My journey through diets and SIBO.

Welcome to Everything Gut's first blog post! I’m truly excited to embark on this journey with you and share all the insights and experiences God has blessed me with over the last decade. It’s a pleasure to have you here, and I can’t wait to explore the wonderful world of gut health together!

I have been studying and researching nutrition for over a decade. My research began when I had an unexplained lower abdominal pain. After seeing several specialists, I was eventually put on painkillers to be functional. After a while, GI symptoms started to appear -- terrible bloating, constipation, and diarrhea. There also wasn't a time in my life when I didn’t suffer from depression or anxiety and had also gained a substantial amount of weight. I started the Adkins diet, which only helped me lose weight. Shortly after, I eliminated all grains as well. After 5 days, the pain I had felt for 5 years was alleviated. After 6 months, the GI and mental symptoms had also improved and I lost 110 lbs. During this time, I started to dig into nutritional research. Although I had gained so much success, I still had some GI issues.

After having some success for several years, I started to gain weight again, and have GI symptoms, depression, and anxiety. I tried every diet I found. Some of the diets I tried were elimination, anti-histamine, and low-FODMAP. None of them helped with any of my issues. I officially got diagnosed with small bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) by a functional doctor. The problem was I was not treated correctly from the beginning due to the severity of the SIBO (I was at 160ppm with 80ppm being extreme). I also saw one of the researchers for SIBO, which did not yield any long-term results.

During this time I was studying nutrition to become a dietitian. I never got my license for a variety of reasons. Mostly I found that what they did was unethical, at best. I was also really struggling with my weight. I felt that everything I knew was discredited despite eating healthy. I had gained 100 lbs. I tried every diet I could find, including Noom. I gave up and got on phentermine then semaglutide. I didn't lose weight with either and the semaglutide made my GI worse (it slowed an already slow gut). And I gave up...but only for a year.

I continued my studies and eventually treated myself with one last effort. God led me to the Lion Diet, which is a very strict carnivore diet. I thought it was a bunch of hogwash and dismissed it. After months of digging up research, it had (surprisingly) consistent results. Reproducible is the keyword there. There was a 6-week trial for SIBO on a carnivore diet that showed every participant had negative SIBO results. At this point, I had nothing to lose.

Within 1 week, I had "depuffed" from the inflammation, and within 6 weeks, I quit having any GI symptoms and chronic B12 deficiency. After 6 months, I reversed vitamin D deficiency without supplementation and could finally lift weights. The mental clarity and finally had no depression or anxiety. And the energy I finally had! There's a long list of things that reversed that I didn't know was wrong until it wasn't there anymore.

After this experience, it brought a decade of research together and has led to a lot of theories based on that research (that's for another blog post). It changed the way I thought about health, the gut, and the sensitive gut microbiome. Now I'm able to bring all of this information to you.

That said, would I recommend a carnivore diet to everyone? No, but it's another diet I have in my tool belt.

Over the last few years, not only did I “cure” myself, but I have helped several people in their health journey. I used different methods and diets to aid them with gut and health goals. I am one of the few nutritionists who have real experience with SIBO and a plethora of needs and diets. I'm looking forward to building better health through the gut with you!

Please subscribe to the blog as we delve into Everything Gut. In-depth health classes are coming soon, so you don't want to miss out. You can also join me for a free 15-minute consult.

Wishing you good guts!

-Shanda