Balms and Manna Blog - Balms and Manna

Are You Normal? What Does Your Gut Tell You?

11/5/2025

How to Improve Digestion Naturally

--- I am amazed at how many people I know think that having a bowel movement every other day is normal! Or easily dismiss bloating, gas and indigestion as something that everyone deals with. It doesn't have to be that way!

Our gut health is so important and tied to so many other functions in our body!

Our gut health affects our mood. Our vagus nerve, which travels from our gut to our brain, signals that "gut feeling" to our brain. So the more inflammation our gut has, the more anxious and depressed we are going to feel.
70% of our immunity is in our gut. Imbalanced bacteria depletes our immune systems and leads to so many conditions.
Our skin is a direct reflection of our gut. The healthier and more balanced our gut biome is the clearer our skin will be.

7 ways to improve digestion naturally

LIMIT SUGARS- Sugars are inflammatory, feed yeast and other bacteria in the gut.
ELIMITATE PROCESSED FOODS- Processed foods are full of preservatives, chemicals and food dyes. These increase inflammation, irritation and discomfort.
PROBIOTICS- Probiotics replenish good bacteria and help balance the gut biome. Anyone can benefit from them! Fermented food such as kefir, kombucha, sauerkraut are all good ways to get probiotics in your diet. This is my favorite probiotic.
REDUCE GLUTEN- Often gluten is a hidden trigger for inflammation and gut irritation. Try eliminating gluten for several weeks and notice what changes you experience with your gut health.
TRY DIGESTIVE ENZYMES- A digestive enzyme can be helpful for absorption of our nutrients so out body has what it needs and can function better. Digestive enzymes also ease digestive discomfort from gas and bloating. I love this "multi-enzyme".
FIBER! Fiber binds to toxins. It also supports daily bowel movements which essential for good gut health. Whole fruits and veggies, nuts and seeds are great sources of fiber.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST- WATER! Water helps to flush out toxins and prompts regular bowel movements. Drink half your body weight in ounces.

Need more help with digestion? Looking for a digestion specialist in your area?

Schedule a FREE Discovery Call today to explore way to say good bye to digestion challenges forever!

SCHEDULE A FREE DISCOVERY CALL TODAY!

4 Ways to Say Good Bye to Pre-Period Bloating

9/22/2025

It seems unavoidable.

You know it's coming. Because it's there every menstrual cycle like an impending morning alarm.

The bloating that makes you feel a size too big.
Breast tenderness that is there with every step you take.

It might be familiar but it's not normal! It's your body telling you something isn't right.

4 Ways to Say Good Bye to Pre-Period Bloating

1- Grab some magnesium glycinate
Low magnesium is a culprit with PMS with fluid retention.

2- Pair magnesium with vitamin B6
Vitamin B6 needs magnesium to be effective.

3- Avoid xenoestrogens
Xenoestrogens increase estrogen levels- another suspect in PMS with fluid retention. Choose organic meat and dairy. Avoid plastics (plastic wrap, containers), using microwaves, fragrances, toxic body care products and cleaners.

4- Boost your diet
Beans, whole grains and leafy vegetables are good choices of food during this time.

It's not inevitable! It's avoidable!

You can feel and look your best even the week before your period!

These are just a few things to get started with. Test to know where your hormones really are.

Join my 180 Days to Wellness for specific eating, stress and supplement plans created just for you and what you need!

Tried Everything and Still Feel Stuck?

8/25/2025

Feel like you've tried everything?

Diet. Supplements. Exercise. Fasting. Detox.

Nothing has worked. You feel stuck. You want to feel better. You know you could feel better. But you are tired of trying.

You aren't stupid. You aren't lazy. You are trying surface level things that aren't getting to the root of the problem.

Here's what I tell client's who feel stuck and have "tried it all":

Are you supporting all of your body together?
Are you addressing physical things but not the emotional things?
Are you looking at digestion, hormones and the liver as a whole?

If you aren't, it's not your fault. You are just doing what you know to do.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself:

Am I always rushing and am I ok with slowing down and saying no?
How is my digestion? Am I having consistent bowel movements every day?
Do I have steady energy throughout the day and wake up feeling refreshed?

Stop supporting yourself with surface level solutions and get to the root. See your body as a whole. Test don't guess. Start from the bottom up so you can get real results!

