7 Things I Do as a Dietitian to Support Gut Health

Women make up about 80% of autoimmune cases, and gut permeability increases in intestinal permeability, meaning leaky gut, are one of the core factors that can increase the risk of autoimmune disease. There's a huge connection between gut and skin where when you have bacterial overgrowth or imbalances in your microbiome, it can increase acne, eczema, rosacea, psoriasis, and many others. We want a sealed and healed gut lining that helps to decrease a number of different symptoms and a lot of adverse food sensitivities. That a lot of times for women will just manifest out of nowhere. In today's episode, I'm going to review 7 research-backed habits that can support your gut microbiome that I recommend as a functional medicine dietitian. Increasing fiber is one of the most important things for improving overall digestive health and decreasing any kind of digestive symptoms. Your bowel movements can tell you more about your overall health than sometimes the number on the scale. Eating satiating meals 3 to maybe 4 times per day is essential so that you aren't eating as often throughout the day. This is key for activating your migrating motor complex, which helps sweep things through your system that will help to support your overall gut health and your digestive tract. You cannot have optimal health and low inflammation without a healthy gut. The gut microbiome is the epicenter of our health. In today's episode, I'm going to review 7 research-backed habits that can support your gut microbiome that I recommend as a functional medicine dietitian. I have been doing stool testing for the last 12 years in helping people optimize their gut microbiome to help to lower inflammation, to help to improve blood sugar balance, to help to improve autoimmune disease and mood, because so much depends on having a healthy gut. As a brief overview of the gut microbiome, you have trillions of microbes that live in your colon, which is your large intestine, and they have a— they play a powerful role in impacting many different aspects of our health. So they impact inflammation and your overall immune system. About 70% of your immune tissue lives in and around your gut. They play a huge role on nutrient absorption. When your gut is struggling, it often will decrease the amount of nutrients that you're able to absorb. Your skin— there's a huge connection between gut and skin, the gut-skin connection, where when you have bacterial overgrowth or imbalances in your microbiome, it can increase acne, eczema, rosacea. psoriasis, and many others. Mood, also anxiety, depression. Many aspects of our mood are driven by the composition of your gut microbes. 90 to 95% of your serotonin is made in the gut. The gut-brain connection and that vagus nerve, that bidirectional highway, means that your gut is constantly impacting your mood and your brain, and that your mood Can be impacting your overall gut. Autoimmunity— women make up about 80% of autoimmune cases, and gut permeability increases in intestinal permeability, meaning leaky gut, are one of the core factors that researchers are studying, looking at the increase in leaky gut that can increase the risk of autoimmune disease. And then also we have the estrobolome, which is the gut microbiome's impact on your overall estrogen metabolism and clearance. So there are many, many things that your gut is in control of, and your diet impacts so much of your gut. So I like to think of the diet inflammation connection in that you have your diet and the foods that you're eating that impact your gut microbiome and the microbes and also the lining of your gut that then impact your inflammation, where it's like a triangle that increase when you have imbalances in your gut microbiome. It increases the release of inflammatory cytokines that increase levels of inflammation that keep you in this more inflamed state. So much of our metabolism, our inflammation, our insulin sensitivity, our risk of autoimmune disease, our acne, our mood is determined by the gut microbes. And so much of that is what you are feeding those microbes, what you are choosing as your daily lifestyle choices, from stress to sleep to exercise, that help to create a healthier environment for these microbes so that they can really thrive and support you. So before we dive into the top things, I want to go through 4 goals that you want to aim for when it comes to having a healthy gut microbiome, having good gut health. What does that actually mean? So the 4 criteria that I look for are: one, a healthy, intact gut lining. That means that you don't have leaky guts, that you have lower levels of intestinal permeability. So leaky gut is when you have high levels of intestinal permeability. That means that you have more separation of tight junctions that can create loss of water and electrolytes. It can increase increase food sensitivities, food reactions, or allergies. It can promote the production of inflammatory cytokines. It can increase the risk of nutrient deficiencies because those tight junctions, when they separate, it decreases your actual ability to absorb nutrients. And it can also contribute to adverse symptoms, a lot of adverse symptoms, and the