- 8 hours ago
A conversation exploring the connection between gut health, inflammation, hormones, skin, and overall wellness, and why true beauty starts internally, especially for Black women navigating often-overlooked health concerns.
Category
🎈
FunTranscript
00:00hi everyone good afternoon welcome to unbothered and well this is our talking circle activation
00:08um are you guys familiar with unbothered no no okay so let me give you a little background so
00:15unbothered is the sub brand for refinery 29 specifically we tell stories through the black
00:22female lens so whether we're talking about health um traveling relationships we just deep dive
00:29in like we like to call ourselves like the home girl in your head and specifically we are moving
00:34more into a well-being and culture space so we're really doing a deeper dive on like what it looks
00:41like um to talk about your health how you feel even if that we had conversations around traveling
00:47and healing we just had a conversation about sex and how you should be talking to your partner
00:51earlier we had a conversation about fibroids um and we're gonna also get into a gut health
00:56conversation and my name is sandy i am the branded execution manager i also help produce this and
01:02i'm excited to have you guys here and if you've been to essence fest you um this is now the
01:08new
01:08wellness house um and we wanted to create a space where it was a lot more intimate and we don't
01:15have
01:15any hosts we call them keepers and then we have um also the people our specialists that will be um
01:22talking
01:23about gut health and all things and we like to open the circle with just rubbing our hands so if
01:28everyone
01:28could just rub their hands together really fast and then i'm just gonna count to three and on three
01:34we are going to just do one clap one two three and now i am going to introduce our amazing
01:43host today it is going to be beverly bill and alexis bennett
01:55hi everybody
01:58i'm so excited this is one of my favorite areas at the festival because we all are going to talk
02:04to
02:04each other so i'm really really looking forward to this conversation so first off i want to know
02:11please raise your hand if you've ever dealt with any skin issues whether it was acne eczema dullness
02:21and no beauty products seem to help you resolve that
02:27okay yes now raise your hand if you ever felt like something was off in your body whether it was
02:34digestion bloating yes okay so you are in the right place because we are going to talk about gut health
02:45and how that impacts all of the above and we have the amazing beverly hi everyone yes i would love
02:53for
02:53you to just share a little bit more about your background okay so guys i am an attorney by trade
02:59so
02:59i feel compelled to say this disclaimer i am not a doctor um do not take this as
03:06health and advice and don't leave here saying well dr beverly said blah blah blah so um my journey with
03:14gut
03:14health the reason why i'm so big on it and want to promote it as much as i can um
03:19i was diagnosed with
03:21Crohn's in 2013 if any of you are familiar it's a deficiency in your digestive system in your colon
03:29and your small intestines and large intestines and i really just don't want any of you to be
03:33focused on your gut health and have to learn the hard way um i had just graduated from law school
03:38i was
03:39studying for the bar and then boom i got extremely sick i was in the hospital almost three months they
03:44didn't know where it came from um crohn's disease is supposed to be something that people in their older
03:51age get but i i give you my opinion i think the food in this country is so terrible that
03:59a lot of
03:59people are getting gut issues very early there's children getting ulcer of colitis and and crohn's
04:06disease you know at that young age um so that's when my journey began in 2013 i really did not
04:12know much
04:13about gut health um but now i feel like an expert and honestly if i didn't have so much student
04:19loans
04:20from law school i would go to medical school so i can really learn um but yeah that's kind of
04:26where
04:26i started and i guarantee you if there's something you need to know i more than likely i'll i'll have
04:32the information so i want to start off i want to know what is everyone feeling right now so please
04:39shout at me what do you feel like your body needs in this very moment sleep sleep yeah rest energy
04:49i need
04:49more energy vegetables okay okay okay yeah i'm wondering so we heard sleep energy water yeah how
04:57can our gut health really help us with some of those issues whether it's energy or whatever so almost
05:0570 of our immune system is like actually in our gut so you are getting sick all the time you're
05:11getting
05:12bloated all the time um you feel like you don't have energy or you're unable to sleep a lot of
05:17it is
05:18focused on your gut um and i think a lot of times what happens is people say oh i just
05:23ate something
05:23bad you know it just gave me a little gas or something like that but it actually could be
05:28something triggered by your microbiome so it could be so many things like the the sleep will help and