180 Days to Wellness is a whole body approach to finding the root causes that will help you start healing and feeling like yourself again!

Doesn't Everyone Have Gas and Bloating?

4/21/2025

DOESN'T EVERYONE HAVE GAS AND BLOATING?

In case no one told you, gas and bloating aren't normal!

It's becoming so common today that we normalizing any number of symptoms because we've tried "all the things" to get rid of it and finally subside into acceptance. Symptoms like gas and bloating aren't normal! While they might be common today, they are our bodies' way of telling us that something isn't right. In the mercy of God, they don't go away because our body is crying for help to address something deeper.

So please don't ignore your body's warning signs! Especially by band-aiding them to make them go away without addressing the deeper issue. Because some day, these warning signs will turn into a much bigger issue that you can't ignore.

Let's talk about enzymes.

Enzymes help to break down food and turn those nutrients into energy. Enzymes are found outside the body in raw, unprocessed foods as well as produced by our body in our stomach, pancreas and small intestines. If we don't eat enough raw, unprocessed foods, we have to rely on the body's enzymes to break down our food. If our body is struggling to produce enough of it's own enzymes and we aren't eating enough raw, unprocessed foods, then we aren't going to be breaking down our food well nor getting the nutrients we need from our food.

So what happens when we can't break down our food well? Gas, bloating and stomach discomfort are common issues when we eat food we are sensitive too or we don't break down well. Which is why we are talking about enzymes! Here's where we dig into the root causes rather than normalizing warning signs.

Terrazyme is a supplemental enzyme blend of active whole food digestive enzymes. It contains enzymes to break down sugars, starches, protein, fats, lactose, gluten, fiber, legumes and cruciferous veggies.

You can take it regularly or just with foods that cause more digestive discomfort. If you aren't absorbing your food well (see previous post), then you want to take this regularly.

Need more support with digestive issues or tired of guessing and band aiding those annoying symptoms?

Schedule a Discovery Call to find out how 180 Days to Wellness can help you discover your root causes and feel like yourself again!

You are What You Absorb, Not What You Eat.

4/7/2025

YOU ARE WHAT YOU ABSORB, NOT WHAT YOU EAT.

You've maybe heard the saying, You are what you eat. You can eat all the right things but if you don't absorb them, your body can't benefit from your food.

So how do you know if you are absorbing what you eat? There are many factors that go into absorption. Stomach acid, stress, the health of your gut lining, bacteria overgrowths, pancreatic enzymes, genetics and toxin levels are just a few.

There are markers on many functional lab tests that can point to if these factors are impacting your absorption. Blood tests, stool tests and mineral tests are all good tests to look at how well you absorb. You need someone trained in functional lab tests to help you go through your results to identify areas of weakness that need support.

Proteins and fats are two of the main macro nutrients that people struggle to absorb. Though you can still be struggling to absorb these nutrients without physical signs, here are a few ways to identify if you might not be absorbing fats and proteins.

Poor protein absorption- undigested food in stool and/or a heavy feeling in the stomach after eating
Poor fat absorption - floating stools and/or not tolerating greasy foods well

How to support better break down and absorption of your food:

1- Eating mindfully. Eat slower, chew your food more and don't eat while driving, standing or in front of a screen. The more you chew your food, the more it gets broken down.

2- Drink 1 tsp of raw apple cider vinegar in water BEFORE meals. This stimulates the production of stomach acid which helps to break down your food.

3- Take several deep breaths before eating. The less stressed (and more present you are) when you eat, the more calm and ready your digestive system is to receive and digest your food.

3- Take enzymes. There are enzymes for different parts of our food. Enzymes help break down sugars, proteins, fats, carbs, lactose, etc. The lower your level of enzymes, the less your food will break down and the less you can absorb. Terrazyme is a enzyme supplement that contains all the different enzymes to support your body's natural levels of enzymes.

Absorption of nutrients, especially fats and proteins, affect so many things. Memory, focus, skin, cardiovascular health, hair growth, liver health, hormones, weight loss, energy and inflammation. It's so much bigger than just what you eat! It's making sure that you absorb so that you don't have bigger, more chronic issues that show up over time.

