Five Key Foundations to Start with NOW that Support Your Gut Health
Have you been struggling with digestive issues for some time now?
If you answered yes, then you might be feeling a little... stuck and/or overwhelmed.
I am not here to make assumptions, but I will share that that is exactly how I felt while I was navigating this whole "gut healing" thing for myself.
It is OVERWHELMING.
Be it through family, friends, social media, top influencers, or deep dives into the depths of google at 2 am, we are inundated with information, recommendations, advice, and reasonings and it is totally reasonable that you might be thinking "uhhhh, so where do I start?!"
My hope with this post is that you will gain some clarity around all of this.
Now, before we get into all of the "fancy" gut healing efforts, we really need to make sure that the basics have been covered, and that there is a solid foundation put into place.
You would not invest a ton of energy and money into your beautiful dream home on a janky foundation, right?
Well… the same goes for your health.
In this post, we will strip away all the noise, and confusion and we will focus in on FIVE things that will actually move the needle forward when it comes to healing your gut.
(This is something that I bring all of my clients through in the first part of my The Gut Restoration Program)
Here I will talk about the 5 foundations that you should start putting into place TODAY to start supporting your gut health and hormones:
1. CONSIDER YOUR PSYCHO-EMOTIONAL HEALTH AND STATE OF MIND
Our psychological, and EMOTIONAL state plays a MAJOR role in our healing, and our over all health. Unresolved or unattended to trauma, nervous system dysfunction, and stress can majorly impact our physical health and well being.
Going through all of the "physical" or "chemical" aspects of healing - nutrition, movement, supplementation, physical therapies, etc. without addressing your past experiences, and what's going on in your head and heart makes it SUPER challenging for the body to feel safe enough to heal.
Getting support from a professional like a psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker, etc. can be incredibly helpful when it comes to navigating past traumas, experiences, and supporting the nervous system.
Something else that I often see with my clients are certain beliefs that they hold onto due to past experience and validation — thoughts and beliefs like:
"This is just my normal."
"This is just the way I am."
"I've tried everything — I'll never feel better."
"I don't have the willpower to do this."
Working with a practitioner who can help you work through this and make recommendations specific to YOU and YOUR unique situation will help you to navigate these feelings and help to prove to you and your brain that it IS possible for you to feel good in your body.
2. SUPPORT BASIC DIGESTIVE FUNCTIONS
Specifically, when it comes to gut healing, it is SUPER important to start at the top, and with our basic digestive functions. This is to ensure that our digestive functions are working for us properly before we dig into the nitty-gritty of things like dysbiosis in the gut microbiome.
The four basic digestive functions are:
Chewing ("masticating") our food thoroughly
Stomach acid production & secretion
Bile production & secretion (liver and gallbladder health are super important here!)
Digestive enzyme production & secretion (from the pancreas, but as well as in the stomach and as part of our saliva)
Starting at the top, with things like supporting stomach acid levels, thoroughly chewing your food, and eating mindfully is SO so so important for optimal digestion later down the tract.
Chewing and eating mindfully — your teeth are the ONLY mechanical aspect of the digestive process. Everything else is chemical. You have teeth for a reason! Mastication of our food is VERY important, and making sure that we are chewing thoroughly is really important for lifting the burden off the rest of the digestive tract, so it can do it's job optimally.
Your stomach acid is extremely important. It is one of the body's first lines of defense. Its super-acidity helps to neutralize any pathogens or otherwise problematic substances that you might ingest via food or drink. It also majorly starts the breakdown process of proteins in the stomach. Likewise, it is required to make things like intrinsic factor that help with B12 absorption later down the tract.
The thing is, if you are not making enough stomach acid & not able to properly neutralize pathogens, but you are taking probiotics or leaky-gut-healing supplements, you're going to find yourself stuck in a never-ending cycle.
In order for your stomach acid to have a positive domino effect further down. It is important to start at the top & make sure that your stomach acid is up to snuff.
By ensuring that you are producing enough stomach acid you will be allowing for something called the "acid trigger" to happen. This is where the gallbladder and pancreas will secrete their bile and digestive enzymes, as well as something called bicarbonate to help neutralize this acidic "chyme" coming into the small intestine from the stomach.
Addressing this BEFORE getting into more targeted digestive supports is really important for sustainable gut healing and your long-term health.
3. STRESS MANAGEMENT
Our stress response occurs when there is any sort of threat to our safety, our body's homeostasis.