risk of disease. Number 2, microbial diversity. Lots of different beneficial bacteria you want. Diversity of these strains, and you want enough of these bacteria to help to support your overall microbiome. Number three is short-chain fatty acid production, especially butyrate, which your good bacteria are able to make from fiber and other fuel sources that help to fuel the cells that are lining your colon. Short-chain fatty acids help to exert many different anti-inflammatory properties, many different anti-inflammatory effects that impact the rest of your body in a lot of positive ways. And number four, no. Pathogens or overgrowth of bacteria or Candida or viruses. So the 4 criteria: a healthy intact gut lining, 2, microbial diversity and enough strains of beneficial bacteria, 3, short-chain fatty acid production, and 4, no pathogens or overgrowth. The reason that I also want to highlight microbial diversity and enough of the beneficial microbes is because there is a trend of people that are taking a lot of antimicrobials, whether it's berberine or other antimicrobials, because they're trying to, quote unquote, treat overgrowth. And this can also do more harm. I was just recently talking to Michelle, one of our dietitians, and what we see in stool testing is not just overgrowth of potential bacteria or Candida or other strains that can lead to various symptoms, but also sometimes just a lack of these beneficial microbes that can lead to a lot of the symptoms that people are experiencing. So when it comes to your at-home scorecard, one of the most important things is assessing your bowel movements. Your bowel movements can tell you more about your overall health than sometimes the number on the scale. So you want to be aiming for is number one, pooping at least once per day. We need you pooping at least once per day. If you are not doing that, then something is absolutely off. Number two, we want those bowel movements to be formed. We want them to look like soft serve ice cream. Ideally, on the Bristol scale, we're looking for type three to four. We don't want a lot of oily stool or floating stool that can signal trouble with digesting fats, and we want it to be easy to pass, meaning that you're not straining, that you're not. Training at any time of that process, that you're not straining in the beginning or throughout that bowel movement. Now, one of the things that I will say is that I've been talking about people's poop for the last 12 years as a dietitian because it could tell you so much about your diet, your gut health, your inflammation, and many other things. And what we see is incredible improvements in bowel movements when people are in my membership, the Being Collective, and are following the way of eating that I'm about to explain to you that help to improve the regularity. to have at least one bowel movement per day for the first time that isn't strained, that is formed. Because we have people from all over the scale coming in with more diarrhea, or they're not having a bowel movement for several days, or they are but they have to strain, or they're having a lot of bloating and gas and other symptoms. So this is where you want to start in looking at the changes that you're making to your diet. Is it moving the needle on your bowel movements? And the answer should be yes if this is something that is working for your body. Okay, let's get into it. We're gonna talk about 7 things to do for an optimal gut, starting with number 1, eat 30+ different plants per week. The American Gut Project found people eating 30+ plant types per week had more diverse microbiomes than those that were eating 10 or fewer. Now, I wanna clarify that it's 30 plants, not foods, and the herbs, spices, nuts, seeds, beans, grains, all of these counts. All of these count. So you could make a smoothie and have 5 to 8 different plants. That gets you a fourth of the way there in just one meal. Number 2, we wanna protect your gut lining. So not only do you have the gut microbiome, which is in your colon where you have these trillions of microbes that are like a little army that are working in your favor, but you also have this outer layer of your microbiome, which is that gut lining that we need to protect. We want a sealed and healed gut lining that helps to decrease a number of different symptoms. That helps to decrease food reactions and a lot of adverse food sensitivities that a lot of times for women will just manifest out of nowhere, where they go from having no issues tolerating gluten and dairy and soy and other foods to all of a sudden it seeming like they're having a lot of reactions. A lot of times this can be an indicator of increased intestinal permeability. So we want to heal and seal that gut lining. That helps to decrease inflammation, helps to decrease risk of autoimmune disease, and helps to improve a lot of different symptoms and overall nutrient absorption. So here are some of ways that you can do that. Number one, limiting high sugar foods and limiting alcohol. Alcohol has been shown to increase the separation of those tight junctions, which is one of the many reasons that alcohol is something that you want to limit as much as possible. We want to only use certain