If you want to make sure you are absorbing well or are curious if poor absorption might be a root cause to some of the annoying things you are dealing with, schedule a free discovery call today to talk about how functional testing can help you KNOW!

Having Gut Problems? Don't Know Where to Start?

7/8/2024

--How does it all work? What is going on in my gut?

There is a lot of talk today about how important our gut health is to our overall health. It's true! But how does it all work? And what is really going on in the gut?

The Intestinal Mucosal Barrier

Our body has a protective mucosal layer of cells made up of epithelial cells that separates the external from the internal environment called the mucosal barrier. These barriers are found in our nose, eyes, reproductive tracts and our digestive tract.

It’s our body’s first line of immune defense and protects us from toxins and bacteria that we might pick up from our food and the environment.

The small intestines is where most of our nutrients are broken down and absorbed. It is also responsible for a large part of our immunity and is a chemical barrier by protecting the body from foreign invaders and toxins. So the integrity of our digestive system is important to our overall health.

Anatomy of the Intestinal Mucosal Barrier

There are several layers that make up the mucosal barrier.

The first layer is where partially digested food and good and bad bacteria pass from the stomach to the large intestine. This is called the lumen.

Under the lumen is a thin layer of epithelial cells and a mucus membrane. They are held together by tight junctions.

The area below the epithelial cells is a called the lamina propria which houses the immune system and is protected by the epithelial cells. The lamina propria is where the gut connects to the bloodstream.

How the Intestinal Barrier Becomes Damaged

Things such as antibiotics, toxins, poor diet, dysbiosis, stress, low stomach acid, infections and medications contribute to increased inflammation. This starts to destroy the borders of the epithelial cells, flatten them and they become porous. This leads to poor digestion and poor absorption. If this is left unchecked it will continue to damage the epithelial cells and lead to increased movement through the cell walls or destroying the tight junctions.

Zonulin, a protein molecule, allows the tight junctions to tighten up in a dynamic system to prevent inflammatory particles, toxins and infectious diseases from passing through but at the same time, can open to flush out unwanted materials that have crossed into the lamina propria. Too much zonulin damages this dynamic movement adding stress to the liver and leading to oxidative stress.

What About My Intestinal Barrier?

After reading this maybe you think you might have problems with a leaky gut or with the mucosal barrier. Or just curious what your intestinal gut health is like.

If so, let's schedule a discovery call to take a deeper dive and talk about testing and things you can do to strengthen and support your gut lining!

SCHEDULE A DISCOVERY CALL TODAY!

WHY DO A STOOL TEST?

2/26/2024

WHY DO A STOOL TEST?

Do you have unpredictable gas that hinders you from going out with friends?

Always have to know where the bathroom is "just in case"?

Bloating that nothing seems to help?

Spend way more time sitting on the toilet than you want to?

Have reoccuring pain in your stomach that keeps you from feeling your best?

Ever wondered if there was a way to "see" inside your gut? To find out what might be causing those persistent, annoying digestive issues? But without an invasive, costly procedure?

There is a way! Stool testing is a simple at home test that will give insights into many components of gut health.

STOOL TESTING
Stool testing gives you a comprehensive look at overall gut health including:

levels of good bacteria
overgrowths of unfriendly bacteria
nutrient absorption
liver health
integrity of your gut lining
sensitivity to gluten
immune function
inflammation

The GI MAP (Gastro Intestinal Microbial Assay Plus) is a specific type of stool testing. It relies on quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) technology to detect parasites, bacteria, fungi, and other microbes, by targeting the specific DNA of the organisms tested. This removes human error and tests for anaerobic microbes.

HOW IT WORKS:
The test collection kit is shipped to you. You simply collect your stool and use the provided tools to gather some of it into a specimen vial. This vial is sent back to labs in the provided, prepaid envelope and is then analyzed.

Learn more about stool testing and how it can benefit you! Schedule a discovery call and we'll dive deeper into your specific gut health!

Why A Hormone Test?

7/26/2023

WHY A HORMONE TEST?

Why would I need a hormone test? And what would it tell me?