05:34the thing with the gut issue it is triggered by stress sometimes um and if you are stressed out that
05:42it's going to affect your gut if you're not getting enough sleep that will affect your gut
05:46um now the thing with vegetables i actually want to get on that um vegetables isn't good for everybody
05:52and i know a lot of people like don't want to hear that they just assume vegetables are for everybody
05:57but
05:57some vegetables are actually very hard to digest um so i i say you know if you have the insurance
06:04or if
06:04you can make the investment do a food sensitivity test because what works for everybody may not work for
06:10you uh after i was diagnosed i had a food diary for almost six years and in that food diary
06:16i was
06:16just constantly writing down what did work for me what did not work for me and even now i wouldn't
06:22even
06:22say that i eat healthy in the terms of what people consider eating healthy i eat what i know my
06:28body can
06:29handle um so it it really is about like learning your body and not going by what everyone else is
06:37doing
06:37you have to get the allergy test you have to get the food sensitivity test um get your hormone
06:43panels get your blood work because you you really do have to make this your own thing i could tell
06:49you
06:50like health care they're not trying to help us figure this out and um well i think doctors hate lawyers
06:57anyway but like i'll go in there and say listen i'm not really here for your opinion i just don't
07:01have
07:01your equipment at home and that's why i'm here um i i just want to you know use your x
07:06-ray i just want
07:07to you know you to do the blood work um so yeah you really have to take this into your
07:12own hands if
07:13you want to see that change in your life skin body and everything else can we first maybe we need
07:20to
07:20take a step back too because i think sometimes we say the word gut but what exactly is our gut
07:26and why
07:27is it so important like so now i don't want to get technical but like the gut it's made up
07:34of your
07:34small intestines your large intestines and your colon so what happens is when you start having
07:40issues you start getting ulcers in your in in these places and that basically just you know what ulcer
07:47is it's like an open sore so imagine that anywhere in your body it's gonna be painful it's gonna be
07:53hard
07:53for food to process um it's gonna be hard okay i don't know if i can get gross with you
07:59guys but
07:59listen it's gonna be hard to have bowel movements you know all the things we can go there because
08:04i just talking to my mom like i will talk to complete strangers about their bowel movements like
08:09i just had a conversation with the woman at the airport before we got here like well when was your
08:13last
08:13bowel movement i just met this lady like 10 minutes ago um so you but we have to talk about
08:19it
08:19because it is important and like all these things are connected so that is kind of what your gut is
08:26made of of all these little things and um there is so many different organisms in our gut so it
08:34we can get really technical i won't bore you guys or gross you guys out anymore but yeah that's what
08:40the
08:40gut is pretty much made of thank you yeah and i love to know if there's anybody in the room
08:45that has
08:46dealt with gut issues and they've made some maybe changes and they've seen how important the gut was
08:53for any issues that they were dealing with so okay yeah with miss woman in the red shirt yeah um
08:59what
09:00what i've done is i just got tired of it after i eat look like i'm five or six months
09:05pregnant
09:06so i do take uh pro and prebiotics i take a drink a lot of water now um and i'm
09:15actually going to the
09:16bathroom probably like two or three times a day and that's actually regular people think that that's
09:23too much but you should be going you should be having a bowel movement at least twice a day and
09:29it
09:29can be even more yeah but but i know when i when i'm not drinking enough water i'm drier so
09:35when i
09:35get the water and i'm taking other things it's an easier flow the color and everything is getting
09:42into it for real and i'll be like lord thank you just to be able to go to the bathroom
09:47yeah so that's
09:48that's some things that i've done yeah and you've seen a difference yeah yeah right now i look i ate
09:53before
09:54i came usually i'd be looking like i'm about like this and look at me so period
10:02well basically uh i've been detoxing uh taking uh like black seed oil and some other things to
10:10get rid of the parasites and you'll see that come out in your stool yeah and when you uh when
10:16you
10:16detox so you get rid of those parasites your bowels is a lot looser and it flushes you out
10:24so yeah i do this like during the week weekend i give myself a break and then go back to
10:30it during
10:31the week okay yes i i don't think any of y'all thought we were going to be talking about
10:35poop in
10:35here did you yeah surprise people don't realize you get a lot of toxins built up in your system
10:44over the years about 20 or 30 years ago i did something called a whole body cleanse but i did
