Lipstick On The Rim: WTF Is Gut Health? Lo Bosworth Talks Debloating, Depression and Destigmatizing Feminine Health

By Mollysims.com

Former Laguna Beach & The Hills star, Lo Bosworth, is changing the narrative around self-care culture and empowering women to feel supported, welcomed and safe during their wellness journeys. Lo founded Love Wellness, a company dedicated to destigmatizing women’s health, that’s body-positive, based in science, and made with what you want in mind. She shares how to debloat FAST, her thoughts on the link between gut health deficiencies and depression, and how functional medicine can get to the root of your problems. We learn how to keep our vaginal pH levels balanced, while Lo shares her secrets to picking clean beauty products.

[Lo] Reboot of Laguna Beach / The Hills

Molly asks Lo how she feels about the reboot of Laguna Beach and The Hills. “For me, I’ve been living in New York for almost 10 years now. So my life turned, and I’ve really pivoted away from entertainment. I would say it’s just a different kind of life. I was never really comfortable in the entertainment industry, to be honest with you. People knowing who I am always just made me so anxious. I admire everyone who is still on there. I think it’s awesome that they have the opportunity. My life has just changed so dramatically”

Molly asks if she is still in touch with the cast. “You know, not a ton of people that live in California, to be honest with you,” says Lo.  “As I said, it’s just been so long. We were really coworkers to be totally honest with you. I feel like the veil has been lifted on that in general and the public at large understands that. When we were on TV in 2012, it was still such a new format that on the inside we understood how the show is produced and made. It was made like a scripted show, but it was so new for audiences that it was just a totally new experience.”

[Lo] On Her Transition From Reality TV to Women’s Health

“A number of years into my time in New York, I became pretty unwell. I went from normal one day. To not okay the next day. And it lasted for a really long period of time. All of a sudden I was very depressed, had really bad anxiety that was palpable. I could feel it throughout my body and I just was not right. I was foggy, I was dizzy all the time & I had no energy. It took me 18 years to discover that I was dealing with really severe vitamin deficiency. This was in 2014/2015, & the idea of functional medicine at that time was still very new. I would say that more people understand functional medicine now in 2021 than they did six years ago.”

Lo goes on to explain, “Functional medicine really gets to the root of a problem instead of just treating symptoms, which is a reflection of how we treat how we approach medicine in the United States or in the west. Throughout my experience of understanding what was wrong with me, and subsequently building my business to treat root causes, I really understood the importance of functional medicine and how it’s different from going to your general practitioner when you have a cold or whatever it may be. And these extensive lab tests that I did a number of years ago really educated me. It really taught me how important it is to understand, at your core, what is what you’re dealing with.”

[Lo] On Gut Health

“Basically your stomach, your small intestine, your big intestine everywhere food passes this through, is the home of your immune system and your primary microbiome. That microbiome is made up of billions and trillions of bacteria, diverse strains of bacteria. These bacteria essentially create that immune system and they communicate to different microbiomes in and around the body and tell them how to function to keep you healthy. So you have brain-gut access, brain-vagina axis, gut-brain access, gut-skin access, and so on. So your gut microbiome essentially communicates to the bacteria in your brain, for example, in a way to keep you healthy. So there is a direct link between gut health deficiencies and depression that has been proven.”

“Your microbiome is the home of the immune system, so if your gut microbiome is out of whack, there is a high probability you’re experiencing inflammation in another part of the body. When I use the term inflammation, I’m using it as a broad term to mean some kind of issue or problem, right. It could be chronic yeast infections, it could be depression, it could be arthritis, whatever it is, it may be coming back to some kind of issue with your gut or your underlying ability for yourself to use the vitamins and nutrients you’re getting from it.”

[Lo] How To You Check Your Gut? 

“I would say that a blood test where you request a full panel look into all of your vitamin and mineral levels is really important. But you need to come prepared with the things that you want to test, and your doctor might think, that you are obnoxious or pushy, but it is okay.”

[Lo] Most Americans Are Living With Gut Health Issues

“When it comes to the gut, I would say, that most Americans have a gut health issue, and here’s why I can say that pretty confidently.”

“We are living and have lived in the generation of taking antibiotics for everything. When you take an antibiotic, it kills off a ton of good bacteria in your body as well as killing off the bad bacteria in your body that’s giving you an infection. I personally have taken so many antibiotics in my life, because I grew up in the 90s and 2000s, and that’s what we did. We took antibiotics. If you take over-the-counter pain medication that can also affect your gut microbiome negatively, as can antacids, as preservatives and chemicals in food, pretty much a lot of what we were putting into our body that is representative of modern life can really upset your gut microbiome. We are all depressed, slow and tired. I believe because of the things that we’re putting into our body that has been created to make our lives easier.”