medications when necessary, meaning pain medications like NSAIDs specifically and antibiotics, and then also work on managing stress. Stress can play a huge role. and exacerbating what is already taking place and make it impossible to heal if you're on a healing journey, but you're not addressing the underlying stress that you're dealing with. Now, when it comes to foods, there are foods that I have found to support a healthy gut lining, even though the research is not as strong with these 2 particular foods, which are bone broth and collagen. Bone broth and collagen are rich in L-glutamine, and L-glutamine is a very common nutrient that a lot of functional medicine practitioners use to help to support that healing and sealing process. Yes. For the gut lining. Another one is wild salmon and omega-3s. These have these anti-inflammatory properties that are extremely important for supporting the lining of the gut. And then pumpkin seeds and other foods that are high in zinc, because zinc is another very important nutrient for protecting your gut lining. Okay. Number 3, have a smoothie every day as much as possible. I love smoothies because you can pack in so many different polyphenols and fibers and get more of that plant Plant variety all in just one meal. It's easy to drink. It's easy to take on the road with you. Kids tend to love smoothies. There are so many benefits to that. So when I'm making smoothies, for instance, we're in the blood sugar reset right now, or when you're listening to this, we, we will have just ended the blood sugar reset. We do a smoothie for lunch every day. So in the blood sugar reset, we're doing a pecan pie smoothie, a pumpkin apple smoothie, and a chocolate dipped strawberry smoothie on rotation. Mm-hmm. In my membership, the Being Collective, we have different fun smoothies on a regular basis to help to add more of these nutrients and variety, but also keep it fun and delicious. So when making a smoothie, you want to aim for— at the base, I do water as the liquid, and then protein powder. Something like a Buell by Kelly grass-fed beef protein powder will be high in L-glutamine as well, like the bone broth and collagen that I mentioned. You could also do something like a Just Ingredients protein powder. Those are the two that we recommend most. The protein powder and the blender that you use will greatly impact the texture of your smoothies. So we have water, protein powder, frozen cauliflower rice is the vegetable that I incorporate into the base of every single smoothie because it makes it thicker in consistency. And then depending on the flavor profile, we'll have fruit, we'll have nuts, we'll have seeds, we'll have spices to help to again add more of that plant diversity and more of those fibers. Cauliflower rice is the base of smoothies Which is a fiber add-in. Now, there are instances where I hear of people not being able to tolerate cauliflower rice in smoothies where it makes them more bloated, and I'm going to address this in a second. Number 4, add fermented foods. There was a 2021 Stanford study that found that eating fermented foods increased our microbiome diversity and lowered inflammatory markers more than a high-fiber diet alone over that same time period. So you want to strive for incorporating at least one fermented food every single day. Examples of this would be plain yogurt or plain Greek yogurt. Kefir is extremely high in a number of different bacterial strains. It's actually one of the highest sources of fermented foods that you can get with the most diversity of these strains, these beneficial strains. Sauerkraut, kimchi, miso, All of these are great examples of adding at least one fermented food throughout the day. If you don't tolerate dairy, you can also do a non-dairy yogurt, and sometimes you can also find a non-dairy kefir that is a water-based kefir, but that's a little bit harder to find. Number 5, build up your fiber with chia seed pudding as an easy daily anchor. So fiber is a group of non-digestible carbohydrates that are excreted or fermented by gut bacteria, and they help with our overall bowel production and gel-forming properties. They have prebiotic effects, and they help in the production of short-chain fatty acids, which help to decrease our overall inflammation. Now, fiber— increasing fiber is one of the most important things for improving overall digestive health and decreasing any kind of digestive symptoms. There was a 2026 review of 30 trials in adults with IBS And 52% of people improved on a fiber supplement compared to 44% on placebo. And psyllium actually worked the best, making people about 50% more likely to improve. So the type of fiber that you're using matters. The type of fiber that you're eating matters. So you can easily add psyllium to your diet. This is also a fiber that's been shown to improve blood sugar and also support higher levels of satiety, helping to increase your caloric deficit. It also helps to bind to cholesterol and excrete it from your body. It helps To bind to and excrete toxins. So psyllium is a great thing to get on board with. I've been promoting psyllium for years and years and years, and the only struggle with it is the consistency factor. It's not the easiest to