Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
In this episode I sit down with emotional eating, mindset, gut, and hormone expert Amber Romaniuk. We dive into an informational and relatable talk on common struggles and imbalances so many women face. Join us as we go over steps to heal your relationship with food, why diet culture has not only failed us but left us completely drained in terms of wellness, and what we can do to take back our power.
Amber's WEBSITE, EMOTIONAL EATING QUIZ, PODCAST, & CONSULT FORM
To try a free week of my signature Fit for Hiking program to get you fit from the trails (gym AND at-home options) start HERE.
Amber's WEBSITE, EMOTIONAL EATING QUIZ, PODCAST, & CONSULT FORM
To try a free week of my signature Fit for Hiking program to get you fit from the trails (gym AND at-home options) start HERE.
For next level fat loss strategies, hormone/gut health help, serious performance goals and unparalleled support, apply for Mountain Metabolic coaching. Learn more HERE.
For more free wellness resources, hiking/travel guides, and other blog posts, check out my website HERE.
What is Fit for Hiking?
Where fitness and outdoors meet. In this space we chat all things hiking, exercise, wellness, adventure, motherhood, and metabolic health from a female perspective! Get ready to learn + be inspired to live your fullest, most adventurous life!
Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. In combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discuss here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential, and become inspired to live your most vibrant life, you're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for hiking podcast. Hello friends, and welcome back to another episode of the fit for hiking podcast. Today we are joined by mindset, gut and hormone expert Amber Rose maniac. Thanks so much for being here, Amber. We are super excited to have you. She coaches women on how to kick the dieting mindset for good work through weight loss blocks in a healthy way, and restore all things hormone health. So I'd love to kick things off by having you just tell listeners a little bit about your backstory, how you came to work in this industry, and why you've ultimately become passionate about women's health. Yeah, and thank you for having me, Brady. I'm super happy to be here. Yeah. So. The business started ten and a half years ago, and it was all created out of my own struggle with binge eating, emotional eating, bingeing and purging, and food addiction. I really deeply struggled with those for a few years in my early 20s, and it all started from a young age with being bullied and called fat and ugly and having body image issues, and then like having a free fall with food and never really being in an environment where things were kind of like balance with like nourishment and indulgence. It was just like eating whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. And then of course, you know, body image issues come up and all these different things. And I really fell deep into a hole of binge eating in my early 20s after a breakup, losing weight really fast and then not being able to maintain it. Yeah. And the binging and all that whole journey of eating until I was so full, I was sick most nights a week, lasted for a couple of years. And then, you know, I think a lot of people unfortunately have a low point moment. And for me, it was eating out of my garbage can. Um, and just having like, this immense shame and guilt of like, I can't believe I just did that. But it catapulted me into the healing journey of being able to understand what was triggering me to binge, why I was in a cycle of binge eating, and why I couldn't stop, and that there was a level of unworthiness. There was a level of not knowing how to manage stress. There was a level of, you know, lack of awareness with my body and my symptoms. And so through healing, all of it, it really made me realize, wow, so many women are struggling with emotional eating with hormone issues, gut issues like negative thoughts, limiting beliefs, body image dysmorphia. Like I want to help people. Like if I could do it, they can do it and I want to help women heal. And so that's really what inspired me to start my business, because every woman I was talking to was relating to my story. And it's just like such an epidemic 90% of the female population struggles with. Body image issues and emotional eating issues like so very too much, right? That is such a massive amount of us women. It's crazy. Yeah. And then what ends up happening, right when you have high stress, you're overbooked your burn out, you're last on your priority list or your you're doing things like emotionally eating and then restricting is it throws your hormones away out of whack and you end up with things like adrenal fatigue and hypothyroid and estrogen dominance or like pretty much no sex hormones at all. Yeah. Um, it does a number on your gut health, and you end up so bloated and inflamed and sensitive to everything. And of course, it really impacts your mood and mindset because the more hormones and got, the more off our dopamine and serotonin, our mood boosting neurotransmitters and the more negative self-talk, and it just spirals into this vicious cycle, right? Yes, exactly. Yeah. That's where everything started ten and a half years ago. And it's most like I've never had a client not have hormone issues. I do testing with all my clients, like 100% have hormone issues. So that just goes to show you like how I think normalized our symptoms have been when they never should have been. Yes, absolutely. It's so true. It's always just like you go to the doctor, they