Continuing our YD Holiday Giveaway series!
What’s in your gut? Wouldn’t you like to know! Now you can and it may even change your life. The science is in – what’s happening in our microbiome, basically the tiny ecosystem of trillions of microbes living in our gut, has a major affect on our every day health and has been linked to all sorts of things from arthritis and joint pain to cancer to obesity. And not only that, but now that we understand the effects we can affect them!
It’s all very fascinating. And now with today’s technology, the NIH Human Microbiome Project, and the smart people at uBiome, a microbiome sequencing service, we’re able to study our own individual microbes – which outnumber human cells 10:1, by the way – and learn even more about ourselves on a cellular, microscopic level. uBiome have created easy to use kits you use at home and then send in for analysis. What’s super cool is you get all the results back online with detailed information about the types, names, and functions of the microbes living in your own little rainforest of bacteria. (We imagine them all as characters form Inside Out. Or, maybe Minions. Sounds adorable, right?)
With this info you can dive even deeper by comparing your data to others through their secure database. We’re participating, too, so check out the vegan yogi category 😉
WIN: Feel it in your gut! We’re giving away FIVE uBiome Gut Kits. These are simple kits complete with easy to use swabs and tubes you pop into an already postage-paid envelope and send back to the lab. We’ve done it, and it feels oddly satisfying in a nerdy home chemistry kit kind of way – with less explosions.
TO ENTER: We all know what that “gut feeling” feels like and to have “guts.” Since it’s the end of the year and it IS the holidays, share with us one experience from the past year where your gut feeling led you to something good, or where you had the guts – the courage! – to tackle something seemingly insurmountable. Share in the comments to enter.
Giveaway ends Monday, December 21, 2015. Five winners will be chosen randomly and announced soon after. Good luck!
More about uBiome: uBiome was founded in 2012 by UCSF and Stanford technologists after a crowdfunding campaign raised more than $350,000 from citizen scientists, triple its initial goal. uBiome is now backed by Andreesen Horowitz, Y Combinator, and other leading investors. The company’s mission is to use big data to understand the human microbiome by giving consumers the power to learn about their bodies, perform experiments, and see how current research studies apply to them.
Check out the video below for more on how it all works.
Update: Congrats to Nikki, Kelly, Barry, Christy, Jeff! Thank you to everyone for sharing your gutsy entries. They are truly inspiring.
choosing to date my boyfriend is the best example of both following my gut and having guts! when we met, we had an immediate connection and talked for hours, but “on paper” he didn’t quite match up with my loong list of expectations and requirements. ditching that list and trusting those feelings was a great choice and I’m glad i made it everyday!
I had a gut feeling about where I should go to college. I was the first in my family to do so and they were confused about the whole process so I did it on my own. I only applied to one, really selective, school but knew it was for me. I got in and I can’t think of a more life changing experience from my working class roots.
I had a gut feeling that I was pregnant, and I was! Even when it was too early to test.
I have the gut feeling I should share something in this comment section and now have the guts to do so.
I had the guts to send my last kid off to college and become an empty nester. Still working on these guts.
I had the guts to leave my corporate job and pursue a career that would leave me more fulfilled emotionally/spiritually.
When looking for a new apartment, my heart fell for a beautiful (more expensive) place and my gut told me to go with the practical place- my gut was right! I’ve had a few months to make the apt my own, and it is a perfectly cozy home!
I finally had the guts to go to part time work as I make my way toward retirement. It is both scary and exciting. My gut told me “the time is now”!
I took an epic step a few months ago and decided to do an online life-changing course while my toddler naps. It has given me the courage to start an online business with the intention to create more freedom in our lives, so we can move to our farm and get it converted to biodynamic! Yay!
After a ten year battle with an auto-immune disease that left me homebound, I listened to my gut and chose yoga to help me regain muscle mass, strength, and most importantly inner stillness. Through diet and lifestyle choices, I am now the healthiest and strongest I have been in my life. Listening to my gut again, I just completed Ashtanga Vinyasa Teacher Training, giving me an opportunity to serve as a guide to others on their path to optimal health and inner peace.
My gut told me to try yoga for the first time at my gym. After my first savasana I was hooked. Who knew it could feel so good to breathe… Greatest decision my gut ever made for me lol…
In 2014, I didn’t listen to my gut. I knew my ex-husband I were not right for each other and I stayed. He left me.
In 2015, I chased dreams that had been put on hold. I reached high, I reached far, and I started to listen to *my* gut again.
Actually, I don’t want to participate. I just wanted to say that this is a terrific chance at self knowledge. My wife and I have tested our guts twice this year. First, to support the American Gut Project and then later on with uBiome. My wife is a vegan and I am an omnivore and in spite of the fact that we share most of our meals together, we have VERY different biome composition.
Right now, I am doing a 60 day dosing of VSL#3 to see if it makes a difference in my composition (too much firmicutes). Both of us are eating more fermented foods, etc., to cultivate more bacteriodes.
Here is a great video of my favorite genius scientist, Rhonda Patrick, PhD, interviewing Stanford University researchers Drs. Justin and Erica Sonnenburg. You will be amazed!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOZcbNw7sng
I had the guts to end my mindless habit of eating fast food junk & become aware of what I was doing both to myself & other life. Glad to be vegan & healthier now.