consume, which is why a lot of people have more of a problem with it. But if you're able to find a way, like just adding a little bit of water with the psyllium and then adding a little bit of electrolytes, for me helps to mask the flavor. You mix it up, drink it right away so that it doesn't create a full gel consistency before you drink it. So it's still a little bit more liquidy. But outside of psyllium, one of my favorite ways to incorporate fiber in a way that tends to be easier to tolerate for a lot of people on their digestive tract is chia seed pudding. In just 2 tablespoons of chia seeds, which is what one serving of any of my chia seed pudding recipes include, you'll get about 8 grams of fiber. Now, this is primarily insoluble fiber with some soluble fiber, which has also been shown to be great for having that combination. There was actually another study that looked at adults with constipation, and they ranked several different types of fiber and medication for improving constipation. And viscous soluble fiber that you would find in psyllium, oats, apples— they were ranked the highest for easing straining and for improving stool consistency and frequency. But the insoluble fiber was most effective for overall symptom relief. And the medication actually outperformed both of any of the diet groups. But the key here is that chia seeds provide a combination of both insoluble fiber, which is more of that roughage that you'll find in a lot of skins of fruits and things of that nature and seeds, but it also contains some soluble fiber. So chia seed pudding is something that I'm constantly including in our meal plans to help to support those daily bowel movements and improvements in overall digestive health. Now, it is true that if you're increasing fiber too much, if you have bacterial overgrowth, then it will be harder to tolerate this fiber without having bloating. And I'm going to address that in a few minutes. Number 6, sit down and chew your food. Chewing your food helps to increase digestive enzyme release in your mouth. That helps to break down your food. That helps with supporting a healthy gut microbiome and getting more of the benefits from the foods that you're consuming. It increases likelihood that you're absorbing the nutrients that you're actually consuming. So sitting down, being in a rested state, being in more of that rest and digest state, which is activating that parasympathetic nervous system, is great for increasing nutrient absorption and supporting gut health, decreasing bloating and other symptoms, compared to standing up at your kitchen counter and being in fight or flight, taking very shallow breaths, and not activating that parasympathetic nervous system. So what we want to do is we want to get into a more relaxed state, take some deep breaths, take some deep breaths, chew your food, slow down a bit to help support your digestive tract. Number 7, eating meals 3 to 4 hours apart. When I'm creating meal plans, we do 3 meals and 1 snack, and then say you can also just do 3 meals. Now, eating satiating meals 3 to maybe 4 times per day if you're adding that snack is essential so that you aren't eating as often throughout the day. This is key for activating your migrating motor complex, which is a mechanism that helps sweep things through your system, and it's only activated in between meals when you haven't eaten for several hours. So if you're able to eat satiating meals in fewer increments than like the old recommendations of 5 to 6 meals per day, that will help to support your overall gut health and your digestive tract. Now, one of the most common things that we hear with people who go through the blood sugar reset and are incorporating these principles, with people who are joining my membership and incorporating these foods and meals and practices into the Being Collective, is that their bowel movements improve, that their bloating decreases, that they're feeling just so much more regular and consistent. But there are a subset of people who will then also say I feel more bloated eating this way, and I want to explain why. Fermentation is the point. This is a very healthy process that you experience, but gas is the byproduct. So when your bacteria break down fiber, they make gas, and this is completely normal. Beans, lentils, cauliflower rice— they can be especially gassy because they contain specific fermentable carbohydrates called FODMAPs. FODMAP stands for fermentable oligo disaccharide, monosaccharide, and polyols, and we can't digest them, so they go straight to the bacteria. Now the research shows that a low FODMAP diet short term can help with minimizing bloating and other digestive symptoms, but I do not recommend a low FODMAP diet long term. If you're following a low FODMAP diet for three plus months, you may be doing more harm than good because long term low FODMAP diets actually. Decrease the microbial diversity and some of those beneficial strains that we want to actually be present in your gut. When doing a low FODMAP diet, it's always best to work with a dietitian on this. We do low FODMAP diets when we're working with clients one-on-one, and it can be a real game changer. And this is where having an individualized elimination protocol can be so helpful. You could do a low FODMAP. You could— some people will recommend gluten-free, dairy-free. Other people will recommend full elimination diets. Some more like autoimmune protocol, some low histamine protocol. And so you want to be able to determine, which a dietitian can absolutely help you do, what is in your best interest that you want to follow short-term, and then follow along with a symptom tracker and then a food reintroduction process to help you minimize those symptoms as you're reintroducing those foods back into your diet and broadening your diet again. 