MRP Q and A with Alice - Optimizing Gut Health & Digestion [Jan 17, 2025]

Foreign. Welcome to this Friday's Q and A. My name is Alice and I am going to be taking over for Deepa and Annalisa today. And I wanted to kind of focus in on this topic here, which is optimizing gut health and digestion. I've had many calls coming in the last couple of weeks and this is a pretty common thread. I mean, with every human, but also with everybody going through the metabolic reset as you get to really know, you know, in an intimate way, get to know your body and where it's at right here right now. Constipation, indigestion, very common thing to learn about yourself as you go through this program. And there's many reasons for that which we're going to go through in this presentation and just a couple of simple ways and also things to stay mindful of that are lifestyle based, that are just overall in life going to help you just, you know, have a better overall. Healthier digestion, better nutrient absorption, better energy, better mood. You know, your gut is where majority of your nerve endings are. It actually has more nerve endings than your brain. And your gut is also responsible for creating a lot of mood stabilizing hormones, energy related hormones as well. So to say it's an important thing to, to pay attention to is an understatement. And so your digestive system is actually responsible and will process about 170,000 pounds of food over the course of your life. So as any engine, you know, sometimes we need to clean things out. We have to make sure that our body is running as best as it can and that these energy centers are optimized as best as possible. So, you know, we got to make sure we take care of our large and small intestines. This is what helps to, you know, create us. This is where we get our refuel from. And I really want everybody to look at themselves as a luxury vehicle. You know, you are the most important investment you can ever make for yourself. You know, I want you to picture your body almost like a luxury car, whatever that is for you. And you know, picture taking that luxury car now and filling it up with vegetable oil as its fuel. It might work for a little bit, you know, you might get some, some sort of juice out of the car. But eventually over time, it's going to get clogged. You know, the pipes are going, you know, start rusting or not working as well and the machine's gonna get jammed because it's not the proper fuel that the car works best on. And that's exactly how I Picture food. You know, there's food sometimes that can make you feel a little bit sluggish, make your pipes clogged, you know, back you up or not give you the proper energy that you need to help get you everywhere throughout the day, you know, help get you to point A to point B like you want to. So this refuel time I want you to view as so sacred, you know, it's where we get to replenish ourselves. This is like the most important work we can do, not only for us, but for our families and our communities too. You know, if we're only refueling at an efficiency of 5 out of 10, the best we could show up in our lives for everybody else is a 5 out of 10. So it's really important time to spend for yourself. It's self care, it's self love. And really it only takes about 20 minutes, you know, two times a day, realistically, to enjoy and sit down in silence with that meal. So if you are experiencing bloating, maybe some constipation, maybe you have acid reflux, you notice, you know, specifically around lunchtime, that's something that happens, or you have gas, maybe, you know, some diarrhea, stomach pains, discomfort, you might need to spend a little bit more time focusing on your food. Maybe it's what you're eating. But oftentimes I feel like it ends up being a factor of how you're eating. And so, you know, many people that I talk to end up saying, you know, I live such a busy life and I'm a busy mom or a busy father. I have, you know, sports to take everybody to. And then I have to work, I have to work out, I have to make dinner and all this stuff. And so you end up kind of multitasking and habit stacking. And that tends to fall into the meal time. We tend to let our meal time go to the wayside. And we eat whether we're stressed, we as we're on the go, racing from one place to the next, or we might be eating and doing a little bit of work, trying to catch up on life while we're refueling and while we think we're saving time and we're being more efficient. In fact, it's the complete opposite. And the signaling these states are sending to your body is that there's a constant line chasing me. I don't actually have time to digest this food right now because there's all these stressors looming. So what I'm gonna do is I'll digest a little bit of maybe about 20% but the rest of it is going to have to kick rocks because I'm fighting, you know, or I'm running away from a tiger that is seemingly behind me. And so what that does, when you're eating in a stressed out state, your body is not going to care about digesting the food. It, it doesn't feel safe enough to take the energy and time to pull blood flow and resources away from your extremities. So what it does is especially in lunch, I find, because that's when things get a little bit more hectic for people or you know, you're driving around or checking stressful emails or you're at work dealing with, you know, situations or maybe some problem solving. We tend to then bring a residue of that when we sit down for our lunch. Dinner tends to be a little bit more different because we are more family centered. Maybe you're at home during dinner time versus lunchtime, but really important for that lunchtime to create an undistracted space as peaceful as you can or enjoy, enjoy, you know, just some nice offline time and maybe a conversation with a co worker. That situation is going to allow you to flip your body from a sympathetic or a fight and flight to a parasympathetic state. And so what that's going to enable you to do is receive almost up to 60% more nutrition