Healing with Gut Health and Peptides – Exclusive Interview with Lauren Callahan

Ultra endurance athlete, nutrition coach, and doctoral student, Lauren Callahan, is using science-based nutrition, compassionate coaching, and plant-forward strategies to transform endurance athletes from injured and tired to resilient and unstoppable. Passionate about gut health, plants, and peptides, she guides endurance athletes to use nutrition to improve their health, mood, performance, hormones, and recovery.

Lauren Callahan, Ultra Endurance Athlete Nutrition Coach

Who is Lauren Callahan? Introduce yourself, your hobbies, your favorites, you at home and in business. Tell us something interesting about yourself.

I’m a healer – but not in the sense you might think. Yes, I am deeply spiritual, and yes, I used to be a therapist, so I highly value emotional, mental, and spiritual healing. But I also think we can overspiritualize our healing by ignoring our physical bodies.

So when I say I’m a healer, what I mean is that I help people reconnect with their bodies through good nutrition and gut health, through eating more plants, and through using natural peptides to tap into the body’s natural ability to self-heal. When we do these things, our energy and mental focus and emotional clarity can grow dramatically, and we find ourselves feeling more vibrant, full of life, and reaching bigger goals than we ever thought we could reach. And that, in and of itself, is a very healing experience.

And it’s this healing – with gut health, plants, and peptides – that helps make me who I am today. I’m an ultra endurance athlete – I ran my first 100-mile ultra a couple of months ago, and will run a 200-mile ultra in March. I’m a doctoral student of science in integrative wellness, a nutrition coach, and a network affiliate marketer with a start-up company for natural bioactive peptides. And I’m a wife and mom, and lover of all things outside.

What inspired you to specialize in holistic nutrition?

I tried for four years to run a marathon and failed at every attempt. And while I appreciate all the kind folks out there who would say, “Well, it wasn’t really a failure, it was a learning experience,” – and you would be right – the fact is, I was so frustrated. I ate healthy, I trained, I handled my stress, and I tried to go to sleep at a decent time. Why was I having so much trouble? So I went down a rabbit hole of improving my gut health as a sort of last-ditch effort to make some changes and help out my running performance. After about six months of working to improve my gut health, I not only ran my first marathon – I actually ran my first 50-mile ultra. Then I did my first full Ironman – that’s a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride, and then a full marathon run of 26.2 miles. Then I ran another 50-mile ultra, and did another Ironman, and finally a 100k – and I did all of that in one year’s time. To say that gut health was the game-changer is an understatement.

But that wasn’t the end of the story. In those six months of working on my gut health, my serotonin levels naturally went up. I started falling asleep at night with no issues. My anxiety was down. Recovery was better. My gastrointestinal health was better. I never really got sick. I just felt better. I was a therapist at the time, and when my clients were coming in telling me how they used to be fine and now they just weren’t, I always wanted to ask them – can we check your gut health? But it was a little outside my scope of practice. So I finally decided to switch careers, leave the therapy world, and start doing holistic health nutrition coaching.

And as I kept growing, my business did too. I decided at one point to go almost exclusively plant-based, and I had never known that inflammation and stress could melt away the way that it does just by eating more plants. So I began to support my clients in doing this as it made sense for them. And in the process of transitioning to plant-based, I finally completed my first 100-mile run after four other attempts.

The latest point of growth for me and for my business was introducing natural bioactive peptides. There is a lot of information out there about synthetics, but not a lot about these natural options. Peptides just help your cells communicate better and support their natural pathways for healing in your body. It was a really simple way for my clients and customers to reach a new level of health – with energy, aging, metabolism, focus, mitochondrial health, better sleep, visceral fat loss, and lean muscle mass growth. I had come to a point in my life where I had really big goals with running, school, my business, my finances, my family – and I felt like I just needed to pair back. It was too much. But once I started taking peptides, my energy, focus, and recovery went up, and my stress went down so much that I felt like I could not only keep those goals, but actually set bigger ones. Now, I’m helping my clients and my customers do the same, which is so fulfilling for me, and so empowering for them.

