The quiz confirmed your pattern. Here's what fixes it.

Ever taken a probiotic and felt worse? That's the order problem. Probiotics, glutamine, fiber — useful, but not yet. They feed bacteria that are already in the wrong place, on a wall that can't absorb them. You've been starting at step four. Step one is removal.

I figured this out the hard way. Calprotectin at 1,050 — normal is under 50. Eighteen months of reading papers, trying compounds in the wrong order, until the sequence worked. 1,050 to 16. The order was everything.

That is my case, not a prediction about yours. I am not a doctor, this is not a treatment for inflammatory bowel disease, and nobody should stop a prescribed medication because of something they read on the internet.

Your gut wall is one cell thick. When it's damaged, bacterial LPS leaks into your bloodstream. Your immune system responds with inflammation that floods abdominal tissue with fluid — that's the swelling you see around your waist. The same inflammation drives insulin resistance, which locks actual visceral fat in place behind the swelling. Two layers, one root. The swelling responds in days. The fat follows over weeks. (PMID 22709547 — metabolic endotoxemia in humans)

The swollen belly, the bloating, the fatigue — it's all the same loop. The LPS Loop. And it starts at the gut wall.

The 7-Day Gut Test proves the pattern — remove six foods, eat from one template, fix the meal timing. If the belly shifts but the scale doesn't, that was inflammation, not fat. But removal is step one of four. What fixes the wall permanently is the full sequence: removal, repair, repopulation, and maintenance — in that order, with specific compounds at specific doses timed to each phase.

That sequence is The LPS Loop Protocol. Thirty days. Four phases. Every compound is PMID-backed, dosed to the studies, and timed so each phase prepares the wall for the next. You measure five numbers on day zero and the same five on day thirty. The numbers decide whether it worked — not me, not a testimonial, not how you feel. Ink on paper.

Not ready for the full protocol? The 7-Day Gut Test is step one on its own. Seven days, no supplements, eleven grocery items — it proves whether your belly is inflammation or fat. If it is, you'll know what to do next. If it isn't, you saved $190.

Here's the mechanism, so you can check it yourself.

The test stops the damage. You remove the six foods widening the gaps — things that look healthy but aren't — eat from one simple meal template all week, and fix the meal timing that shuts down your gut's cleaning cycle. Day three or four is usually when the swelling shifts: the morning puffiness drops, the waistband loosens, the afternoon crash eases. If nothing moves by day seven, that's information — and you get the $7 back.

If the swelling drops and your numbers move, that's when the full protocol makes sense. The 7-Day Gut Test cleared the damage. The LPS Loop Protocol repairs the wall, repopulates the barrier, and locks the result. Same measurement system — five numbers on day zero, five on day thirty. If not one improved, full refund plus $50.

— Gunnar@farvingco