Hi. Last April my gut instinct was to attend a yoga class at my gym. Since then I haven’t looked back and am now practising daily. Loving the benefits in my body, mind and soul.
I am trying to muster up the guts to quit the corporate world; to drop out of school, quit my job and follow my dream of becoming a yoga instructor!
To live for the ‘happy’ me, not trying to be a hamster for the ‘rich’ me. It’s a work in progress.
My actual guts aren’t happy at all. I’m trying to get a handle on what I THINK is candida. Worst experience ever.
Leaving a relationship and moving out earlier this was definitely one of the biggest gut decisions I have ever made. Two steps out the door and I knew that it was right, and I haven’t looked back!
I had the guts to leave a job that no longer made me happy and to pursue my yoga teacher certification, which has led to much joy for me and those I serve!
I live in San Francisco, about an 8 hour drive away from where all of my family lives. I was about to move back down out of soul-wracking guilt for being “the kid that moved and lives so far away” but I had a gut feeling that I needed to stay and solidify my sense of identity away from home, here, in this city that I love. 2 years later, I’m so relieved I stayed – I took a job that I love, started a new sport that I love, and I met a guy that I love. So far, so damn good. Thanks, gut!
I am one of the luckiest people I know, because my own Mother taught me to pay attention to my gut in my early childhood! She is gone now, but I just entered my 73 year of living and plan to keep eating all the sauerkraut, hot mustard, horseradish, cinnamon, green tea, turmeric, etc. that I have enjoyed my whole life! I have been doing personal research on what makes me feel good for many years and learned early on, that if I have a craving for something specific, adding it to my diet helps me! Had a rough time a couple of years ago because I began eating differently, but once I went back to my old way of eating, I have improved both in mind and body, which proves to me that Mama was right!
I wish I knew what was in my gut. Then I might be able to find my path in life and be able to follow my gut.
I had a gut feeling something wasn’t quite right with a friend of my daughter, who was outwardly fine. I hesitated, but finally worked up the guts to investigate. There was definitely trouble, of a sexually abusive nature. It was clear my child was being groomed by this person. Then, I had the guts to end the relationship, which was not a popular move. Now that the dust has settled, everyone is happier.
My gut gets a workout every time I audition for a play or submit my writing for a paper. It takes real guts to put myself out there and be the best, most confident me I can be. I just focus past the wiggles and the jiggles and trust in myself… and my microbes!
After being a vegan for 3+ years & doing nothing but gain weight & feel lower & lower energy, I had the guts to begin to eat a little animal-sourced protein. Energy is back & have lost those extra lbs.
This August I got to meet my pen friend who I have been writing to for 40 years!
I was a little nervous that it could be awkward, but my gut told me that it was going to be just fine. It turned out to be one of the most special events of my life.
I had the guts this summer to start my 200 hour yoga training. I’m currently teaching 6 classes a week and it feels it is EXACTLY what I am suppose to be doing. ❤️
I am a firm believer in following your gut – which is what led me to the best decision of my life – quitting my job and traveling around the world for 13 months. It’s a terrifying step to leave behind all that is comfortable and known, but it changed my life, expanded my horizons, and I found my husband! And now that I am back in the States I am teaching elementary school and yoga! I love it!
When my dad was in palliative care I went across the country to visit him. I don’t know how but I had the guts to ask him what his unfinished business and regrets in life were. He told me his only regret was not having a proper wedding with my mother. The next day I arranged for my parents to get married in the hospital. My dad was paralyzed, the nurses wheeled his bed down to the chapel and me and my brother walked my mom down the aisle. He was surrounded by family and so full of joy. A week later he died a happy man, free of regret.
I met my soulmate earlier this year, and it took a lot of guts to let myself trust him and fall in love with him. I’m so glad I did, because now we’re engaged and have the happiest life ever! (Especially when we win the uBiome kit from you guys 😉 )
I had the guts to quit my job and follow my dreams to be an independent developer! I just released my first game for Android not too long ago, and it’s doing very well. Please help support my dreams and ambitions by downloading my app (if you like it, give it 5 stars!): Cryptogram Word Puzzle – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.neologiclabs.android.Cryptogram
The gut feeling and the guts to get my dna tested and share it with my family.
I had the guts to start teaching yoga to visually impaired people even though I didn’t know anything about working with VI people. They have been a delight and I have learned so much. They now love yoga!
I had the guts to retire, before 65 and start my new life completely in the world of yoga….leaving my big salary behind, cutting back on shoe purchases I left all that brought me down to do everything i love!
I admire people with guts!
This past year I found myself in Instructor training with ladies half my age. I knew in my gut it was my passion so I stuck with it and now I love motivation and challenging others through movement.
Last December I was staring at the page to pay for a deposit to a yoga school in India. I had never traveled internationally before. I gave it 24 hours, although I had known well before that this was something I had to do. I made my deposit. Months following friends and family (worried about me) told me every little thing I could be afraid of, from strange parasitic illnesses to rape culture. When I arrived in India, however, I knew my feeling was right and that this experience was just right for me. I am now RYT certified, but what I brought back from India was so much more than just that!
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Thank You