put you on the pill or, you know, give you some super vague advice and then it's like, okay, good luck. These things are pretty normal when we know deep down like, this doesn't feel right. This doesn't feel good. Yeah, yeah. There's so much to unpack here. I'm really excited to get into so many different topics. But I guess my first question is what does a relationship, a healthy relationship with food even really look like? Because I feel like that phrase is thrown around a lot. But for someone who's deep in it right now of just like going through some of the struggles that you mentioned that are super common, sometimes that phrase just like doesn't even translate. Like, what does that really look like? Um, in the context of all of the unhealthy practices that we're surrounded with diet, culture, unhealthy mindsets. What what is a healthy relationship with food? Yeah. So to me, a healthy, balanced relationship with food is about having a desire. To nourish yourself for health, vitality, right, to feel satiated, to support your energy, your frequency and overall optimal health of your body. And then you also get to have the best of both worlds, which is not about restriction. Or I can't eat that piece of cake. It's about I desire to want to like, love my body and treat her in a way with food that is going to have her be optimal. And there's also room for mindful indulgence. So if I want to have something right, I give myself permission. Now, the big thing is like the journey to get there, because for most it's not so cut and dry. But that's the ultimate goal. Yeah, absolutely. I feel like on my own personal journey to a healthy relationship with food, I definitely struggled with some of the things that you mentioned. For me, it was more like during the week I would restrict really hard and then on the weekends I would just have like a free for all and then by Sunday I was so hateful towards myself, shameful. And then like repeat cycle, right? And I lived that way through a lot of my 20s. Um, and it was definitely a process of like learning how to not restrict anymore to get to that place. But there's like so much in the middle of just. Feeling like you're on the struggle bus 24/7 of like, how do I actually get there? And it and it is a process. It doesn't happen overnight. Exactly. It's it's there's so many layers and it's so complex. And women need to stop being so hard on themselves because it's not your fault. We're not taught how to deal with any of this, right? Yeah, absolutely. So if someone listening today has always felt like she needed to be on a diet, quote unquote, or it feels like she's on or off the wagon, like that's a phrase we hear a lot as far as dieting. Um, what would you say as far as advice for kind of beginning to break that cycle? Yeah. First it's it's to just say, you know what, stop being so hard on yourself. Have some love and compassion, because we have been heavily conditioned and brainwashed that the diet is the way to fix everything. You diet to try and quote unquote, gain control with food, you diet to try and gain control with your weight, you diet to try and gain control with hormone imbalances or whatever it is. But the problem is, you know, for those listening that are just starting to shift, this is the diet doesn't address the root issues that are fueling these behaviors, these imbalances in the first place. And that's not your fault because you're not taught. Right. So all the commercials and the celebrity endorsed products, right. It's there's a reason it's a multi-trillion dollar industry, right? Because they don't want you to get better. They want you to be a lifetime customer. And they use their shiny marketing tactics to keep, you know, getting you to come back. And so part of what you get to start exploring and maybe you want to journal or reflect is just, okay. How many diets have I tried? Have any of them given me the desired results long term, or am I continuing to fall back into old behaviors, or do I have the same symptoms or habits? Or is it making my emotional eating worse? And then you get to really start to get honest with yourself and ask yourself, do I want to continue to try this same approach that isn't working for me? Or am I ready to find resources, podcasts, get support, or explore a different path that maybe feels more unfamiliar, but that may actually give me more of what I want? Yeah, I definitely think that there's that initial like dopamine hit of, oh, I'm starting a diet. Like it feels like, great, I'm going to gain control. There's that momentum. There's that like excitement at the beginning. It feels good almost to have like the black and white rules, when in reality it doesn't end up doing anything for us long term. There's no exit strategy. Yeah. Um, which is something that we don't do with our clients in the coaching program that I started because of that exact reason. Like, you might feel like there's more control, there's more rules, and it might feel good initially, but then, like when we inevitably can't live up to those standards, we're right back where we started and the cycle just continues. Totally. And then you end up wasting thousands of dollars on diets that don't work. And then the sad thing is, is each time you fail on a diet, you. It takes a blow to your confidence and your belief in your abilities that you can ever change it and that that's heavy and that really hurts, right? And then you start to feel hopeless. And and at that point it becomes such a mindset game. It's got nothing to do with the diet. It's it's it's so draining when you're constantly beating yourself up and in negative self-talk. And that's one of the biggest pieces that is not addressed in dieting, that needs to be addressed in holistic health in order to get where you want to go. Absolutely. Yeah. So one thing that you talk about a little bit that I'm so curious about is how does what we're craving as far as like food or substance wise really speak to what our nervous system needs? Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, 100%. So some of the most common cravings that I see, especially when a woman has an overwhelmed nervous system, high cortisol, heavy salt cravings, refined salt cravings. Right. And so this craving really is tied to high stress overwhelm. And the more overwhelm the nervous system, the faster we're burning through our minerals magnesium, calcium, iron, ferritin, all these things that are so important for energy, sleep, regulation of the nervous system. We also burn through our B12 really fast and our B vitamins. And those are the energy Anti-stress vitamins. And so then your energy just drops drops, drops. Um, so you see a lot of salt cravings. And then I see a lot of sugar and carbohydrate cravings, which when we are in a nervous system, overwhelm the cortisol stress hormone is spiking. And then our blood sugar is spiking and dropping and bigger peaks and valleys. And that will increase our cravings for sugar and refined carbohydrates. So the more regular the blood sugar, the more that can go on. And then there's an emotional tie to craving sugar, which is a lack of joy in love and life, lack of sweetness. And so when your nervous system is overwhelmed and you are just like in freeze mode because you you're just so tired and exhausted, we'll crave that sugar because there's often that lack of joy or sweetness missing, and we don't know how to give it to ourselves. So then we just go to sugar, right? And eat all the sugar. So the last one is the comfort which can be tied to the stress and overwhelm and the lack of sweetness. And that's like your ice creams, your breads, your pastas, your creamy sauces, your chocolate. Right. It's like we that texture and all of these things when we're eating these, when we're coming from this place of stress or overwhelm, give us that dopamine high. Right. And we're chasing that reward. We're chasing that quick fix dopamine high rather than pausing to tune in to am I actually physically hungry? Is this actually what I need? Or do I actually need to give myself something that has nothing to do with food? Yeah. That's so true. Okay, so in light of all of that, how should someone address those trigger foods or if they're having those cravings? Or there's someone who always goes to sweet treats at the end of a hard or stressful day? Yeah. So I think the first thing is, can you before you go to food, ask yourself, is this physical hunger or is it emotional hunger? Do I actually need to eat? Do I know what my hunger signal is? Because if you don't, there may be something going on with your thyroid, your metabolism. Like there's always something you know, if you're not feeling hungry, it's not for no reason. Um, but if you're like, I know it's physical or I know it's emotional hunger, then can you remove yourself from the food as soon as possible and, and pattern interrupt just going to food and instead go, okay, what do I really need? Do we need to go for a walk? Do we need to journal about what I'm feeling and actually start to build awareness around my emotions? Do I need to start understanding my body and spending more time kind of connecting with her and ask, okay, like why are you bloated? Why am I so exhausted? Because the only way we're going to course correct and shift the cravings and shift the symptoms is starting to ask ourselves why and getting curious where is their lack of joy or sweetness in life? Be honest honestly with yourself about your stress level. Stop being in denial that it's not a big deal. We're not meant to be these robots like running around with our, you know, like chickens with their heads cut off 24 seven. We're not designed to function that way. I think it's important to start asking yourself some questions and building awareness about your hunger. If it's physical or emotional, and starting to tune more into the body. Because as you do, and as you start to catch the triggers and the cravings and see what you really need, instead, they will start to settle down. Yeah. So good. Yeah. And like you were talking about with our symptoms just being kind of normalized. So is stress like high stress lifestyles are almost like phrased in a way where it's like you feel guilty. I mean, yesterday I had this conversation with myself because I was sick yesterday, and I felt so guilty about the fact that I was laying on the couch all day like I was sick. I had a fever, and yet I felt truly so like I felt like a piece of crap. And I kept being like, no, stop like this. Like hustle culture, I think, is so ingrained in a lot of our brains at this point that we feel like something's wrong if we're not high strung, high stress, one activity to the next, constantly, not always getting that next hit of cortisol. Yeah. And I think too, like because we can both speak on this, like being a business owner, like you feel the sense of obligation to your clients to like showing up on your social media. Like we literally, unexpectedly, six weeks ago bought a house like stage, sold our house, moved two days ago and like, oh my gosh, like unpack, right? And I'm like, I'm sitting here like, I can't wait to take a nap. But I'm like, ah, my client's taking care of and this and like, stop. Like they all know. They understand. Like you're literally like massive life change. Like it is. So we have to clear out that