Basically, what happens is that the sympathetic nervous system (our "fight, flight or freeze" system), registers a threat, and sets off a cascade of reactions in the body that then results in the stress response.
This is a means of survival — this response is what would be responsible for saving your life in a threatening situation.
In cases of acute stress, after the activation of the stress response, the parasympathetic nervous system (our "rest and digest" state) will soon kick in to restore the body back to its calm state.
While this is great in acute situations, in our modern world, we are inundated with stressors on a daily basis. Often MULTIPLE times throughout the day. Our brain, and our nervous system, can not tell the difference between a bear attack, and a salty email from our boss.
The same reaction occurs.
The thing is — healing will only truly happen when, the majority of the time, we are residing in our PARASYMPATHETIC nervous system. Which, honestly, is probably the opposite of how most of us are living these days.
It is really important to both reduce stressors in our life, and then put tools and systems in place to help manage stress, and to also downregulate our nervous system when we do inevitably experience stressors.
Some fantastic tools for down-regulating our nervous system, and hanging out in our "rest and digest" state are:
Breath work practices like the 4-7-8 breath
Toning the vagus nerve
Getting outside in nature
Journaling
Cuddling a loved one
Doing something that brings you joy and pleasure, like painting or reading (whatever floats your boat!)
4. NUTRIENT DENSITY & HYDRATION
We need adequate nutrients in order to provide us with the building blocks of every aspect of our bodies. Same with regards to hydration - we are made up of A LOT of H20.
Specifically, with regards to digestive health, it's super important to make sure that we are consuming the nutrients that are required to make things like stomach acid, enzymes, bile, etc. Getting a variety of animal and plant proteins for amino acids, healthy fats for those good fatty acids, and a WIDE variety of plant foods for phytonutrients, minerals, vitamins, and carbohydrates is super important.
Specific nutrients like zinc and iodine are required for stomach acid production. Likewise, amino acids and cholesterol are required for enzyme and bile production.
Adequate water intake is also extremely important for our digestion! The small intestine uses water to both help in the breakdown of foods, as well as to absorb nutrients that are derived from our food into our bloodstream. The large intestine requires enough water to make sure that the stool is adequately hydrated to pass through our system sans problems!
Key takeaways here:
Drink 1/2 your body weight in ounces of water everyday (at least!)
Try to get as much variety of whole foods as possible (through animal and plant proteins, healthy fats, and LOTS of fresh fruits and veggies)
5. MEAL TIMING & SPACING
Meal timing & spacing is one of my favourite recommendations that I make to clients in practice.
It is SUPER important when it comes to digestion, sustained energy, etc. — PLUS it can be really helpful for motility (my constipated friends, I'm looking at you!), bloating, and abdominal distention.
When we eat, it can take upwards of 2 hours to digest, depending on the protein content (which takes longer to digest versus other macronutrients like carbohydrates).
After our food is digested, there is a digestive function that occurs called "the migrating motor complex" or MMC.
This is a "sweeping" motion that acts like a janitor in the GI tract, "sweeping" leftover things along, so that they can be rid of via stool. The MMC is responsible for sweeping along any bad bugs, toxins, byproducts of digestion, residues, dead cells, etc.
The MMC takes upwards of 90 minutes to do its job. The caveat here, is that the MMC is ONLY able to do its job when we are NOT eating. When we snack frequently, it does not allow this MMC function to happen. Meaning that the stuff left in our gut does not move along the tract in a timely manner.
This can lead to constipation, altered motility, a "back up" in the gut, and can contribute to imbalances in the microbiome - Bloating, trapped gas, and distention can also be related to this MMC not functioning properly due to frequent snacking.
Hence meal timing + spacing!
Ideally, we want to try to eat every 3-4 hours to allow this function to happen:
2 hours for our body to properly digest our food
PLUS upwards of 90 minutes for our MMC to function properly
If you are struggling with bloating, distention, gas, constipation, abdominal pain, and/or IBS, I'd definitely recommend you explore this, and see how you feel!
Especially you, my snack lovers!
If you are looking for further support about how to actually PUT these 5 foundations into ACTION in your life, then I would love to invite you to check out my 1:1 program The Gut Restoration.
These 5 foundations are the first part of the framework that I bring my clients through. In my program, we implement each of these 5 foundations in a way that feels GOOD and attainable for YOU specifically.
Once you have these solid foundations in place, if there are still GI issues, fatigue, head aches, ect — that is where we can get more targeted with nutrition and therapies like supplementation to support the body further in healing.
If you're interested in learning more about my Gut Restoration Program , you can check it out here.