Mac and Indy are getting all of the energy out. Number one is chewing your food. Number three is eating enough fiber. Number four is increasing plant diversity. Eating or including probiotic foods in your diet. The probiotics are the bacteria.
Mac and Indy are getting all of the energy out. Happy Saturday. I'm in the car outside of the dog park, so I'm hanging out here.
Kristen: Eight tips to support happy, healthy digestion. Number one is chewing your food. Hydration is super important for lubricating our bodies. Number three is eating enough fiber. Number four is increasing plant diversity.
Eating or including probiotic foods in your diet. Prebiotics are fiber. The probiotics are the bacteria. The more diversity you have in your microbiome, the better. Some cases of maybe a flare of IBD, probiotic supplements could make those worse.
Sleep influences the gut microbiome and vice versa. Walk movement is really helpful for digestion because it stimulates physical movement of your food through your system. Managing stress is also important for overall health.
Morning. Happy Saturday. Cobb Drive, fam. My background is a little different today. I'm in the car outside of the dog park, so I'm hanging out here. Mac and Indy are getting all of the energy out. Welcome, welcome. If you are here, or if you saw my title for today's Cadre talk, we are going to be talking about some relatively easy tips for gut health and, like, healthy digestion. I think a lot of times with media and, you know, everyone is so individual, a lot of things can sometimes get sensationalized.
But I just wanted to talk about, really, the starting point and basics that I have seen in my practice to have had the most benefit on digestion. Good morning, Cindy Joy. Happy to have you. So I have eight different tips for you today on how to start jumping on the basics for a happy gut. Good morning, Rhonda. So, first and foremost, morning speak. Wonder if you're just popping in. We're talking about eight tips to support happy, healthy digestion. Number one is chewing your food, and it sounds really dumb, but a lot of people, especially when we are feeling rushed, when, you know, we don't have time to sit down and enjoy a meal, you're eating on the go.
Maybe you're distracted when you're at work. We don't tend to chew our food as well. And when it comes to digestion, there's two forms of digestion. There's chemical digestion, which is the enzymes that our body is producing to break down carbohydrates, fats, protein. There's also mechanical digestion, and that is quite literally chewing your food. And when we take the time to chew our food, we get the mechanical digestion, but it also helps to stimulate those enzymes that are produced in the mouth, because we have amylase, which breaks down carbohydrates, that comes, starts in our mouth.
So number one sounds really silly, but can be very effective, is chewing your food. Number two is hydration. And you might notice a lot of these things that I say seem to overlap with overall health, but there's a reason for that. Hydration is super important for lubricating our bodies. So it's going to help lubricate the GI tract. It helps to get fluid in there to keep things moving, help to prevent constipation, which can lead to, you know, painful bloating and discomfort, all of those things that we're wanting to avoid on the day to day.
So hydration is super important. It also ties into number three, which is making sure you're getting enough fiber. And if you were here a couple weeks ago, we talked all about fiber. If you increase your fiber too quickly or without drinking enough water, you will likely get constipated, because both soluble and insoluble fibers interplay with water. So soluble fiber takes it in and absorbs it. Insoluble fiber attracts it. Either way, it's. We need that fluid to help keep things moving. So the hydration is important for that.
Number three, which is eating enough fiber, because as I just mentioned, fiber helps to move things through the system. It adds bulk to the stool. It helps to absorb water if you're taking in soluble fiber. But fiber is also the source. It's the fuel and food for the gut bacteria. So our bodies can't digest fiber. That's why it's so beneficial in helping to get through the digestive system and clear things out. But the little bacteria, those bugs in your gut, are eating the fiber. And that is often, one of the questions I get is, when I eat more fiber, I get more bloated.
How is that helping my gut? When those bacteria eat the fiber, they're fermenting, so they're producing gas. And that gas is what's leading to expansion in the GI tract, and therefore that bloating. So unless it's bloating has gotten a bad rep, but some amount of bloating that is transient, goes away, is normal. Now, if you are having really terrible, painful, consistent bloating when you eat literally anything and it doesn't go away, that would be cause for following up with your doctor or dietitian.
We can help in those cases, too. So that's, that's three. Fiber is number three. Number four is increasing plant diversity. I also just want to say hello. I saw a couple more people pop in and some names that I'm not familiar with. If you don't know me, I'm Kristen. I'm a dietitian. And today we're talking all about tips for a healthy, a healthy gut. So I'll recap in case you jumped in late. Number one, making sure we're chewing our food for mechanical digestion. Number two, hydrating to lubricate the GI system help thing, help keep things moving.