10:49it for
10:50seven days after i did that cleanse i felt like i was walking on air literally you your whole body
10:58you got to clean your system out but the bottom line is your toxins build up and then people wonder
11:02why they're sick they build up in your fat cells they build up in your body over the years over
11:08the
11:08years all these chemicals that they're putting in this in this food yeah some preservatives all
11:13this years ago are still there so you gotta try to like cut down on the processed foods you got
11:18you
11:18gotta eat a lot of i eat like a lot of fruits and vegetables i try yeah because you gotta
11:23cut
11:23certain things out of your out of your system you have to yeah oh you got it okay i think
11:29sorry
11:36so this is actually about our daughter you know when it comes to yourself you sometimes you can put
11:41things off like i'll be all right once your child is like okay we gotta we gotta deal with this
11:47our
11:47daughter has eczema um and recently we've taken like deeper steps into gut health and she's not happy
11:55with us right now because a lot of things that she likes she can't have but um yeah so she's
12:01she potentially has a secondary infection because of the eczema um my wife has more language for that
12:07i don't really i don't really know how to explain it but um yeah so we've noticed that
12:13when we've adjusted her diet her skin has drastically changed and cleared up tremendously
12:20thank you for sharing that i wanted to add i've seen a huge change in my own skin just by
12:27changing
12:28what i was eating my mom is here and she can attest to my face used to be just covered
12:33in bumps and i work
12:36at essence i have access to all of the beauty products all of the dermatologists and nothing worked
12:42until i changed what i was eating so i thank you for sharing it i just yeah seriously like no
12:49filler
12:49no product no serum it's not gonna fix whatever is going on if you have issues in the gut so
12:56it's like
12:57discoloration eczema acne um you're looking tired you're looking dull i guarantee you just make some
13:04changes in that diet um i like to do lemon water in the morning it's the simple boring things that
13:11actually work uh la mare chanel sunday riley is not gonna do it if that gut isn't where it's supposed
13:19to be um so i really do i think it changes your energy your skin everything that it is really
13:26the
13:26missing regimen in your beauty routine so i can't stress it enough um i had a question as well um
13:35i
13:36know we're talking about like things that we're eating but like drinking as well like giving up
13:41alcohol or anything like that i know you have like a non-alc brand with spirits and things like that
13:47so
13:48you guys this is my assistant slash little cousin so thank you for that shameless plug little cousin
13:54um so i'm so big on gut health i did start a company around it i launched fine line it's
14:02a non-alcoholic
14:03non-alcoholic spirits brand um because i i basically stopped drinking when i found out that i had crohn's
14:08it just didn't work out like the gut health and alcohol i cannot tell you how much it destroys your
14:16body i'm definitely not here to convert drinkers into non-drinkers um but that's what made me want
14:23to start fine line i stopped drinking and i feel like it's a little bit more accepted now but like
14:2910 years ago when you go to a party you tell people you're not drinking they will avoid you like
14:34the plague they don't want to talk to you they don't want to get to know you and they're actually
14:38gonna avoid you um but now i feel like it's a little bit different if people are choosing not
14:42to drink and now you know you have things like fine line where you can get that elevated mocktail
14:48and it not like look like a little kid's drink where they just you know swishing around juices um
14:53it actually is a non-alcoholic tequila and a non-alcoholic vodka and i also infused it with
14:59prebiotics so um yeah that is that's my shameless plug everybody drink fine line i have a question
15:09yes thank you uh i recognize that everyone is different in terms of what will work for their
15:19own bodies can you talk about what books or resources we can use in order to develop a regimen
15:27that's tailored to our specific situation um that's actually a good question i unfortunately after
15:36i went to law school and started my own firm i do not read for pleasure anymore so i would
15:41love to
15:42tell you that there's a book i read or maybe a podcast i listen to um when it came to
15:48my gut health
15:49i i stopped all that like i stopped listening to people i stopped reading things and i really just
15:55started looking at what what was happening with myself and it was just as simple as like i said going
16:01to
16:01get those panels done going to get the food sensitivity tests and things like that like
16:06i can't stress enough you don't you really don't want to listen to anybody when it comes to you and
16:12and that's why i said like when i go to the doctor i i tell them you really don't know
16:16what's you know
