Gut health doesn't stall on food quality — it stalls on the four things around the food. Liz & Becca cover why a daily probiotic works against diversity, how much fiber and how many different plant foods you actually need, what daily elimination should look and feel like, why volume of water without minerals leaves you more dehydrated, and why digestion shuts down in fight-or-flight. Includes the FUT2 gene, estrogen recirculation, and a salivation test you can run at your next meal.

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Welcome back to the Health Revival Show.

We're talking all things healthy guts today.

And just a reminder, if you don't have digestive symptoms, that doesn't mean

that your gut is perfect, because your gut … I'm actually getting ready to

post this tomorrow, it's a very long carousel, impacts so many things in

your lungs, your bones, your thyroid, your hormones, your liver,

your brain, your skin, all the things.

So when we look at symptoms, we're always coming back to the gut.

Hippocrates said, "All disease begins in the gut, but it doesn't stay in the

gut." So we're gonna dive in today on five habits that you can do in your daily

life, your daily routine, your weekly routine to support having an optimal gut.

That doesn't mean that you'll be perfect every day.

That doesn't mean that you will not ever have anything that is, you know, unhealthy

or unproce- you know, processed, whatever.

But it does mean that you can be mindful of this and incorporate more of the good.

And then I would really say in addition to this, paying attention, I actually

just did a product test for a company, and after two trials of it, I realized,

because it was the very last ingredient on the packet, it had sucralose in it.

Hmm.

And so I was like, "I'm sorry, I can't support this.

There's a lot of evidence to say that sucralose is not great for

the gut," and it made me bloated.

And I was trying to figure out why, because it was actually a nootropic pink

lemonade flavored powder, and shame on me, I should have done my due diligence

to read the fine print, because it wasn't listed in the main ingredients.

It was like a secondary below or whatever.

Um, and so You know, Becca I'm sure does this too, but we get a lot of

people who message us on Instagram, and they wanna try things, send things.

Of, you know, seven out of 10 times I just say no.

Um, but then every now and then I'm like, "Yeah, let me try it," and

there's a few things that I have found recently, but it's very, um…

I'm pretty picky with it, because we want it to taste good, and then also

we want it to be clean if we're gonna recommend that you're incorporating it.

And then I would just always say, so bio-individual if you're

gonna look at supplements.

So work with somebody if you're really struggling and having,

you know, severe gut issues.

Those are signs.

Your symptoms are signals that you wanna listen to.

But anyways, we're gonna keep it short and sweet for you today.

Links are in the show notes if you are interested in working with our team.

You're tired of being told that everything is normal, and you're gonna realize today

as we go through this that maybe there's a lot of area of opportunity for you.

It could be overwhelming, and you just wanna have a plan put together

for you that is individualized.

Schedule a free 15-minute consult with this link in the show notes.

Yeah.

Let's get into it.

Yeah.

And, you know, I think we can preface this too with a couple of things.

This is… You're gonna understand after this podcast today why carnivore

long-term, keto long-term, like these things are not healthy for the gut

and can actually cause a lot of issues in terms of your ability to maintain

diversity, which is one of the keystones of longevity when it comes to research.

What, like, gut diversity is one of the main things that contributes

to better longevity as a whole.

So the other piece is genetics, and we're gonna talk a little bit about

genetics, especially with this first one, 'cause genetics can predispose

you to have to work a little bit harder to keep a healthy gut microbiome.

Um, so the first one is feeding your gut bacteria daily, 'cause I

think a lot of people think, "Well, I take a probiotic every day." And

we've done many podcasts on why you should not take the same probiotic

every day for the rest of your life.

You're gonna create monocolonization.

You'll create the same strains of bacteria in your gut, which is not what we want.

That doesn't equal diversity.

But Probiotics are kind of temporary visitors.

What actually creates a healthy microbiome is feeding the bacteria

that already live there, right?

So probiotics are a piece of it.

That's basically implanting bacteria into the gut, but those bacteria need food.

They need sus- substance.

And so fiber from fruits and vegetables, resistant starches, prebiotics like

onions and asparagus and artichokes and green bananas, diverse plant foods.