3 of the most common reasons that we will see increases in bloating, for instance, in the blood sugar reset, when some people are saying that they feel more bloated That they feel like their bowel movements have changed in a negative way. There's 3 reasons for this. Number one, your microbiome has to catch up. If your diet has been low in fiber, you have fewer fiber-eating bacteria, and a big jump can overwhelm them. So most people need a few weeks to adapt. When you're doing the blood sugar reset, it's helpful to incrementally increase your fiber throughout in those weeks leading up to the blood sugar reset. And if you don't have time for that, then you can always cut back, right? I'm making recommendations for people like cut the cauliflower rice in half, cut some of the beans and lentils in half to help to decrease the total amount of fiber. Number 2 is that fiber needs water. Chia and other fiber, they pull in water. Without enough fluid, things will slow down and back up, which creates more bloating and discomfort in your digestive tract. So So one, you want to eat enough fiber, you want to slowly ramp up to that fiber, and then you also want to drink enough fluids with electrolytes, preferably, to help to support that process and decrease the risk of constipation. And then number 3 is that sometimes this can signal something underneath the surface, like small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, low stomach acid, low digestive enzyme production, It could also just mean bacterial overgrowth in your large intestine. When a person is consistently having symptoms from eating beans, lentils, cauliflower rice, the solution is not to just remove that food for the rest of your life. You want to be able to incorporate these health-promoting foods that support your long-term microbial health, but you want to do it in a way that doesn't create symptoms. So if you're having symptoms on an ongoing basis, no matter what you do, To some of these foods, this is often an indicator that you may have bacterial imbalances— too much of the negative bacteria and not enough of the beneficial bacteria, either in your small intestine or in your large intestine. So my suggestions, if this is happening, is to one, back down, cut back on the fiber to then slowly build back up. Incorporate smaller portions of some of these high-fiber meals like beans and lentils. You could cut back to a fourth of a cup. Prep differently. If you rinse canned beans and lentils and soak dried beans and lentils, sometimes that's easier to tolerate. You can steam cauliflower rather than using it raw in smoothies. All of those strategies can work. Next, you want to drink enough water, especially as your fiber is going up, and make sure that you have enough electrolytes on board. Most people don't realize that electrolytes can also help with increasing your bowel movements if you are more constipated. Slow down and chew. Your digestion actually starts in the mouth. Your mouth starts to release those digestive enzymes as you're chewing and masticating your food. Take a short walk after meals to help move things along. This has been shown for walking, yoga, stretching. These are all opportunities to move our body to help to move gas through. And then if it doesn't settle, if you're not seeing symptom improvements, this is when you'll know that It's time to look underneath the surface. This is where it could be helpful to do deeper lab testing, into stool testing, and to look at other potential root causes. So if this is you, if you're feeling more bloated, if you feel frustrated that you're eating healthy but you're still experiencing the bloating, if you want to better understand how to test and better understand root cause, don't miss my next solo episode. I'm going to go deeper into signs that you may have more underlying issues, common contributors, and then what to look for in testing. As a dietitian that's interpreted probably thousands of these tests by now because I started running stool testing in 2014, which was also the same year that I got my first stool test. So I am a big believer in being able to better understand your body. I'm going to dive deeper into that in 2 weeks in my solo episode. If you found this episode valuable, please subscribe to this channel. It makes a huge difference. Share the episode with a friend or a family member that's experiencing some gut issues. I want to be able to help as many women not struggle in the same exact way that I did. And not have a multi-year process in figuring this out. Thank you so much for tuning into the Being Brigid Show, and I will see you next time.