16:17what i'm going through and then i stopped going to doctors who actually did not have Crohn's so all my
16:23gastro doctors i talked to they have Crohn's and and that just makes me trust them a little bit more
16:28so
16:28um i don't really have any resource i you have to become your own resource when it comes to this
16:35gut health i mean you can hear people out i'm sure everyone you know has their own experiences even
16:40listening to me i want you to go out and do your research yourself and and figure out what's going
16:45on with your body because what works for me may not work for you i could still eat chick-fil
16:49-a you maybe
16:50can't eat chick-fil-a anymore but that's because i know you know my body and you have to figure
16:55out what
16:56works for yours so i'm so sorry i don't have any any resources um but yeah okay we have time
17:04for
17:05one more question hi can you just speak a little bit more about the panels i know you said a
17:14hormone
17:14panel but are there some other ones you can take tests you can take to check your gut health yes
17:21so what
17:22i did um and i know health care is a whole other issue in this country so i can't speak
17:29generally
17:30and say that everyone has health care but if you do have health care and if you don't i believe
17:34there
17:34are some programs but if you have health care go to your doctor and just tell them i want a
17:39hormonal
17:39panel i want blood work done um i want a food sensitivity test and i also want a allergy test
17:47my whole entire life i love chicken and shrimp and then i go to get my food sensitivity test and
17:53it
17:53was the it was those two that my stomach was actually the most sensitive to so i would say get
18:00all those things done and go from there and even you know start the food diary i know i know
18:07people
18:07love to manifest in journal it's not really my thing but like write that you know write everything
18:12down in your food journal and just kind of go from there but stop ignoring your stomach like if you
18:18go out you have something to eat and it's off make note of that and like you know kind of
18:24go from there
18:24but yeah food panel i'm sorry blood work hormonal panel food sensitivity and um allergy tests i think those
18:33are great places to start yeah i love that and then too i think you know one thing we didn't
18:41touch on
18:41that i think is so important we're often told that things are hereditary you know and so i think
18:48it goes back to what you were saying earlier about really listening to your body your body's needs
18:54because every person is different and sometimes what's hereditary is our eating habits are passed down
19:00from generation to generation so so um they definitely told me it was hereditary and to this day i i
19:09have
19:09not found a family member that had crohn's um some people are just more susceptible than others i i
19:17think my origin story with crohn's was actually um when i started getting my menstrual cycle i had awful
19:27cramps and i took a leave every month from like i got my period when i was 15 up until
19:33i i think i turned
19:34like 23 or something when i got diagnosed and i really think it was a leave that gave me ulcers
19:40in my colon and that's what kind of triggered it um so i had to go through a whole thing
19:47um of like
19:49not trying to get rid of the cramps so it wouldn't trigger the crohn's and then you know kind of
19:54go from
19:54there um so the whole hereditary thing i totally agree that it can be what your family's been eating and
20:02they kind of been passing that down to you um but yeah i think my story was just having awful
20:07cramps
20:08i think that's what caused it um and so i had to kind of go from there i got on
20:13birth control so i
20:14didn't get the cramps so the cramps didn't trigger the crohn's and then i had to find out what medication
20:18worked for the crohn's and um it's a cycle but i just say start the journey now um so you
20:26can really
20:26figure it out because now i'm a thousand percent i mean i can see my own horn i think i
20:31have pretty
20:31good skin i feel good i have the energy um so i i can't i can't talk about gut health
20:39enough and how
20:40liberating it is to like actually get it under control that grogginess you feel that like low energy
20:48um i even think it's like a confidence booster honestly like knowing you had a valve movement before
20:54you're about to go out you should be confident like you should be ready to take over wherever
20:59you're about to go um so yeah can't stress it enough amazing i love you said start the journey now
21:06because it is a journey it's daily decisions it's not just a one and done thing absolutely i'm
21:12definitely going to take everything you said and think about it every day as i'm on my journey
21:16too um so sandy do you want to close us this was such a insightful conversation so thank you guys
21:25and we just want to close the circle the same way we opened it so we're just going to rub
21:29our hands
21:30together really fast and on the count of three we're just going to do one big clap
21:37one two three thank you guys so much enjoy the rest of your afternoon thank you beverly thank you alexis
21:46one big clap
Comments