In this YouTube video, certified health coach Victoria S. Dorsano—who holds a degree in biology and bioinformatics and has eight years of experience helping athletes and high‑performing professionals—explains why many people who suffer from bloating, brain fog, or chronic fatigue are unknowingly sabotaging their gut health. She outlines five common mistakes: (1) eating gut‑healthy foods while stressed, which diverts blood away from the digestive tract; (2) over‑sanitizing the environment, depriving the microbiome of diverse bacterial exposure; (3) neglecting to feed the gut bacteria with sufficient fiber, leading them to break down the gut lining; (4) not getting enough sleep, which disrupts microbial diversity; and (5) trying to change all gut‑related habits at once, causing overwhelm and stress. For each mistake she offers a simple, science‑based fix: three deep breaths before meals, limiting sanitizer use and spending time outdoors, adding a handful of vegetables or fruit (or portable fiber snacks like ProZis) to each meal, prioritizing 7‑9 hours of sleep, and implementing one change at a time for at least two weeks. She also provides a quick cheat‑sheet recap, references a related FODMAP video, and invites viewers to book a free optimization call or use a discount code for ProZis products. The overall message emphasizes personalized, incremental approaches over one‑size‑fits‑all supplement regimens.
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I wasted 6 months on gut advice that made me feel worse, and it turns out that I was making 5 mistakes that hurt my gut faster than supplements can fix. And if you're dealing with bloating, brain fog, or constant fatigue, then you're probably making these mistakes too, especially the 5th one that I'm going to talk about today, because no one talks about this one, and it's probably your biggest gut problem. By the way, I'm Victoria, a certified health coach with a degree in biology and bioinformatics, and I've spent the last 8 years helping athletes and high-performing professionals to fix their energy and performance, not just buy more supplements. Today I'm going to break down the 5 mistakes that are sabotaging your gut, and more importantly, the simple fixes you can make today. Mistake number 1 is you're eating gut-healthy foods, but you're doing it while you're completely stressed out. You can eat all the fermented food in the world, but if you're shoveling down kimchi while you're answering emails, your gut can't really process that well. Here's what happens when you're stressed. When you're stressed, your body diverts blood away from the digestive tract. It's trying to prepare for fight or flight, not digesting food. And then you're just literally wasting that nice expensive probiotic food. So here's the stupidly simple fix. Try to take 3 deep breaths before you beat. That's it. In through the nose and out through the mouth. This starts to activate your parasympathetic nervous system, also known as your rest and digest system. It starts to signal your body, okay, we're safe now, we can focus on digesting. I know it sounds so simple, but I've had so many clients reduce their bloating and indigestion and gut issues just from doing this. Try it once a week and see if you can notice a difference. Mistake number 2 is that you are over-sanitizing everything. You see, your gut needs exposure to a diverse set of bacteria, but we've become really accustomed to trying to sanitize sanitize and clean everything in our environment. Here's a fun fact: kids who grow up on farms have way better gut health and fewer allergies. Why? Well, in part due to the diverse microbial exposure that they have through their environment. They're typically less sanitized in less clean environment. But here's what happens in modern life: we are using hand sanitizer and different sanitization products constantly when soap and water can work just fine for a lot of those circumstances. More so in like everyday situations, right? I'm not talking about if you're in a healthcare setting or somewhere where you need high-end sanitization procedures. So you should really consider saving hand sanitizer for when you really need it, like during flu season, when you're in a healthcare setting, or after using public transit. For everyday life, soap and water is usually just fine. And spend more time outside, like touch grass, literally get your hands in some soil if you're gardening, and just stop being afraid of normal environmental bacteria. Your immune system truly needs this to function properly. Mistake number 3: you're only focused on feeding yourself and not your gut bacteria. Those little guys need to eat too. Depending on the meal, you might be really, really full afterwards, but your poor little gut bacteria might be starving. They need fiber, specifically a lot of fiber in plants. And when they don't get enough of that, research shows that they start breaking down your protective gut lining instead. They're just hungry. They're just trying to eat. But no, they should not be eating your protective gut lining, and that is not great. So simple fix: add 1 handful of vegetables or 1 piece of fruit with your meal. That's it. Don't need to overthink it. And I'm not asking you to be like raw vegan or eat only salads. Just one handful of plants onto what you're already eating. Breakfast, throw spinach in with your eggs. Lunch, add an apple. Dinner, side of roasted or steamed vegetables. Super easy. Sometimes you're not able to get your hands on some veggies or fruits, especially when you're traveling. It can be hard sometimes. So another alternative source of fiber can also come from whole grain sources. One of my favorite sources of fiber