like obligation in that hustle culture because. Yeah, it's not a good societal norm, and it's not good for a nervous system like we're human and people will understand if something comes up. Right. But it's our own inner critic that we have to quiet. Yeah, I think especially as women, like we are expected in a lot of ways to juggle everything. You throw kids into the mix, it gets even more so where like your mental load is constantly increasing every single day. Of all the things that you need to juggle for your family. And then if you're working and then if you're adding intense workouts on top of it, and mental shame for eating something that you wish you wouldn't have eaten, like it all just really starts to add up. Yeah. Um, okay, so I know we mentioned you mentioned a little bit about this earlier, but what is the dieting and hormone connection like? Do diets affect our hormones and what are the some of the symptoms that we'll see taking place if that's happening 100%. So the more we diet and restrict and some of the ones that are probably the worst for skewing our hormones are going to be things like the HCG diet where you're 500 calories a day. Anything heavily restrictive of less than 1200 calories a day is going to do a number on your cortisol level because you're putting yourself into a starvation mode, and that is a massive stressor on the body. And fasting. Some people swear by fasting. I'm speaking on behalf of anyone with an emotional relationship with food, and unhealthy relationship with their food and their body that is using fasting to try and lose weight fast. That is not a healthy way to fast. If you have a healthy relationship with food in your body and that feels good for you and you're only doing it for like energy or you know what I mean? Like that's a whole other ballgame, but that's like 10% of the population. So. I find those kinds of things ketogenic, like all of that is so hard on the adrenal glands because you don't get any carbohydrates and then you're in a heavy restriction if you're doing less than 1200 calories a day. And so your cortisol spikes like crazy, and then you end up with the fatigue, the brain fog, it actually makes it easier to gain weight. Um, you suppress your metabolism when you're doing these very restrictive diets, and that suppresses your thyroid. And you can end up in a hypothyroid where your hair is falling out. You have thinning eyebrows, cold hands and feet, your hunger signal disappears. And now you never feel hungry. So you're skipping breakfast and lunch. You're like, well, I'm not hungry, but then you're bingeing later in the day, and then you're pissed off because you're gaining weight, because you're not eating enough and you don't have a hunger signal. Right? So so I see the cortisol is the first domino that falls. And when that stress hormone is spiking or plummeting too low, then we end up potentially throwing the thyroid off and I can go more into the connections. We end up like draining our progesterone levels is called the progesterone steal, where the adrenal glands are stealing our progesterone to convert it into cortisol to keep us in this high stress state. Women in their 20s and 30s are flagging post-menopausal because their bodies are so drained of progesterone and estrogen, or for some of them, progesterone is plummeting. But estrogen is spiking because there's so much inflammation in the body. They have heavy metals, they have gut flora issues. They're putting all kinds of chemicals on their skin. Right. And all of this just skyrockets, you know, synthetic estrogen in the body. Um, so diets really cause a massive domino effect of hormone imbalance. And over time, your metabolism just gets more damaged. I'm a firm believer that you can heal anything, so it's not permanent, but the longer you've been in the cycle. Probably the more severe your hormone imbalances are. Yeah. I can absolutely relate to when you were saying that a lot of women in their 20s are lagging post-menopausal. That was actually my story. I had such low estrogen and progesterone in my early 20s. I wasn't having a cycle. That was why I first went in, um, that they were like, yeah, you're literally have the hormone levels of like an 80 year old woman. And that's so not normal. And I think a lot of women like, they stop getting their cycle. They're like, oh, sweet. Like, no, period. That's nice. Yeah. But what they don't realize is our body's sending us a signal that, like, it feels too stressed to have reproductive function. And at that time when that was happening for me, I couldn't figure it out because I thought I was so healthy, when in reality, I was doing way too much of the high intensity exercise, the cardio, the running, while also in really bad dieting cycles. And even though I wasn't underweight, I was actually at my heaviest. I was struggling to lose weight, but my my body was like sensing so much stress that my sex hormones just plummeted. Yeah. So I think that that's a really common thing for women. We see like weight gain. So we're like, I'm probably means I need to do more and more and more. I need to restrict more. I need to exercise more, add more intensity, throw in another run. And in reality, our bodies need the opposite. Yes, it's so true because I can relate. When I stopped binge eating, I gained like £70 and was the heaviest that I had ever been. And it's because my body was so stressed from the old cycles of binging, restriction over exercising, and I was still exercising. My cortisol was 2000 here in Canada should be like 350. Um, and everything was. So I was flagging post-menopausal too. But I had high estrogen, but my progesterone was low. And