WHY:
Although these have become part of so many people's lives, they are all signs that your hormones might need some attention:

Weight gain/inability to lose weight
Mood swings- depressed, irritable, anxious
Poor sleep
Night sweats
Decreased libido
Fatigue
Sick frequently
Intense cravings for salt/sugar
Joint aches
Low energy/energy slumps
Digestive issues
PMS- painful, bloating, breast tenderness
Irregular periods/absent periods

HOW:
When our body perceives stress (whether chemical, physical or emotional stress), it sends a series of signals from our brain to our adrenal glands. This is the body's normal response and increases cortisol and adrenaline to appropriately respond to the stress.

As the body adapts to stress, the hormone levels return to normal. However with ongoing stress, the levels in the body start to become imbalanced.

WHAT:
A Salivary Hormone Profile shows you how your body is responding to this signaling pathway and where you are in the stress response. It gives a picture of whether you are in an acute stage of stress or whether you have been dealing with stress for long periods of time.

It will also show how the stress response is impacting sex hormone levels. It includes the following markers:

Total cortisol levels
Cortisol levels throughout the day
DHEA
Estradiol (the most strongest form of estrogen)
Progesterone
Testosterone

Really, it is a big picture of how your body is responding and handling stress and how that manifests in the things you are struggling with in every day life.

It truly gives you answers and connects what you feel to what is going on in your body! Learn more about salivary hormone testing.

Schedule a Discovery Call to Learn More

Life is Better with Copaiba

3/29/2022

LIFE IS BETTER WITH COPAIBA

Do you struggle with sleep, anxious feelings, poor digestion or poor circulation? Do you wish that you had something that would just make your life better and more comfortable?

Copaiba is an essential oil that most people have never heard about. It comes from the copaiba tree which is native to South America. The main constitute of Copaiba is beta-caryophyllene which is powerfully relaxing, soothing and supports your endocannabinoid system. This system in your body is responsible for managing inflammation and bringing the body systems into balance.

SO HOW IS LIFE BETTER WITH COPAIBA?

Taking a softgel capsule before going to bed can promote a better night's sleep
Using 1-2 drops internally under the tongue or as a softgel daily can support healthy hormones, a stronger nervous system, less discomfort, better digestion, circulation and immunity
Massage on topically to ease discomfort
Add a few drops to your moisturizer to reduce the appearance of blemishes and keep the skin looking clearer and healthier.

WHY I LOVE COPAIBA-

Taking a softgel nightly before bed helps me sleep better and keeps my fingers from falling asleep during the night.
It helps me have an overall calmer mood, less anxious feelings and makes life's challenges easier to deal with.
I notice less congestion in my lymph (think less PMS issues), sinuses, liver (clearer skin and less head tension) and healthy inflammation levels in my veins (think less discomfort and better circulation).
I also notice more hormone balance (less moodiness, bloating and fatigue).

Does this sound like an oil you would like to try? I would be happy to share a sample of this with you so you can also feel power and support of this amazing oil! Or if you don't want to wait, get yours now!

I WANT A SAMPLE

3 Key Benefits to Deep Breathing

2/24/2022

3 KEY BENEFITS TO DEEP BREATHING

1- REDUCE STRESS AND ANXIETY
Deep breathing calms the body, helps it feel safe and counteracts the body's "fight or flight" response. It releases tension which can improve things such as high blood pressure, headaches, muscle tension and sleep. It can also help lower cortisol which can help with weight loss, emotional balance and exhaustion.

2- CAN IMPROVE DIGESTION
Constipation, diarrhea, indigestion and a hiatal hernia can result from tension and anxiousness. Deep breathing can improve the gut brain connection, improve physical responses to stress and release tension in the solar plexus.

3- REMOVAL OF TOXINS
Our lungs is one of our detox organs. 70% of toxins can be released if we are breathing properly. This makes our body and our brains healthy.

How to Deep Breath
Deep breathing strengthens your diaphragm and allows your lungs to fully expand creating better oxygen exchange and strengthening core muscles.

*Sit in a comfortable position and place your hand on your stomach
*With your mouth closed, breath in and allow your lungs to fully expand. The hand on your stomach should move out.
*Hold your breath for a count of 7.
*Slowly release your breath while blowing air out from your mouth until you have completely exhaled.
*Continue deep breathing for 5-10 minutes

You can also do square breathing for extra support for the nervous system.
*Breathe in for 4 seconds
*Hold for 4 seconds
*Breathe out for 4 seconds
*Hold for 4 seconds