absorption. Because when your body is in the proper state, rest and digest, it releases and majority of your blood flow and energy actually is in the trunk of your body because that's where majority of your internal organs are that are really important to your overall longevity. So it spends a lot of time healing and replenishing these centers. But if we're in fight and flight, there's only about 20% of energy and blood flow in the gut. So super important to make sure we're in the right state. And a simple way of doing so is being undistracted. But let's say, you know, maybe it's not realistic to cut out all distractions. Maybe there's a lot of different things happening at lunch. What I also like to recommend is putting in this box breathing exercise. When you're sitting down to eat, it kind of helps to give you a nervous system reset in as little as two minutes. This is such an amazing breathing exercise and it's, it's pretty awesome to use for any stressful situation. Not just when you're sitting down to eat, but I find it to be just a very useful, extremely effective and quick method of flipping from your sympathetic nervous state. System to your parasympathetic nervous system. And the thing is with these nervous system states in our central nervous system is that they can't both be on at the same time. I want you to picture it like a light switch. You know, your lights are either on or they're off, there's no in between. And so your body is either in sympathetic or in parasympathetic. So this box breathing technique is very simple, very quick to use, and you only need your breath, which is really awesome. I'm a big proponent of quick, easy and effective. So what you want to do is start with a number that's comfortable for many people. It's four. And you're going to inhale for a count of four. You're then going to hold that inhale at the top for four. You're going to exhale for four seconds and then you're going to hold that exhale for four. Now I want you to repeat this for about two minutes or ten times, whatever is easier for you and see and notice a difference if certain things that you were experiencing, maybe if it was bloating, maybe more constipation, maybe gas pass after you ate, if some of that was able to subside a little bit, or just generally overall, if you had a slump, you know, at 2 or 3 or 4, the general slump times, or just noticing any subtle differences and maybe even mood, I think goes a really long way. So the more consistent you are, of course, with this habit, the better overall that it will be. So I know, I'm sure I've mentioned this to a few people in our calls that we have one on one, but for whoever is not familiar with box breathing, I highly recommend giving it a try. Such a helpful tool. And if anybody has, you know, some sort of device that helps to track your HRV in real time, you could see direct benefits from using box breathing on your nervous system. So just as a little aside here, but when it comes to digestion, like I really wanna, I really wanna focus on kind of coming back to the basics of food. And while we can take supplements to boost our digestion and, you know, do all the things I want, you allow your body the opportunity to release those things out of yourself first instead of relying on anything else. So digestion begins by stimulating all the senses. And the more you can engage more of your senses, the more overall effective your digestion will be. That is why we have senses, as I'm sure some of you have experienced, you know, walking into a loved one's home or you know, into a restaurant and you're immediately waft with smells of sizzling, you know, vegetables or maybe, maybe a baked good or whatever have you in your mouth, you know, just starts to pool with saliva. That is actually such an important part of the process. In that saliva there's digestive enzymes that help to break down your food. So it's, it's a, it's a really important feature we've developed as humans. And I know it tends to be a little bit comical to see in like movies and you know, stuff like that when you see people drooling. But it's actually a great thing when it comes to digestion. So I want you to engage with the different smells, smell the different aromas, aromas. I want you to touch the different textures. I want you to hear the different sounds as the food is cooking. I want you to see all the different colors and all the different forms of food in front of you, you know, and then really taste each and every flavor. You know, variety is the spice of life and food is one of the best ways we could do so while also healing ourselves. So just some simple tips on how to just naturally boost it. And you'll find it's just a much more satisfying meal, engaging all of those senses and really conn with your food and also showing gratitude for the food because there's so many different hands had to pass through in order for this food to arrive at your plate. So really, really important to, you know, take that moment and take some time for yourself to have gratitude. So one of the things that you kind of want to include again to optimize your digestion is eating fiber first. So is providing you with so many additional benefits and also helps to stop that impulse control often as well. When we're first, you know, sitting down for a meal, we might be ravished, we might have been running around all day. We just quickly want to grab something. So what fiber is going to do is. And there's two different types of fiber as well, both of which are very important, both of which play a role in digestion. And that's going to help to just lessen the blood sugar spike that you are receiving from all of the food that you're consuming. So the first is soluble fiber. And many of you probably have seen this. I don't know if you've seen like oats cooking and they kind of create almost like a gelatinous like texture. It's almost gel. Like same thing happens with beans or with lentils, also with apples, broccoli, as well, and some certain nuts and seeds. So this is really beneficial