then I thought, you know what? I feel like I'm doing too much exercise. But we get this limiting belief planted in our mind, which is I have to exercise to lose weight or maintain weight. Yeah. So it's very ironic when you're gaining weight doing a lot of exercise, but it's because your body doesn't feel safe. Weight gain weight is a protective mechanism. The body hangs on when she doesn't feel safe. And so when I quit the gym and I focused on rest. And good nourishment. And truly, just like simplifying, it fell off. I literally didn't have to lift a finger. And that's what happens to my clients. And so it's like it's not supposed to be this complicated, forceful punishment thing. It's actually supposed to be easy if you're in an aligned state to do it. And if you're not, instead of focusing on weight loss and diets, I encourage you to start getting curious and asking yourself, why does my body not feel safe and why is she hanging on? Because that's going to help guide you to what you really need. Yeah, absolutely. It's crazy because when I was doing, you know, six days a week of hit classes and also running on top of it and doing sprints and all the things, teaching exercise classes, I was the heaviest I've ever been. And now that I work out three times a week, maybe four, sometimes on a good week, depending on what's going on with child care and stuff. And now I just walk and like lift slow weights. I'm like the lowest weight I've been as an adult. I feel very healthy, feel not stressed out all the time, not exhausted all the time. And it's been easy to maintain my weight even through a pregnancy, through postpartum, through a lot of like inconsistent scheduling, living in a van, like so many different crazy things that normally I feel like would have totally tripped me up and made me feel like I was so out of control that I would just gain all the weight. Yeah, it's just really crazy how sometimes less is more, and that's the approach that we take with our clients. I call it minimal effective dose of exercise, like how little stress can we impose on the body while still eliciting the response that we want as far as body composition changes, it really goes a long way when we stop thinking that we need to be working out 5 to 7 days a week super intensely to see results that we want to see. Yeah, I agree. Um, so I've seen you speak about weight loss locks. I'm really curious if you could just tell us a little bit more about that and what those are. Yeah. So like I was just saying, so it's just so great that this is a segue. Weight is a protective mechanism. And so the body hangs on when she doesn't feel safe. And we're not taught how to get curious and understand what may be blocking us from letting go. Um, but some of the most common weight loss locks that I see, the first one is you have emotional eating, binge eating issues, but instead of actually addressing them and understanding your triggers, understanding why you're wanting to be in the behavior, dealing with your unworthiness and your body image insecurities, you're trying to quick fix it with a diet. Right, but emotionally eating and binge eating fuel inflammation. They feel gut issues, hormone imbalances, a lot of negative self-talk. It just overwhelms the nervous system. So actually addressing and healing your relationship with food, if you are struggling with any of that is to me, the number one, because not a lot else will change until you address this massive key root stressor. Another common weight loss block are hormone imbalances. And unfortunately the normal ranges, quote unquote, are so archaic they're like 70 years old. They keep making them bigger. And most women are having symptoms and imbalances in the normal ranges. And you can have symptoms and imbalances in the normal range, but the doctor will look at it and go, yeah, it's fine. It's it's not your thyroid, it's not your cortisol, your progesterone. Finally, you should just be happy you don't have a period. Oh well, like let's put you on like estrogen patches even though you're only like 30 or you're 29. It's like no, like let's look at what's going on with your cortisol and your hormones. But if you have hypothyroid, high or low cortisol, estrogen dominance or even low estrogen progesterone, these can be weight loss blocks, elevated inflammation, which for most women shows up in the form of retention. Right. You feel puffy, swollen, your clothes fit tight, your face you're just like, oh, I feel puffy. We can retain anywhere from 5 to £20 of water. And this inflammation comes from stress, binge emotional eating, seed oils, lots of processed foods. Not if you're, you know, imbalanced, but if you're eating it all the time. Not sleeping well, right? If you're a people pleaser and your schedule's overbooked and you're constantly striving for perfection, and if you're over exercising, obviously there's other things that fuel inflammation. But those are some of the common ones that come up. Got issues. Um, if you've had to take a lot of antibiotics, you have unhealthy overgrowth of Candida and other bacterial overgrowth. These fuel inflammation, these fuel hormone issues. And it'll make it easier for the body to want to hang on to weight. Um, to me, a big mindset one is if you're constantly criticizing your body, you're constantly saying negative things to your body. And you're you have a fear of weight gain and you're constantly trying to, like, force your body into weight loss. What you resist persists. And the more you force and pressure, the more of a stress response you're putting your body into. So. Right. It's really the mindset work that I find is like the biggest piece to help the