when I'm on the go is oats, but I'm not going to take a handful of oats and just shove them down my mouth while I'm traveling on an airplane, which is why I like traveling with some bars from ProZis that have some decent fiber in them, or some of the ProZis granola that I'll pack in a little baggie and sprinkle on some yogurt I'm halfway to my fiber goal for the day. Plus, most of ProZis snacks are pretty high in protein, which will help you to stay super satisfied even when you're on the go. Now, does having snacks like these actually replace eating vegetables? No. Remember, fundamentals first. But when you need something in a pinch and you still want to make sure that you're feeding your gut well, ProZis has you covered. If you want to check them out and learn more about what they have to offer, I'll put the link down below, and you can use code VICTORIA10 at checkout for a special little discount. All right, so mistake number 4 is not getting enough sleep. The funny thing is I see this really often where people sacrifice sleep when they're also trying to work on other areas of their health, and sometimes even gut health, like staying up till 11 PM to finish meal prepping, or researching supplements until midnight and only sleeping like 5 hours. And what you end up doing is just causing more of an issue while you're trying to solve the issue. You might be wondering, like, how does sleep actually affect my gut health? Well, sleep deprivation can significantly disrupt your gut microbiome. Studies show that even a few nights of bad sleep can alter your gut bacterial diversity. And unfortunately, you can't supplement your way out of sleep deprivation. So if you're trying to work on improving your gut health and you're doing this like sleep deprivation trade-off in order to wake up early and have lemon water and do all the that you think are healthy for your gut, but you're sacrificing sleep, choose sleep. Try to aim for 7 to 9 hours consistently. And if you're not hitting that base of 7 to begin with, but you're still trying to make these other changes in your health, it's worth setting those aside and creating more space to have a better sleep routine and get sufficient sleep first before working on these other aspects of your gut health. Getting enough sleep and getting good sleep makes everything so much easier, including having good gut bacterial diversity. And finally, mistake number 5 is that you are trying to change everything all at once. When I started to work on improving my gut health, I personally did this. I started eating fermented foods, taking probiotics, starting a new exercise routine, doing extensive meal prep with tons of variety of fresh vegetables and fruits, and of course trying to focus on getting enough sleep. And it was just an overwhelming amount of changes to make at one time. And shocker, when you're overwhelmed, you also tend to get stressed. And what happens when you're constantly stressed? Well, you're not digesting your food well, and you start to get massive bloating. Not fun. And on top of that, I had no idea what thing was actually helping or hurting because I was doing all these changes at once. So here's what you need to do. Pick one change that you wanna make to improve your gut health. Do that consistently for at least 2 weeks and notice what happens. Then go ahead and add the next thing. Your gut is this living and breathing thing. It needs time to adjust and adapt. And sometimes, especially when you're introducing new types of foods and vegetables, fruits, different fiber sources, some of them are going to inherently cause some bloating for you, and you're going to want to know which ones settle with you and which ones don't. Not that all bloating is bad, but completely uncomfortable distended bloating, not super great. Just a quick aside, if you are somebody who has been trying to eat healthier and make dietary changes and incorporate new fruits and vegetables and are noticing as they are eating healthier they are getting more and more bloated, you're going to want to check out my video on FODMAPs, and I will link that down below as well as up here in the video. All right, so here's your cheat sheet. Pause here so you can take a picture if you need to. Here are the 5 main fixes for improving your gut health. Number 1: 3 deep breaths before meals. Number 2, skip the sanitizer. In most cases, use regular soap and get more time outside. Literally touch grass. Number 3, add one handful of plants per meal. Number 4, prioritize that sleep, 7 hours at minimum. And number 5, just make one change at a time. So like I said, pick one of these fixes, try this for a couple weeks, and see how you feel. Here's the honest truth about gut health. It's not about perfection, and it's not about buying every single supplement out there on the market. We all have a unique fingerprint of our gut microbiome. So it's about finding what works best for your body, your schedule, and your life. This is the same kind of stuff I preach with my coaching clients. We don't follow generic protocols because everybody's a little bit different. We test, we adjust, and we build systems that fit your reality, not some influencer's ideal health and wellness routine. And if you're tired of that one-size-fits-all advice and want somebody to help you figure out what actually moves the needle forward for you, then book a free optimization call with us. We'll get you squared away. Links down below for that if you're interested. And if you like this video, be sure to give it a like, comment for the algorithm, and subscribe if you want some more practical science-based advice that you can actually implement. Thanks guys, and catch you in the next one. Bye!