[Lo] On PrePriotics, ProBiotics & PostBiotics

“Prebiotics are really just a fiber source that feeds the probiotics, which are live bacteria that are coming in a lot of the probiotic products that you are buying or using. Then there are postbiotics, which are fermented live bacteria, which also have a purpose in your body. Post Biotics are really important to the gut barrier. They really help to improve immunity and they can help with weight management. Focusing on supporting the entire life cycle of this gut bacteria is really important. And that’s you see a lot of products these days with both pre and probiotics in it. When you are giving fuel to the gut bacteria, you’re basically creating an insurance policy that they are going to be utilized properly in your body.”

Lo mentions some favorites from Love Wellness. “We just came out with the two new probiotics, the clear skin and gut feelings. Our Good Girl Probiotics has been our number one bestseller since day one. We’ve sold so many bottles of good girl because it really works so well. Girls support vaginal and urinary tract health. The bacteria that we put into good girl probiotics is different than the bacteria in gut feelings and in clear skin. All of the strains are used for different reasons, right? So the bacteria in good girls support vaginal tract health and urinary tract health, like I said, essentially, those good bacteria create that acidic pH that is appropriate for the vaginal tract, to keep you safe from infection and irritation. Then we have Gut Feelings. We have a probiotic that’s specific for calming the gut supporting immunity, and then clear skin. We have a strain of bacteria that’s clinically proven to reduce acne pimples on the skin. So start thinking about your microbiome is like that.”

[Lo] On Bloating

Molly asks, “Why are we all so bloated?!” & Lo responds, “I think for a lot of women, it’s really tied to our cycles and our hormones constantly changing. But in my opinion, there’s a huge food and inflammatory element to it also. If you’ve heard about elimination diets and food sensitivities these days; we can use gluten as the primary example or dairy, right? Because we talk about gluten and dairy sensitivities a lot. If you are putting something into your body that your body doesn’t like, that you have a sensitivity to, it’s going to create inflammation by way of bloating, more often than not.”

Lo goes on to say, “then there’s the third piece of it that really kind of lends itself to a conversation about toxicity in general. We live in a kind of toxic earth that we have created, right? The planet at its baseline is healthy and supports us, but we have been living in a sea of plastic and heavy metals and whatever it is for basically our entire lives. If you have any kind of toxicity in your body may be holding on to extra water in a way to protect your organs from that toxicity. The water is going to dilute all of that toxicity in your body.”

[Lo] On Vaginal pH levels

“So when I first started Love Wellness, all I could find for intimate health was legacy brands products. It’s the Summer’s Eves of the world. As it turns out, a lot of these products were invented decades ago by men, for women without our input. And they were creating products that they thought would help us. I’m putting that in air quotes or make us feel more confident or whatever, but it turns out that a lot of the ingredients in these products are very harmful for the vaginal tract and for your urinary tract. They contain chemicals that essentially kill good bacteria resulting in your pH levels, being thrown out of balance, which essentially invites invaders, yeast and bad bacteria to overgrow, which results in chronic yeast infections.”

“Our pH balancing cleanser, as an example, is made with all-natural ingredients. It has no fragrance in it, not even natural fragrance because natural fragrance can even throw off pH. It’s made as a really gentle, external, only cleanser. Cleansers should never be put inside the body. The vagina is a self-cleaning oven.”

[Lo] On The 21/90 Rule

“It’s proven that it takes 21 days of doing something to build a routine. So for example, 21 days of taking your vitamins all at 9:00 AM to create that routine in your brain, those new pathways, and 90 days to make that routine actually stick so that you do it forever and ever. I think a diet at the beginning of the year is a great example of this, right?”

[Lo] On Her Must-Have Clean Beauty Products

“I have just been using this brand that I discovered called Earth Harbor. I like to find my beauty products on the website Ewg.com. The website basically gives you a guide on the least toxic products to the most toxic products, and you can find most brands and products on there. In the past couple of years, I have been going through a huge overhaul of all of my beauty products. All of the products that I use in my house, and using the EWG as a guide to try to buy the least toxic products that I can. So I discovered this brand Earth Harbor through EWG a couple of weeks ago. I got their Sheer Mineral Sunscreen, and it’s rated a 1 on EWG, which is the healthiest for you. It’s the only mineral sunscreen I’ve ever used, that actually is shear.

Molly mentions how Lo has mastered the no-makeup makeup look. She asks her what products she has been loving recently. “I do wear makeup, but not a lot. I wear a concealer foundation stick from Westman Atelier. They also have a bronzing stick. So I do foundation and bronzer and then a little bit of eyebrow and that’s kind of it.”

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