Community Highlights: Meet Jillian Smith of GutPersonal

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jillian Smith

Hi Jillian, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Hi!

My name is Jillian, I am a registered dietitian specializing in gut health (so the poop talk is kinda my jam) and while I am based in Gilbert, Arizona, I am the lead registered dietitian for GutPersonal, which is a personalized supplement company as well as a functional medicine practice, and I work with women all over the country (I also currently have clients in Canada and New Zealand, which is super cool).

I practice through a functional medicine lens. What this means is that my whole approach when working with clients is to find the root causes of symptoms. Functional medicine is very different than the traditional healthcare training I received through dietetics school – more on this in a bit.

With my clients I’m doing stool testing – yep, it is what it sounds like – poop testing! To identify exactly what’s going on inside the gut.

I became the practitioner I wish I had when I was going through my decade-long struggle with IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome).

I am going to tell you a bit about my story…

We are going to time travel back to when I was in high school – this is really my first memory of becoming aware of some digestive problems

I was severely constipated (I was only ‘going’ once per week, SO uncomfortable. But I grew up with my mom always having gut issues and my sister struggling as well. So I just thought that was normal – girls didn’t poop!

As a result of the chronic constipation and gut imbalances, I also struggled with painful bloating (you know the kind where you look 6 months pregnant) and severe acne covering my face, chest and back (your skin is a window to what’s going on inside, but I didn’t even know my acne was coming from my terrible gut health).

Now this was all flaring up when I was in high school, doing competitive cheerleading. Talk about anxiety and uncertainty – going into a competition or a game day and not knowing if I was going to be able to get out onto that mat because of my stomach issues. Putting on a brave face, smiling, cheering, clapping while my stomach felt like it was going to pop from the bloat. And on top of this, I was a high schooler getting in front of an audience of my peers when I felt embarrassed in my skin. Talk about a real confidence-hit.

Fast forward to college: Wooof I thought my gut issues were bad in high school, let’s just add on high stress, sleepless nights, all-nighters in the library. College is when my gut issues hit their peak.

But here’s the thing… I was studying to become a registered dietitian, I was supposed to have all the answers when it came to nutrition and health, right? I was the healthiest of all my friends, I thought I was doing everything “right”, doing everything the textbooks taught, and yet I felt the worse.

And when I said I tried everything, I mean EVERYTHING (now in hindsight I know it wasn’t everything, but at the time, I thought I had exhausted all options). I went to numerous specialists and had all the conventional testing done – colonoscopies, endoscopies, endless bloodwork. Everything kept coming back normal. I just knew, deep down, that something wasn’t right but I had the professionals telling me that I’m fine! I started to question if it was all just in my head.

I wish I could say that by the time I graduated college, I had my gut issues sorted out… Nope! I continued to struggle with tummy issues all through graduation, through more schooling to become a dietitian, then working as the clinical dietitian in an acute care hospital. Part of me was learning how to live with my symptoms – I had a very restrictive diet, felt anxious and uncertain all of the time, lacked trust in myself and didn’t feel well physically or emotionally. But there was another part of me that wasn’t giving up on finding answers.

And it was around this time that I discovered functional medicine. The whole aim of functional medicine is to get to the root cause of imbalances. Functional medicine recognizes that we cannot compartmentalize our health – that it is all interconnected. I wanted OFF the medications I was put on to help me poop, the birth control and medications for my acne. I wanted answers to the root cause of it all!

So I surrounded myself with experts in the field, I went on to further advanced training in functional medicine, I did gut testing to see what was going on inside my gut. I discovered I had tons of bad bacteria, I wasn’t digesting my foods well, and therefore I wasn’t unlocking all the healthy nutrition from the food I was eating. No wonder I felt so terrible!

I started taking personalized supplements to rebalance my gut, I worked on my mindset and it became so much easier to trust that I could, in fact, heal once I started discovering answers. I began to view my body as a whole and once I understood my body and started recognizing how good I could feel, it unlocked a whole new level of love, trust, resiliency, appreciation, and confidence

I healed my gut, I cleared my acne, I feel better, lighter, and more energized than ever before. When you feel well, you perform well. You show up differently! I quit my job at the hospital and got into private practice, and now I live my dream job of helping women rediscover what it feels like to feel truly well in their whole body.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Definitely not! (I dropped most of this in the last question)…

I struggled for YEARS. I went to countless specialists for my gut issues. I was put on a handful of medications. I felt defeated and hopeless. I felt a bit like a fraud being a dietitian, helping patients, when I felt so terrible myself.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
I am the lead registered dietitian for GutPersonal, which is a personalized supplement company as well as a functional medicine practice.

A huge piece that was missing in the supplement space was personalization. After working with clients for so many years, we knew that not every person as the same supplement needs to heal digestive issues. We cannot take a one-size-fits-all approach to health. That’s why we opened the supplement side of the company 3 years ago – to make sure people are taking the right supplements for their unique gut health… that’s how our customers see such huge results so quickly in relieving their frustrating digestive symptoms!

What makes GutPersonal different is the level of support our clients and customers get from the professionals. This company was founded by practicing functional medicine dietitians – it’s not a healthcare company that was founded by a business man. When customers email our company with questions, they are in direct contact with registered dietitians. I offer complimentary one-on-one consultation calls, where I give recommendations on supplement plans, and how to edit individual protocols for better results and symptom-relief. We are so proud of this level of support that we give to each our customers! We deeply care about our customers getting life-changing results, because I have been in their shoes.

Our offers stretch wide to meet our customers where they are, and provide the level of support they need,

We have a free quiz on our website that readers can take – it’s free, takes 3 minutes – and from their responses, we are able to curate their own personalized supplement routine that is geared to their individual root causes to symptoms.

For those who want more support – they can work directly with me, virtually! I work with clients in group coaching and one-on-one coaching containers, where we are doing this in-depth gut testing. This is the same gut test that healed my gut, and has helped hundreds of other women as well! I also do in-depth hormone testing and nutrient level testing as well. This is how we stop throwing spaghetti at the wall, and can see exactly what is causing the health issues.

Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
I work completely virtually, so people can work with me no matter where they are in the world! For the testing, we ship the test kits directly to you.

Best place to learn more about working together, or shopping supplements and starting with the quiz, is our website: www.GutPersonal.com

Pricing:

• Supplements range from $30-79
• Testing and working together starts at $1500

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.GutPersonal.com
• Instagram: @jilliansmith.rd

Image Credits
Verano Social
Elizabeth Joy Sanders