because it provides a lot of food for your gut bacteria. So this is great at just maintaining a good balance in your gut microbiome from all of the nutrition that they are feeding off of from the soluble fiber. Not only that, like I mentioned, it helps to slow down the blood sugar release and it helps to lower cholesterol as well, and then it improves the gut. So it also helps to just create a more fuller stool as well, and it helps to keep you fuller for longer, which is great for weight management overall in the program, but therefore life outside of it as well. So making sure you're constantly enjoying a lot of fiber from natural food, whole food sources and nutrient dense sources as best as possible, as much as you could stick to the free veggies list during the program and therefore after, you're going to be able to reap the benefits of a healthy gut and a healthy gut microbiome. On the flip side, there's insoluble fiber, so this doesn't dissolve in water. This is something like celery, as I'm sure some of you have seen, kind of like the stalks when you eat celery. And same with zucchini, same with cauliflower, same with rice. So this really acts as adding bulk to your stool. It doesn't actually get digested fully and it helps to just allow food to pass more quickly through the stomach and through your intestine. So this allows you to be more regular, allows you to add more bulk and allows you to fully eliminate. So couple of things to just keep in mind, including, you know, and rotating certain soluble and insoluble fibers so that, you know, overall digestion is regular, it's well balanced, and your gut is well nourished to continue with detoxification and continuing with removing waste as effectively as possible. And that's important at all times, but especially during the release phase, since your body is liberating a lot of your own fat stores and anything that's stored inside of them. So, so sometimes that could be, you know, just toxins that we've picked up along the way. That could be different heavy metals that we interacted with with our food or, you know, different lifestyle things that we've been doing. So the faster we can eliminate those things, the better overall, everyone will feel because it won't linger and kind of cause more issues in your system. So keeping a good, healthy bowel rhythm super, super important. So I know that that's a lot of information to keep on your mind as you're sitting down to eat. But it really comes down to the five Cs. This is what we want everybody to at least remember. And it kind of helps you to encompass everything that we were just chatting about in previous slides. So making sure you're choosing your food wisely, making sure there's lots of colors and as local as possible grown on local soil, that does make a difference because it's the same soil we interact with in the same hemisphere or in same region. So there's microbes in our gut that mirror the microbes that are in our soil and on our food because that's where it's grown from. So the more familiar we are with the microbiome that we're interacting with, food wise, the better overall our body will respond to it. So choosing foods wisely, choosing whole foods organic as best as possible. This picture I've included here is from the ewg. It's the Environmental Working Group. And every year year they release a list of 15 clean, organic, or I guess clean foods that you can get away with buying conventionally. And what's called the dirty dozen list of 12 dirtier, let's say conventional products that you will find. So if you do need to save money on organic produce to focus on the dirty dozen getting those organic as best as possible. Those tend to be foods that are most heavily sprayed or the skins tend to be quite thin. So a lot of the pesticides, pesticides or you know, chemicals sinks into the actual food. So something with a bit of a tougher skin, you know, like avocados, as is you see here on the Clean 15, these you can get away with buying conventionally since the skin is tougher and maybe they're not as sprayed. So this is from 2024. They have yet to release the 2025 list, but we will keep everybody posted once that is available. Chew your food properly. Your stomach does not have teeth. The better you could chew, the better overall your intestines will be able to absorb all of your wonderful nutrition. Chew up until a baby food consistency and then that'll help elongate your meal time too. So 15 to 20 minutes is ideal for you to finish eating your entire meal. You want to chill out, you want to be parasympathetic, you want to box, breathe, you want to be undistracted, you want to feel connected to your food, stimulating your senses. Cherish that meal and all the different hands it had to pass through the different people that laid a hand in creating your food. Maybe it Was you yourself so cherishing that self care time you've given yourself. And then check, you know, make sure to check your stool. Make sure you have a good idea of how you're eliminating what that elimination looks like and for the reasons mentioned, just, you know, keeping overall better feelings and no side effects with, you know, anything that your body wants to release. And so this is included in your metabolic reset guide and also in the modules. But I wanted to just have a quick reminder. There's a lot of great tips when it comes to constipation. A squatty potty is a game changer. I highly recommend it to anybody. Anything that breathes it is such a, such an awesome tool. You don't actually need to purchase one. If you have a stool at home that works just as good I and what it does is it elevates your knees above the hips so it actually unkinks your colon and allows you to fully eliminate and much quicker with much more ease. Anybody that's used this never goes back highly recommend getting a squatty potty or using a stool. Sluggish vagal tone, which is a whole other topic in of itself is a big culprit of constipation and not being regular. So incorporating a vagal toning exercise, something