You work a lot with ultra endurance athletes. What advice would you give to someone preparing for their first ultra-endurance event?

The number one thing I come across with athletes getting ready for their first ultra-endurance event is that they are still trying to run on “marathon food”. What I mean by that is that a majority of marathon runners can get by on run gels, chips, and candy. But for longer running events, gels usually are not enough, or runners get easily tired of them. You have to get used to incorporating real food. I get a lot of funny looks at races for the food I bring, but I’m usually putting cans of soup in my drop bags, or bringing smoothies with me. Train with real food and get your body used to taking it in so that you’re not bombing on gels and candy on race day.

The other thing I hear a lot is runners who are so focused on getting in their protein – which is definitely important – that they ignore their need for carbs. Carbs are your body’s – and your brain’s – preferred energy source, so you have to incorporate this into your nutrition. However, I would also say that I’ve recently discovered an unexpected benefit of a particular peptide that most of my customers are using for fat loss. It’s one made from brewers' yeast, and it helps with fatty acid oxidation, so it helps to burn visceral fat. What I have found is that it can be really beneficial for ultra endurance athletes because it helps them become more efficient at using fat for fuel – of which we have a near endless supply – as opposed to constantly needing those carbs.

Why did you decide to become an advocate for bioactive peptides?

I originally decided to try a peptide – one extracted from fava beans – that helps build lean muscle mass and muscular endurance. It was kind of a no-brainer for me as an athlete, and as a female, and as someone over 40 – because we’re always trying to shove as much protein as we can at ourselves, and it can be a little much. This peptide, however, helps build lean muscle four times better than whey protein, five times better than creatine, and six times better than leucine alone. You still need to get in your protein, but this peptide makes you a lot more efficient at using it.

I liked the peptide so much, and I was so impressed with the research, that I knew I would recommend it to every single one of my former and current clients. So I decided to become an affiliate, figuring I would just make a few bucks in the process. And since I was an affiliate, I decided I would try all the other peptide products, which included peptides for muscular endurance, visceral fat loss, energy, focus, and more restorative sleep. Once again, the research was very impressive – plenty of human clinical trials as opposed to some of the synthetic peptides out there. After I tried them, I couldn’t believe how good I felt – I felt like I was immortal! It was then that I expanded my business and started training for a 200 miler, in addition to going to school. I am the healthiest I have ever been, and I am helping others be the healthiest they have ever been, one customer at a time. Not only that, it’s been a fantastic company to work with and a huge doorway for financial freedom. I am always looking for folks to add to my team so that I can help others find this financial freedom as well.

Do you spend more of your time coaching or working as an affiliate for bioactive peptides?

Both. This has been one of the most surprising benefits of expanding my business to include bioactive peptides. Nutrition coaching is one of those “luxury” items for most people, and something that most of us can research and find our own guidance on if we look around long enough on social media. Working one-on-one with a coach can be hugely transformative – but it can also be a huge commitment.

When I started offering bioactive peptides in my business, the response was amazing, and I found that customers were very interested in using peptides to help their bodies reset and heal. At first, I felt like I was becoming a bit of a sell-out – that I was offering a product in lieu of a life change. However, a service I offer to every single one of my new customers is a completely free nutrition coaching session. And I am always very interactive with my clients. So what I found is that, by offering bioactive peptides and through offering free nutrition coaching to my customers, I have actually begun to do more coaching than I have ever done. Once again, this is very rewarding to me, and very empowering to my customers.

How can potential customers get started with you?

Anyone who is ready to get started with peptides can go directly to my website and purchase them. I also invite people to connect with me on Facebook or Instagram – I am always happy to consult with folks who want to make sure they are getting the peptides that are right for them. And of course, once you get started, I’m excited to offer a free nutrition coaching session and ongoing support so that my customers can truly be the healthiest they have ever been. I have experienced this, and I want others to experience this as well. And finally, I know there are those who will read this interview and want to jump in on this start-up opportunity as well. They are welcome to visit my opportunity website to see if becoming an affiliate is aligned with their vision and values.

Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and visit my website for more info!

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