Is low stomach acid at the root of your digestive challenges?
Keep watching to find out.
If you're new here, welcome.
I'm Amanda Malachesky, Certified Functional Nutrition Health Coach and Digestive and Allergy
Detective.
I post videos every single Monday about how to manage your digestion and allergy challenges
naturally, so go ahead and subscribe, and make sure to hit the bell to be notified when
I post a new video every Monday.
You might think that too much stomach acid is your problem if you suffer from heartburn
or reflex, but if you actually don't have enough?
Today I'm going to show you how to test your stomach acid to see if you're making enough
and how to increase your stomach acid to improve your digestion.
Using this technique, my client Erica drastically reduced her gall bladder pain symptoms and
gall bladder attacks, and she was feeling a lot better overall.
So I know that you can explore this and find some results, so let's get started.
So a little bit of a misconception that people with heartburn or reflux or gastroesophageal
reflux disease or GERD have too much stomach acid.
The opposite is actually often true, and this is a challenge because stomach acid is really
important to keep your digestion moving through your system, also to help you absorb your
vitamin B12 and your iron.
It also helps protect you against incoming pathogens, and it also tells your gall bladder
and your pancreas to release bile and enzymes, which also further help your digestion.
So let's back things up to the most basic important level of digestion, which is what
happens in the stomach.
So first what I want you to try is testing to see if your stomach is actually making
stomach acid.
So the way that you do this is on an empty stomach.
First thing in the morning you drink a glass of water with about a quarter teaspoon of
baking soda in it.
And if you get a burping response within maybe 15 minutes or so, this tells you that there
is acid in your stomach because the basic baking soda is reacting with the acid and
making bubbles.
You can do this in your kitchen using vinegar and baking soda to demonstrate how this works.
If you don't want to do this little test, you don't have to.
You can assume that you have low stomach acid if you suffer from heartburn, reflux, gastroesophageal
reflux disease or GERD, also if you struggle with slow digestion and/or constipation.
You could also reasonably assume that you have low stomach acid if your stomach feels
kind of like there's a lead weight in it after you eat some animal protein.
Or, if you show low vitamin B12 or low iron on your lab testing.
If you determine that you need a little bit of stomach acid support, here's my super easy
simple tip to get some support to your stomach.
It's to add a little bit of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar, so maybe a teaspoon to
a tablespoon worth of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar in just an ounce or two of water,
like a shot glass worth, and drink that down right before you eat a meal.
Step three is to avoid drinking water about 30 minutes before or 30 minutes after your
meal, and this is because this dilutes the natural stomach acid that your stomach's already
producing.
So we don't want to dilute that any further by drinking water right before or right after
your meal.
Do you drink apple cider vinegar or lemon juice in some water before your meals?
How has it helped you?
Step number four is if you feel like the apple cider vinegar or lemon juice water doesn't
agree with you, or you don't like either of those things, or you feel like it's not helping
at all, you can also try adding a hydrochloric acid supplement.
So usually this is in the form of betaine hydrochloride.
You can get this anywhere you find supplements, and you're going to start with taking just
one capsule or pill or pellet or whatever form it's in before your meal.
And then slowly increase up until you notice a slight burning sensation in your stomach.
Or if you don't want to push it that way, you can add just one or two or even three
capsules or pills or pellets or whatever form it's in to your regime before your meals.
You want to eat these about 15 minutes beforehand with just a little bit of water, because again
we don't want to dilute the acids, and see what kind of results you get.
Tip number five is a piece of the puzzle that often gets overlooked with everybody's excitement
about trying the next pill or protocol or supplement, but it's simply to invite a feeling
of relaxation with your eating.
So what this looks like is taking a few deep breaths right before you sit down to eat your
meal, really enjoying the aroma of your food because the act of smelling yummy smells helps
your body secrete the digestive secretions that are going to help you digest that meal.
And to just generally eat your food slowly with enjoyment and peace.
We want to avoid eating in a hurry, standing at the counter, distracted while we're watching
TV.
We really, we just want to take the time to enjoy our food, chew our food really well,
enjoy the people that we're with or enjoy ourselves if we're alone, and call that good.
So give that a try.
So, don't underestimate the power of these very simple little tips to drastically improve
your digestion.
I have seen almost miracles honestly with just this really basic attention to supporting
the body's natural processes and inviting relaxation while eating.
So I encourage you to give these tips a try, and let me know how it goes.
Let me know what happens.
And if you've tried this technique and you're still not seeing the results that you're hoping
to see, and you're not sure how to move forward, I'd love to invite you to connect with me
in a free 30-minute assessment session.
You can schedule that by going to confluencenutrition.com/contact.
And while supporting stomach acid is super important, it's maybe not the whole picture
for some of you, and so if you'd like to get a perspective on the big picture and how these
kinds of tips fit into the larger roadmap to gut recovery, you can download your free
copy of Roadmap to Gut Recovery.
You can find that at confluencenutrition.com/roadmap.
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