like, you know, tongue scraping, something like gargling vigorously, singing out loud, chanting, humming, you know, deep breathing, all of those things are great. Increase in water intake, making sure it's warm. That helps to kind of kickstart things with a little bit of lemon jumping on a trampoline for those who have some an abdominal massage works really great after meals or about two hours after meals. A smooth move tea. If you really need something more on the acute side and you haven't, let's say, had a bowel movement in a couple days, they can really help things keep or kickstart things. Make magnesium citrate and vitamin C or even castor oil packs in the maintenance phase which are game changing. I love me some castor oil packs, but that is for maintenance since it does involve oil. Some supplements to also consider. While I don't like to make anybody dependent, it's also great to know that there's help that exists and if you do need it based off of, you know, how you're able to check out your stool, how you're able to feel, then you know, some of these might just help kickstart and kind of propel you in a better direction. So if maybe your gut microbiome hasn't been fed all the right foods or maybe let's say you've gone through a lot of rounds of antibiotics. So things that you know, imbalanced your gut microbiome, including something like a probiotic would be a great idea just to make sure that everything is working properly, making sure that you know your gut microbiome is getting fed with the right bacteria so that it keeps on growing. Mag citrate also amazing. It also helps to improve REM sleep, but it's linked to having more regular bowel movements, more complete bowel movements. And we do not get enough magnesium these days. So that's, you know, a game changing product. I use it nightly and it's just fabulous for my REM sleep. So I really like it for that too. LVGB if you needed some support with your liver or gallbladder, some emulsifying fats, and then digest times for any sort of protein and carb synthesis as well. But let's say you wanted to start small and start natural. You can even do something like apple cider vinegar. It's kind of in the background of this image here, but including a, a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar about 30 minutes before you sit down to eat acts as a pre and probiotic and also helps to replenish your gut microbiome. So something else you could do. It also helps to kickstart your fat burning, which is also great. So something to consider to kind of get the most out of this experience. And of course exercise and hydration, two key things when it comes to proper bowel movements and optimal digestion. So often we have let's say a hunger pang, but it in fact is actually a dehydration ping. So we don't have two separate calls or I guess functions in our body. It's just, it comes off just as hydration or just as a hunger response. So many times over it's just your body needing some hydration. So I invite everybody to have a glass of water. If you're feeling a little bit more peckish and you feel like you wanted to grab something but you're not exactly tired. It's usually hydration that you're seeking and exercise, you know, getting some gentle 30, 40 minutes of movement, whether it's stretching, whether it's yoga, just kind of helps to, you know, get your blood pumping, get your blood flowing, get your intestines moving, so or things in your intestines moving. So always good to include if you don't feel like you are super regular, even a quick walk, let's say five to 10 minutes after you've eaten allows your body to absorb, I want to say, 15 to 20% more blood sugar. So it helps to decrease any sort of blood sugar spikes because you're using that active energy and that active fuel shortly after consuming it. So again, it's a very gentle walk. You do not want to exercise after eating, but it can help with blood sugar absorption. And the last kind of final thing I wanted to touch on here and more on an energetic piece when it comes to weight release is the art of letting go. And so often I find that people tend to stall around a certain weight. You know, they're eliminating properly. All these things are, are going well, but for whatever reason, they're just stalling at a certain number. So there's this really amazing crush technique. It's an emotional freedom technique. And what it allows you to do is just liberate any sort of stagnant energy that might be stuck in important meridian spots in your body. I've seen such amazing success with this exercise. Anytime somebody is stalling or craving or feeling that hunger pain, and there's a couple of, like, some really cool prompts to reflect on as you're going through the exercises. You're going through the motions as well. And it's all to kind of allow you to explore, you know, maybe what are you ready to let go of? Or what are you ready to let in? Again, there's that energetic component when it comes to releasing. And while we, you know, think of it as weight response release and of bowel movement release, there's also a lot of emotional release that comes alongside this program. And it's sometimes that emotional release we need for our body to physically release what we no longer need it to hold on to. So it's also an important question. You know, I. I know constipation is a big thing for a lot of people and regular bowel movements, so something to reflect on just in case that you do feel like, like, you know, you're unable to move past something or something still has a hold of you or you can't fully let it go. You know, often it can translate into letting other things go, even bodily functions in our body. So I just wanted to share these different tips with everyone. I hope that this was helpful. I hope that everybody learned something new today or maybe is going to shift one or two things that you're already doing in a more favorable state for yourself, yourself. So thank you everyone for tuning in for listening today, and I wish you all a wonderful week ahead. Take care.