver took us to the Itasca Resort where we were greeted with warm welcomes from Alana (a total career-driven mama like me) with the NOW Foods team. She told us the schedule for the night, and to relax until then.
There was a room filled with NOW Foods product when I got in, so I started sorting through it all, realizing that I, in fact, really knew nothing about the company.
My friend Marissa was also attending, so I sent her a text to see if she wanted to grab a quick drink before the night started. Of course she did, so we bellied up at the bar downstairs for overdue catch-up chat. I haven’t seen her in years, and we talked all things babies, work, and life.
Around 5:45pm, NOW Foods had transportation waiting for us. It took us to the Cooking Skills Academy, where we spent the rest of the evening.
The evening began with general mingling, appetizers, and getting our colored aprons. Those with like-aprons would be on the same cooking challenge team. I got a blue apron, put it on, and grabbed little mushroom and zucchini bites while meeting as many people as I could.
When the evening officially began, various people on the NOW Foods executive team spoke, including the CEO, Jim Emme and Dan Richard, the Vice President (also part of the family who owns NOW Foods).
My girl Kasey Arena (aka PowerCakes) then did a cooking demonstration for her Sea Salt Chocolate Protein Glazed Donuts. Listen, I’m all about that donut life. I have made so many donuts over the years with my favorite being the recipe I altered from Grandma Josephine’s original (which can be found HERE). And I’m going to tell you right now that Kasey’s donut recipe will rival them.
You will find the Donut recipe in the NOW Foods 50 Twenty-Minute Recipes e-book they just launched. It’s free, and all you have to do is click the link to download (sometimes the e-book will go to your spam, so make sure to check there, too).
After that, we watched the chef do a cooking demonstration and explain what the cooking challenge was all about. You know the ropes, though because you watch the Food Network, yes?! Okay, just me. Anyways, each team had to get creative with the products available, create a dish, and then a panel of NOW Foods judges tasted and chose their favorites.
My team was the best, seriously.
Somehow I lucked out and got on a team with: Leslie, Frankie (yes, part of the USA Bobsled team), and Norris Frederick (a long jumper who is my new BFF:) ). Here is the video Norris made from the challenge:
For the record, we made a dairy-free Tzatziki sauce over quinoa pilaf with avocado. But it was too much avocado, so we failed miserably. We didn’t place in the top three, and it was really heartbreaking, but somehow we carried on. Somehow.
That was not dinner, thank God. I had fish and vegetables and salad, and then of course dessert – I think it was a cookie and brownie or something; all gluten-free, of course.
During dinner, Jim, the CEO, sat at our table so we could fire off whatever questions we wanted to him. He sat there and, very diligently and thoughtfully, answered every last one.
I knew I liked him immediately when he told me he does Crossfit and when I asked him what his favorite NOW Foods product was he replied, “L-Glutamine.”
He told us repeatedly how much he appreciated us all flying in, how they value our help in sharing their story, and how they have always and will always maintain their commitment to excellence.
As the night wrapped up, I was so glad to be there.
I woke up bright and early, per the usual, but I was tired from the night before, so I hobbled downstairs to get coffee. Alana was there, we chatted while in line, and she bought my java fix.
I walked back to my room, changed into workout clothes, and got myself ready for the morning workout.
The day started at 6:40am when we all met to walk for the morning workout, and the workout started around 7am. Kasey, in addition to her professional donut-making skills, is a fitness trainer. She lead us through about an hour HIIT workout. Guys – I used bands for squats near the end of the workout, and I thought I might die. I was a champ and hung in there until she really did us in with the grand finale – Tabata style burpees. So. Fun.
I totally paid for that workout the rest of the weekend, making me feel miserably out of shape. (I wasn’t, though. If you read my post on Monday, you know that most of the ill feelings, soreness and general sickness was because of SIBO.)
The workout ended at 8am, and NOW Foods had a huge smoothie bar waiting for us. There was anything and everything you could think of to make a great smoothie; fruit, greens, protein powder, supplemental boosts, dairy-free milks, all of it. I made a huge smoothie, drank it quickly, and then went back up to taste the Mocha MCT Oil because it just sounded so good (it was, and I now have some for my coffee – it’s so good that I included it in my giveaway below).
While sipping on those smoothies, the Sports Brand Manager and Fitness Trainer spoke to us. I didn’t even know this category existed for them (like most of the other categories). They have everything from protein powders to amino acids.
Norris was going to make a video on site for the NOW Foods team, so he and Frankie were in a room getting ready to shoot that after smoothies. I was tempted to stay, play, and pick up some new video tricks, but I was sitting in drenched sweat and didn’t feel like anyone would want to hang with me the rest of the day if I didn’t shower. So off I went.
We all had breakfast together, and then a driver took us all to the NOW Foods plant.
We saw just one of their plants and it was huge. They went into great detail about their testing methods and how everything is carefully produced. I couldn’t get enough of the L-Glutamine coming off the line.