body release the protection, because you can be on all the supplements for your hormones in the world. But if you're fighting with your body and you're constantly being critical and you're constantly putting yourself down, you're just fueling the fire of stress within your body. And then the last one that I see a lot is inner child wounding. So we've all had different circumstances that have happened, but I got bullied on the bus and called ugly and fat. Like, I held on to that wound for a long time. And so healing with our inner child is a very important part. And I have women who, until we get to that, the body stays the same. But as soon as they start mending the relationship with their inner child, it just falls off. Right. So just goes to show you sometimes how the emotional is so important because all of these memories are implanted in your nervous system. And that's ravaging the stress response. Absolutely. It's crazy how everything is so intertwined and connected. I used to think that, you know, weight loss was just physical, like it was just about calories in, calories out exercise, when in reality it's like your metabolism is so connected to your emotional state, your nervous system state, your overall stress load. And we can't separate all of those things because they are so intrinsically intertwined. And I think when we try to just compartmentalize and say, no, I'll just like add a bunch of cardio and then I'll be good instead of focusing on like the mental emotional wounds like you talked about or the hormone imbalances that are so clearly there, we're just getting in our own way. And unfortunately, the things that make the biggest impact are often the ones that take the longest and are truly like, you got to put in some work and it's not a quick fix. It's not going to be a black and white rule type of situation. It's going to be very dependent on you and your own situation 100%. And that's where people get nervous and uncomfortable, and they want to avoid doing the work. That's really going to help them change because they're too familiar in their comfort zone of diets and quick fixes. Right? Because all that stuff's external. You don't have to go inside and do the inner work with that stuff. Yeah, absolutely. So we've been talking so much about stress. I'm curious, what are the top signs of high cortisol that you see. Yeah. So anxiety, irritability abdominal weight gain, brain fog um, cravings for salt and sugar, sensitive digestion. You just feel like you keep getting more and more sensitive, even if you're eating, like, really good nourishing foods. Um, irregular cycles, skipped cycles, fertility issues. Um, yeah. Brain fog. Those would be some of the most common symptoms of that high cortisol. Yeah. So helpful. Okay, so as we approach the end I wanted to do a quick lightning round. So if you could just throw out three quick tips for hormone balance and then three quick tips for gut health okay. So three quick tips for hormone balance. Number one, get your sleep in order. Ideally being asleep before 11 p.m.. Because optimal hormone balance time is happening between 11 and 1 a.m.. So get to bed before that. Um, second tip is eating regularly through the day to regulate your blood sugar, because the more regulated your blood sugar, the more regulated your nervous system. And number three is start integrating a self-care practice because we need and deserve to have time, even if it's ten minutes a day. For starters, to start feeling and processing through our emotions, to relax, to breathe, to meditate, to stretch, to get out for that nature, time, whatever it is. But that is imperative to regulating your nervous system and your hormones for gut health. Number one tip. Drink the majority of your liquids away from meals. Lots of liquids with meals. Dilute stomach acid can cause bloating, pain, discomfort. Small sips is fine. Number two mindful eating practice. You want your digestion to get better. Get rid of the distractions like phones, TVs, and computers, and sit at your desk or your table, ideally with your family. Or if it's just you. And two, thoroughly be present with your food. You're going to see such a massive positive shift with your gut health. The third tip is get on a good probiotic. We all need to be on a good quality probiotic. I believe you know something with 50 billion bacteria and at least ten strains or more, but that's going to help with bowel health. It's going to help with the good bacteria back into your gut. And that gut bacteria is very sensitive. So that will help your digestion thrive. Amazing. Oh my gosh. So much good information in this episode. Thank you so much for joining us today. So where can listeners find you and get some more of your amazing knowledge? Yeah, thank you for having me. So you can go to the website. It's amber approved. Okay. Um, you can learn more about body freedom. If you're wondering if you're struggling with emotional eating, you can take the free Emotional Eating quiz. You can listen to the No Sugar Coding podcast, which has over 450 episodes. And if you're wanting to reach out and connect and explore, like healing your relationship with food and beyond, there is an opportunity for you to book a body freedom call and for us to connect. So those are the best ways and best resources for everybody. Awesome. Well, thank you again so much Amber. This has been such a value packed episode and have an amazing holiday. It was so great to meet you. You too! Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this, be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking, and find more free resources at ponytail on a trail comm. Happy and healthy trails.