The FUT2 gene is one of the main ones here that we talk about a lot of times

because FUT2 variants often have lower levels of beneficial bacteria like

Bifidobacteria, which should be one of the dominant bacterial strains,

especially when you're a child.

But you… A lot of times when you do not have this, you know, healthy mutation,

you need to work harder to keep diversity and keep kind of infiltrating the gut with

prebiotics, probiotics, postbiotics to maintain a healthy, diverse microbiome.

So FUT2, unfortunately, you struggle to basically keep diversity.

Your, your gut on its own struggles to maintain that.

And then there's another one that we'll see sometimes with NOS2.

NOS2, when under high amounts of stress, really struggle to keep

adequate stomach acid levels, which can then, you know, predispose us

to be kind of more susceptible to infections, and pathogens, and bacterial

imbalances, and things of that nature.

But the FUT2 is the big one here 'cause it, it really does impact diversity

of the gut, which then unfortunately when you don't have good diversity,

quote unquote, bad bacteria, the dysbiotic bacteria, can be a little bit

more plentiful and kind of take over, create inflammation, create imbalances.

Um, but fiber is a big piece of this.

So fiber does a lot more than bulk up stool and kind of help it

move through the digestive tract.

Different types of fiber feed different bac- populations of bacteria.

So soluble fibers are fermented into more beneficial compounds like butyrate,

short-chain fatty acids, right?

They support the gut lining, they support inflammation in the gut.

Insoluble fibers add bulk.

So that basically helps weigh down the stool that's passing

through the digestive tract.

And fiber also plays a major role in detoxification because fiber is

one of the main things that binds to bile, and hormones, and waste

products in the gut so that they can be eliminated rather than reabsorbed.

So the more variety of fibers that you consume, the more diverse and resilient

your microbiome tends to become.

So fiber is a huge piece here.

And again, when you eat keto, when you eat, you know, carnivore, you're

basically completely void of those things.

Keto-- Like, if you're true keto, you're not able to take in

much vegetables 'cause you're…

Then you're hitting your carb goals already when you're taking

in vegetables at every meal.

So this is why actually when we utilize keto for clients, we will typically

bring in a fiber powder because we know the importance of it and the

need for it, while also trying to use maybe a specific diet for a period

of time to help, you know, expedite the healing process of a client.

But Feeding the gut bacteria every day, being intentional

with that fiber I think is huge.

'Cause what, I know that you probably know the statistic.

Off the top of my head, I don't remember, but what is it?

Like, the average American gets 12 grams of fiber a day or something?

Yeah, somewhere in the ballpark of 10 to 12, and I would say that if

you really look at The foods that you put on rotation, it's less than 20.

I read a stat one time that basically says 14 to 17 foods is really what the

average person… 'Cause you just know what you like and you rotate that, right?

So the second thing here is prioritize diversity, and that goes hand in hand

with feeding the gut bacteria and all the things Becca talked about

here in terms of different fruits and vegetables, different fermented foods,

so don- always getting the same yogurt.

Different yogurts have different types of probiotics.

Um, I really, really love a2 yogurt.

It's a lot easier to digest.

Unfortunately, the brand Orantes is only in the East Coast that I am loving,

and the kids love it so much too.

We've tried the a2 one from Costco that they started carrying.

It's great.

It's definitely, you know, still a great quality, just from a taste,

texture, and, uh, enjoyment perspective.

I still like the Orantes.

So if you're out on the East Coast, definitely look for them.

Otherwise, look for a good quality organic a2 yogurt, low sugar, and then

change up what you're putting in there.

I've been doing my, um, honey in there, which I love because that gives us more

antioxidants, different polyphenols.

You can add different types of berries.

You can add different types of se- you know, seeds.

So you could do chia seeds, hemp seeds, flax seeds, basil seeds.

Um, basil seeds, if you do have, like, IBS or chronic constipation, those are

gonna be a little bit more gentle and help you with your constipation a little

bit more than the chia seeds actually.

So, you know, you can change up those things.

If you're making protein balls, sometimes, you know, people would

make those kind of fun treats.

Again, change up the type of dark chocolate that you might be

using and what seeds you might be putting in there, what dried fruits

you could add to that as well.

Um, but we do want to just think 10 to 15 different plant foods each week.

So way that I say this is shop in season.