After the plant tour we had lunch. It kind of seems like that’s all we did – eat. I mean, that’s kind of accurate actually. They always had stuff waiting for us.
We finished the day by learning about their oils and other body care products. We made our own bath soak/scrub and a gym equipment cleansing spray (with oils). And once that was over, Leslie lead us through meditation, which was so peaceful. I felt like I was by a river and fell asleep. Go figure.
I definitely was not ready for our time there to be over so quickly. My only wish for the event is that it would have been longer.
Click HERE to save these for later.
NOW Foods gave us a huge bag of products, valued over $500, in addition to everything else. They also told us we could give that same bag full of things to someone.
Even though both this post and the trip were sponsored, I reached out to Alana immediately when I returned to see if I could customize a gift for one of you because while I firmly believe the company and products are high class and fantastic and would fully recommend them, my goal is to share with you the products I personally would use regularly.
If you’ve followed me for any length of time, you know those products typically fall under: gut health and healing (almost always), thyroid + adrenal support, and now oftentimes things for the kids.
With that said, here are the items I hand-picked to give to one of you.
Enter to Win Every Single Product Above. (Total retail value is $380.80)
To enter, all you have to do is:
As I mentioned in the beginning, NOW Foods has 1,500-ish products. If the ones I like don’t interest you, I promise something will. And the reason you should support them is because good, honest companies with great ethics and phenomenal leadership from the top are so, so, so hard to find.
I’m looking forward to working with them much more in the upcoming year, so please let me know if you have any questions.
Xox,
SKH
I finally put together my complete list of gut and hormone tests because a reader reached out asking if I had them all in one place.
Today I’m sharing the top 11 ways I continued healing in 2017.
This is my favorite time of year for all things blog related because it’s the time of year when I reflect, remember, and then plan and prepare for the next year.
I kick off this season with the reader survey, which I recently published. You can share your thoughts and voice by clicking HERE (it will remain open until January 1, 2018).
And then I plan and prepare posts to share with you for the upcoming year on both blog and personal goals, as well as the past year recaps. This year, I’ve added one more recap – this one – the top 11 ways I continued healing in 2017 because I think the information could be useful for many of you.
How am I able to write this post with ease? Because 2017 was, by far, my healthiest and best healing year yet! Did I have some lumps and bumps along the way? Of course. Success absolutely looks like this….
(source)
In 2017, though, the kinks and coils on the upward were far fewer than any other year.
And these are the things I attribute to that.
Click HERE to save this post for later.
{The list below is in no particular order of importance.}
So now you might be thinking….but how do you know you healed so much in 2017?
Symptoms and numbers. It all comes down to symptoms and numbers.
From a symptoms standpoint, I can count the number of times I thought my SIBO might be trying to relapse and of those times, symptoms lasted less than a week (while I re-routed efforts and corrected anything I knew was throwing me off – i.e. intense running). My SIBO never came back in 2017, and I never needed Rifaximin, Neomycin, herbal supplements or anything else targeting SIBO directly. (I did, however, use Atrantil in the beginning of the year, which I believe worked wonders in setting me up for the rest of 2017.)
I go to the bathroom now like a normal person. I rarely feel bloated, and most of the time if I do feel bloat it’s only the type of female-monthly-friend bloat (which, by the way, is nothing compared to SIBO bloat).
My energy came back! I am able to function the way I wanted to for so long. Of course, I’m still tired at night by 8 or 9 pm, but I’m also up every single day between 3:30 – 4 am (you can read a typical day via Experience Life Magazine HERE).
My weight stabilized. When my gut is off, I always know because my weight changes quickly – like within just a day or two. For several months now, the scale has not budged much, and it’s at a place that feels natural and comfortable.
From a numbers standpoint, my SIBO tests showed that, while not completely eradicated, it was improving (and by the way, the last time I did this test was early 2017 I believe – I have made leaps and bounds progress since then).
“Overall,” said Dr. Amy, “your DUTCH profile looks good.” T3 is still somewhat low, but we are managing that and I am retesting those levels in early 2018.
My blood pressure continues to be fairly low and my hands and feet remain cold (I am trying some new things for that, too!), but all blood counts are normal and “healthy.”
We are continuing to do some testing in 2018, and most everything will remain the same (not fixing anything that’s not broken). I’m hoping for another healthy and vibrant year in 2018. And I wish the same for you as well!
Xox,
SKH
At the end of March, I shared with you my supplement and medication healing tool box. Today I’m back sharing more….11 gut and hormone supplements I take.
From that post in March, I am no longer taking Atrantil (I don’t need to, in complete SIBO remission – yassss!) and I forget a lot to take the bitters. I take the magnesium sometimes, but only if I’m feeling overly stressed. I do still take the probiotic, Beta-TCP, Cod Liver Oil, and the HCL. I’m not currently taking the B12, but I toggle on that. Additionally, I’m still taking LDN and WP-Thyroid, and I might take both the rest of my life (well actually, I am considering trying to wean off the LDN in the next few months after I discuss with my doctor).