And number three is eating enough fiber to both help prevent and alleviate constipation, diarrhea, and also feed your gut microbiome. So number four is plant diversity. There is research that shows in. I'll back up. A lot of the microbiome is not known. There is still. So it's like space. There's so much that we don't know. And there's more that we are constantly learning every single day. But there is some research to show the more plant diversity you have, the more diverse microbiome you have.
And in people in the studies where they've compared conditions such as IB's to, you know, a non IB's patient or person, the non IB's gut had a more diverse microbiome. So there was, I can't remember the name of it. There was a recently documentary that I think came out on Netflix that talked a whole lot about fiber. And one of the recommendations that I think really kind of threw people through a loop washing, aiming to get 30. I think they said 30. Generally 30 to 40 different plants per week. And that can sound really overwhelming.
Morning, Jules. But many foods are plant foods. That includes even things like coffee and tea, that includes spices will be your fruits and vegetables. Also your grains, your legumes, nuts, seeds, all of that stuff is a different type of plant. So that is also kind of a fun challenge, aiming to see how much variety you can get in a week. And if you can't get it every single week, what I tell people is aiming for, you know, maybe you're someone who meal preps, so you eat the same set of plants one week, try to switch it up the next week and get more of that variety.
Jules, just finished my first five k race since 2020. Met my goals. Congrats. That's so exciting. It always feels good, too. Hopefully. The weather was beautiful. It's been cooler here in Denver, which I really love. I've been trying to run a little bit. We broke our heat wave, which is great. Jules, what race was it? Drop that in the comments. I'm curious. Okay, so we've made it to four. Number five, eating or including probiotic foods in your diet. So prebiotics are fiber. That is what feeds the probiotics.
The probiotics are the bacteria. As I just said, the more diversity you have in your microbiome, the better. So those probiotic foods are typically going to be your fermented food. And that is things like kefir, kombucha, sauerkraut, kimchi, tempeh, miso. If you get like a true fermented pickle, most of them on the shelf in a jar are not truly fermented. But if you find a good fermented pickle, that can be another source. Those are going to introduce the bacteria into your gut and then that fiber is going to feed it.
On the subject of probiotics, I know people always have questions about probiotic supplements, there is, as I said, not a tough. We don't know a ton about microbiome. We know some, it's kind of the same for probiotic supplements. They are generally harmless in some conditions. Some cases of maybe a flare of IBD, something potentially like Sibo, probiotic supplements could make those worse. So if you do have a condition like that, it's always worth talking to your team about it. On the flip side, some cases in which I generally do recommend people take a probiotic are finishing a course of antibiotics.
Or if you've had some sort of stomach bug where we've really upset the balance in either the stomach or the GI tract. And then to get more nit picky, there is some research on specific strains of bacteria to be helpful in things like ib's. So like lactobacillus, which is commonly found in yogurt, and then bifidobacterium is another one. So there is some decent research out around those. Like I said, generally low risk, and there does seem to be at least some benefit. But if you're eating a lot of probiotic foods, you might not need one.
That's kind of something to gauge on your own or with your team. Number six is sleep. Again, kind of sticking with the theme of things that are also good for our overall health. There is some research, and they haven't fully figured out the connection from what I've read, but there is some research that better sleep leads to a more diverse gut microbiome. I'm not sure of the connection between that. They've also seen sleep influences the gut microbiome and vice versa. The gut microbiome influences your sleep.
So whichever way it is, aiming to have good sleep hygiene, have a routine, can be helpful. Number seven, movement in general, if you've ever heard of the digestion, walk movement is really helpful for digestion because it stimulates physical movement of your food through your system, as well as helps to expel gas. So if there's any sort of air bubbles between the food and your GI tract when we're moving, if we're going, simple as a walk right after you eat a meal, going on a little five or ten minute walk helps to get that air out, which can reduce discomfort and bloating and just jump starts the digestive process.
And then number eight, which is one that I think is getting more and more talked about, which I love, is managing stress. And this is due to the gut brain access. So axis, you have something called your vagus nerve, which is responsible for your parasympathetic nervous system. And it connects your central nervous system to your enteric nervous system. So the gut, if you are super stressed, your gut is not going to be rest and digesting, right? Because that parasympathetic nervous system is responsible to rest and digest.
So if you are feeling stressed and your sympathetic nervous system is what's active, that kind of stops everything. Because why would your body devote the energy to digestion if it needs to be running away from a bear? So stimulating that vagus nerve, your vagus nerve, takes sensation.
