My client base is made up of people who are struggling with a gut infection. Most of them are scared, many suffer from anxiety, and all of them don’t know where to turn. They reach out to me because I’ve given a few simple answers in a Facebook group I administer. And it always amazes me how grateful they are for the simple replies I give to their questions.

It’s amazing how much of the basics of being healthy are not understood by so many. It seems we’ve all forgotten the simple steps we can take each day to maintain sustain our state of wellness.

I’m not sure when those simple steps of wellness got lost—maybe it started when the world became more accessible, maybe it happened when families became less defined by a stay-at-home parent, but regardless, we’ve forgotten the importance of hydration, sleep, movement, nutrient dense foods, breathing, good mental health.

When a person becomes sick with a gut infection, it’s very likely they’re missing some or maybe all of these very vital foundational pieces in their ability to support feeling well.

So—when they reach out to me for answers, I ask questions about those foundations—are they in place, how much water are they drinking, are they sleeping peacefully each night, have they incorporated any type of movement into their wellness activities, what they feel is causing the anxiety, and of course what are they eating.

I ask them what they’ve done so far, have they felt any improvement—and of course, how much water are they drinking every day. Some say “enough or plenty, or I can’t tolerate water.”

The thing is, with a gut infection, most people have a lot of uncomfortable symptoms impacting their ability to live a comfortable symptom-less life.

We must begin by setting these foundations in place because a body can not become well, in the same environment in which it became sick.

I like to use an analogy of building a house—if you start building your house by trying to put the roof on before the basement is dug, or the foundation is built, the roof won’t have a house to protect. So we start at the beginning and work upwards–or forward.