Look for what's on sale.

And again, if your kids really like something, don't shy away from not having

that in the home for them, but then put another food, fun food on rotation.

"Hey, let's try this goji berry. Let's try this clementine." You know, things

you may not always, uh, think of.

Because each plant compound has a different unique profile to it,

um, and that can support those different bacterial species.

But you can also do things like resistant starches where you do green

bananas, as green as you can get them, cut them in thirds, put them in a

little bag, keep it in the freezer.

If you make smoothies, you can blend it.

You're not even gonna tell that the peel is on.

Keep that peel on.

You can cook and cool potatoes or rice more for resistant starches.

Those are really great.

Um, and then I think here is just looking at your plate and thinking about colors.

How many colors do you have on your plate?

There's a complete difference between my dinner and what my child ate last night.

He had mac and cheese, and we had this beautiful salad.

We finally got our grill going, and I was really proud of that dinner.

But then I'm like, "Oh, shoot," you know?

I need to make sure that he's getting some of these other things.

So he had some yogurt, we had some berries, and, you know,

got some of the good fibers in.

But what my point there is Oftentimes people are eating a

lot of those yellow, white-ish color foods, simple carbohydrates.

We wanna have deep, dark colors, so think deep purples, deep reds,

greens, those types of things.

Um, and then the other thing here is I would say your oils too, and your fats.

Those are also very easy.

So rotate like your ghee, your tallow, olive oil, a good one that's h- rich

in polyphenols, the types of fishes that you might be eating, the types

of proteins you might be consuming.

Try something new.

Um, we tried red rock shrimp last night.

It tastes like lobster.

They call it the poor man's lobster.

It was delicious, and it was so easy.

Like, I just toss it in some olive oil, some seasoning, one to two minutes

on the grill, threw it on a salad.

Boom, it looks like a gourmet and it tasted gourmet, but

it was affordable and simple.

Number three, I'm gonna take this one just because I talk about this all the

time, poop every day, one to three times a day pain-free, but most importantly

that you feel fully eliminated, not that you have this small poop that

you don't feel satisfied from, right?

Like, you want to have a nice evacuation.

Your bowel movements should be number four, sausage shape, easy to pass.

You shouldn't be sitting there and straining.

All of those things are really gonna be impactful long-term if you or your child,

uh, is straining to go to the bathroom.

And this is pelvic floor therapy.

This is pooping hygiene.

I actually did a carousel not long ago about how to teach your kid proper

poop hygiene because so many of you, we were taught to brush our teeth

twice a day, floss, rinse, whatever that might be, but we don't talk about

proper toilet positioning, relaxing, not rushing, right, breathing.

Those things can really go a long way to also help that child's nervous system

calm down if they are struggling to poop.

And if your child is dealing with behavioral issues, eczema, skin rashes,

we gotta go back and look at the gut.

We have to understand what is driving this dysfunction because I promise

you, those symptoms that you might just think are normal or, oh, your

doctor says, "Oh, maybe it's ADHD.

Oh, just take some MiraLAX," there's an underlying root cause.

We have a great pediatric program.

We have so many client testimonials, both sides, chronic

constipation and chronic diarrhea.

We have a little kiddo in our practice right now, o- just over two, I believe,

and the mom is like, "This is the first time in his life that he has had normal

form stools," which is just fantastic.

So shout-out to Andrea and Stephanie.

They work with the little baby kiddos in our practice mostly.

But when we have waste that's sitting in the colon, not only does this

become uncomfortable and things start to ferment and maybe you get bloated

and maybe some gas, but you also have toxins that start to get reabsorbed.

You have a gut lining that gets to be broken down.

It does become harder to pass that stool because it dries out.

Um, estrogen can recirculate here, too, putting more of a burden on the liver.

Again, we start to feel this go out from the gut to the blood-brain barrier,

so now we have neurological issues.

Gut on fire, brain on fire.

Your joint pain, you know, that all is gonna come from a leaky gut if things

are getting out into the bloodstream and agitating the immune system, and

then there is a autoimmune attack on a certain organ system because Most of

your immune system resides in the gut.

So you wanna make sure that we are eliminating every day, and so far

number one and two are gonna feed straight into your ability to have

well-formed stools that are easy to pass if you have those diverse fibers

and you're getting adequate hydration.

You can of course add in magnesium, belly massages, walks after

your meals, supporting liver, gallbladder, bitter foods.

M- you know, I always talk about that morning olive oil shot with

lemon, or you can just do lemon water with a pinch of sea salt.

Some warmer teas can also signal this here, but it's really, really important

that you're moving your bowels.

And then the last thing I'll say before I shut up on this, look

at your poop before you flush.

It can give you a lot of indication as to what's going on.

It's your daily report card.

So is it broken down into pieces?

Is it, um, you know, undigested food in your stool that you're seeing?

Of course, when we look at things like beets or corn, sesame seeds, you might see

that color or those, uh, fragments left in the stool Everything else, including your

greens, those should all be broken down.

You should have a brown color stool, again, sh- sausage shape, easy to pass,

and you're not having to sit there for hours or strain and push and, you know,

become so red you're hunkering down.

You should get that signal.

It should be easy to pass.

It should feel satisfying.

Yes.

Number four, Liz touched on this just a little bit, is hydration.

Because your digestive tract depends on water, and hydration

helps keep the stools moving.

It helps it not dry out and then be harder to pass.

It helps support the mucosal layer that kind of protects the gut lining.

It helps support stomach acid production, bile flow.

Bile is 95% water, and bile is a huge piece.

If it becomes sluggish, so do your stools, so stools become a lot harder to pass.

Supporting beneficial bacteria, and many people focus on volume of water but

ignore minerals, and so we're thinking electrolytes like sodium and potassium and

magnesium, which help get water actually into cells and tissues where it's needed.

A lot of people, if they over-hydrate without the minerals too, where

a lot… Some people will take in 120, 140 ounces of water but only,

like, one electrolyte packet a day.

You're likely actually diluting electrolytes at that point, and you're

going to end up more dehydrated because your body is going to be flushing out

the ex- the additional electrolytes that it needed to keep because of the

so much water that you're taking in.

So we actually, uh, especially people that eat healthy, and I think this is the

other thing that a lot of people don't realize, unless you're severely salting

your food, most people that eat healthy don't get in enough sodium anyways because

most foods that you make at home… Like, I don't intentionally salt my food.

I, I sometimes will add salt a little bit to, like, recipes, but I'm a-

I'm usually more focused on garlic powder and, like, paprika and cumin

and some of the other seasonings.

I don't use salt as much, and so I typically need to get more salt

from electrolytes, especially if you tend to run low blood pressure.

If you tend to be someone that's more, like, adrenally stressed

and taxed, your adrenals will burn through those electrolytes a lot

more, and you need more sodium.

So really try and focus on those things.

I take additional magnesium on top of the LMNT that I take every day.

I take quite a bit of sodium intake in, especially if I am working

out, sweating, outside in the heat.

Um, all of those things require more electrolytes than you would baseline need.

Uh, so we need those electrolytes to be able to maintain the

hydration status of the cells.

And then the last one here is your nervous system, which I think is probably

the biggest one that gets overlooked because you can have the perfect diet.

You can have hydration.

You can have even supplementation.

But if you are stuck in a chronic stress state, digestion will not

happen because digestion is a rest-and-digest parasympathetic process.

And so when you are in fight or flight, guess what?

Stomach acid decreases.

Enzyme output decreases.

Motility slows down.

Gut permeability increases.

Microbiome diversity declines.

Something that was a really cool, um, trigger quote that I heard at a

conference the other weekend was If you are not salivating before you eat, you

should not be eating because salivation indicates that there are enzymes being

called upon, indicates that the body is ready and preparing itself for digestion.

If you're, like, dry-mouthed going into your meal, that's a pretty clear

sign that your body is in kinda this fight/flight state, and you're probably

not gonna digest that food very well.

So some simple ways are walking after meals can help with digestion, deep

breathing before a meal, so actually taking, like, the four in, hold four,

kinda the box breathing p- s- cycle that a lot of people will recommend,

doing that for, like, two or three cycles before starting your meal.

Humming, singing, gargling all kinda stimulate that vagal tone.

And then spending time outdoors, grounding, eating without distractions,

like in the car or standing up or in a m- the middle of meetings, like

shoveling food in your mouth, which I am totally guilty of sometimes.

But I think the state that your body is in when it's going to try and digest

something is probably something that you should focus on almost more than anything.

Like, that's… Right?

Like, that's the beginning of your digestion.

Um, so the nervous system pie- piece, I think, is huge, and it, it's a

piece that often gets ignored because it's not as measurable, right?

It's not like, "I'm taking this supplement.

I'm drinking this amount of water." It's like, "Am I in a stress state or not?"

That's sometimes hard to answer.

Yeah, and I think a lot of people just think it's not

sexy, and so it's not something that they continuously focus on.

Th- what we see is that some people can notice up to 70% symptom relief just

by focusing on their eating hygiene because digestion starts in your brain.

I'm already salivating thinking about what we're gonna eat later because

you mentioned meeting and eating, and yesterday I was eating a little bit

of the smoked chicken salad on fresh sourdough with sprouts on the side

during our meeting of- during our team meeting 'cause I had a lab review

right after and then had to jet out.

So that's a really good thing to think about is, am I salivating for that food?

And really just being mindful.

One thing that we're also trying to, because I know after school

activities it can get so busy, especially in the summer, implement

is sitting down at the dinner table.

You know, 'cause a lot of times I find myself eating while I'm standing

or cooking the kids' food and taking bites of things or I'm rushing and

I'm literally saying to myself, "You know this is not good for you.

You need to go sit your ass down." And you deserve to take that time,

you know, to sit down and have 10 minutes at least with your meals.

So I would track that.

Take a simple three-day food journal Write down what you ate.

Did you deep breathe before?

Did you sit and chew your food well?

Did you look at your food?

Were you grateful for it?

Did you pray over it?

Whatever your, you know, spirituality and that emotional connection is with

it, or were you just eating, you know, in the car because you were rushed

out the door again and you didn't even ever taste your food, and now you're

bloated and you're gassy, and you wonder why you're craving things later on.

Because I definitely think that there is a connection between when you sit and you

enjoy that meal, you fully taste all those flavors, to not having sugar cravings

later in the day because you enjoyed that food so much, compared to eating in a

rush and then not making that connection.

And so you're like…

You know, 'cause I think a lot of us think we eat less than we do,

and we think we move more than we do

Right?

Pretty common, yeah.

Very common.

So very, uh, easy and simple but not often executed things that we should be doing

on a daily to help with our digestion.

So if you are someone that has very up-and-down digestion, that has

struggled chronically with either constipation or bloating or these

things going on, these are foundational.

Like, this is what we have to focus on before doing anything more advanced,

extreme, intense, whatever it might be.

Like, don't be going and taking BPC when you are not drinking enough

water or eating a diverse diet.

Like, let's really try to be, um, a, uh, responsible adults here and realize

what needs to happen, um, versus just trying to take shortcuts all the time.

Uh, because at the end of the day, food and water are your two

biggest inputs outside of air.

So, um, I would say that those are probably ones that we should

focus on more than anything else.

Uh, even though, you know, there's a lot of sexy things out there that

can help, uh, it doesn't help as much if the foundation is not there.

I agree with you because how many times do we have intake forms

where the person's complaining of constipation and bloating, and then

you're looking and seeing, well, they're not even drinking 30 ounces of water.

Yes.

You know?

Um, the other thing that we'll say, we were just talking about

this before we started recording, get you some good electrolytes.

I'm obsessed with the Peach Just Ingredients right now.

So great in summer.

I put it with my iced tea last night.

I've also… We love, love, love, love the lemonade LMNT.

Put that with all kinds of stuff.

I've been doing Arnold Palmers with it too, so make it fun.

Like, I actually was doing a live this morning.

I was like, "I have a drinking problem," because I had my coffee,

I had my ginger pineapple water, and I had my electrolytes, and

then I came out and made more.

So it's just, like, one of those things where, like what you, you know, have

for hydration, but make sure if you're drinking coffee all day long, 'cause

Becca and I, we're coffee lovers, y- you have to have the other actual

hydrating beverages in your day.

Otherwise, you are not really hydrating, you're just drinking coffee

which, you know, is delicious too.

So anyways, have a great day.

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