Fiber number one helps to keep things regular, so it can help to add bulk to stool. Soluble fiber absorbs water and swells up. As you're increasing fiber, you want to make sure going back to the beginning, you're staying hydrated as well.
Cadre: Can you hear me and. see me? I'm trying to use my AirPods. Today I want to go over some, like, gut help basics. I've got eight, seven, eight things that you can do to help build a foundation for good gut health.
Fiber number one helps to keep things regular, so it can help to add bulk to stool. Soluble fiber absorbs water and swells up. As you're increasing fiber, you want to make sure going back to the beginning, you're staying hydrated as well.
Under fiber, I think it's important to talk about pre and probiotics. The more variety you have in your diet, the more diverse microbiome you are going to have. Movement in general can help to regulate your nervous system.
Good morning, Cadre. Hopefully you can see me and hear me. I'm a little rattly because I'm in the car. I'll hold it. We'll see how that goes. Hopefully someone will join me. Jules, good morning. Can you hear me and. Or see me? I'm the car and I can't tell if this is working and I'm trying to use my AirPods. Good morning, speak Wonder. Good morning. Good morning. Can someone let me know if you can hear me? I think yes, based on the responses. But. Okay, I'm gonna just jump in because as I said, we are in the car.
We just left home, headed from Colorado to Arizona, and we're driving so we can bring our dog, who's in the back. I still wanted to do this today because last week I said I was going to start a GI series. And today I really just wanted to go over some, like, gut help basics. And if you've been with me, which I know some of you have been for a while, this might sound familiar because I have talked about this before. So we're just gonna jump in. I've got eight, seven, eight things that you can do to kind of help build a foundation for good gut health.
The first thing is, and if you have questions, let me know in the chat, I'll try to answer some of them. Number one is gonna sound silly, but chew your food. We have two different forms of digestion, chemical and mechanical. And chewing your food is mechanical digestion. The more that you chew your food, within reason. Okay, we don't have to be a bird. The less work your GI tract is going to have to do later. So if you are someone who has a sensitive GI tract, the better you chew your food, the less work you have, kind of in that same realm.
Number two is stay hydrated. Water is essential for nutrient absorption. One, two, it helps to lubricate our entire GI tract. And three, it is a major component of saliva, which in our mouth, where we have. Going back to that chemical digestion, we have something called salivary amylase, which is a digestive enzyme that starts to break down carbohydrates in our mouth. So those two things kind of pair together. Jules, my sugar cravings have left the building. That's so interesting. I am curious because I know you asked me about that last week.
If there's anything that you noticed that has changed since noticing that those cravings have gone. Okay, number three, fiber. Fiber. Fiber. Fiber. I've talked about this a million times. I will never stop talking about it. Fiber is honestly People are getting more into it these days, which I absolutely love. Sorry it's a little bumpy. This is so unprofessional. But I'm glad that you're sticking with me. And I have my notes next to me, which is why I feel like, why is she looking down? That's why.
Fiber number one helps to keep things regular, so it can help to add bulk to stool. If you have loose stool diarrhea, it can help to firm that up. It also helps to kind of scrape things out. So if you're constipated, it can help with constipation. Both of those functions, however, will require hydration. Soluble fiber absorbs water and swells up. Think of like a chia seed. And then insoluble fiber just pulls water into that digestive tract. So as you're increasing fiber, you want to make sure going back to the beginning, you're staying hydrated as well.
Happy Saturday, Luke. Happy to have you here. Speak Wonder requesting the name of my dog. His name is Indy. I'll try to show you him in the end. I'm gonna keep going, though, because we're, like, driving through mountains. And maybe I'll give you a view at the end of that, too. Under fiber, I think it's important to talk about pre and probiotics. So prebiotics are a type of fiber, and it is your fermentable carbohydrates. So if you think. If you've ever been on the low fodmap diet that stands for fermentable, I'm not going to get into it.
Oligodi, saccharides, polyols. It's just types of carbohydrates that your gut ferments. And so the fiber that our body doesn't digest, your microbiome feeds off of and produces something called short chain fatty acids, one of which is called butyrate. And that butyrate is a source of fuel for the cells in your colon. So by eating fiber, you're actually giving energy to the cells in your digestive tract. Those are prebiotics. Probiotics are the actual gut bugs. So the bacteria, the microbiome, we can get those through the food that we eat, because everything that we eat has microorganisms on it.
If you're thinking about, like, supplements, you can always go that route. If you want a probiotic, there's different research backing different types of probiotics for different conditions. But you can also eat fermented foods. So things like kefir, yogurt, miso Tempeh. Those types of things can help to increase Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium, which are too known to be beneficial gut bugs. And that has been associated with better immune system function and decreased symptoms of iv. Yes. Number four, kind of going along with that.
When it comes to fiber, the more variety you have in your diet, the more diverse microbiome you are going to have. So the more variety of fruits and vegetables. There was a Netflix documentary that I think came out last year that talked about 30 types of plant foods a week. That is a really good goal to have. And that research does show more gut diversity, which is associated with better GI function. So more variety, different types of plants, different types of fruits and veggies. Number five, these last three kind of all go together is movement.
One, movement can help to decrease overall stress on the body. Physiological stress, emotional mental stress. It also is technically a stressor, but that's a conversation for another day. But it also helps to physically move food through our system. So when we get up and we get moving, you know, if you're going from sitting to going on a walk after you're eating, one, gravity. But two, you're moving food and also air through your system. So if you're somebody who notices maybe of ibs and you are, you struggle with a lot of gas.
Taking a short walk after eating helps to alleviate some of that. And then movement in general can help to regulate your nervous system, which is my next one. Stress management. The gut brain connection is very real. So when we are in times of mental, emotional and physiological stress, your brain is communicating with your gut. Your brain is communicating everywhere. Your adrenal glands start to produce cortisol and epinephrine, both of which will slow down digestion. You also will have blood flow sent to your extremities rather than your core.
Because if you think back to, you know where, pavement. If you're running from a mammoth, you don't need to be digesting food in the moment. You need to be running. So there's a lot of mechanisms set up for fight or flight, right. That part of your nervous system to essentially halt or very much slow your digestion. So regulating your nervous system. One of my favorite things to do is diaphragmatic breathing or meditation. I know there's some great apps. You also can just like sit in silence and breathe.
And that works just fine. You don't necessarily have to pay for anything. I will plug. I'm not paid by this at all, but I think it's really helpful in its research backed if you're someone with IBS or just in general, notice a lot of stress when it comes to food or digestion. There's an app called Nerva that works on these in the modality of these evidence based nervous system regulation strategies to improve digestion. So that's something worth checking out. It's not free unfortunately. I think they have a free seven day trial but again I'm not paid.
It's just something I use my clients and is actually pretty effective. And my last one is sleep. Sleep again plays a role in regulating nervous system, but it's also when our body repairs itself. So not only you know, you work out, you tear muscles, it repairs your muscles, it's also repairing and turning over cells in your digestive tract. So both of those things very important. Yeah, that's all I've got for you today. A little bit of a speed round, but also pretty basic easy places for you to start if you're looking to improve gut health.
Any questions? I know some of that was pretty fast because I don't want to leave you as I'm driving through the mountains. Okay, that's my dog, there's Indy. Oh, he just laid down. He's here. Hopefully some of this was helpful. If you have any questions about anything that I talked about today or if there's any specific topics you want me to go more in depth on in this GI series, let me know. I have a post in the health thread for any questions. Otherwise, I'll see you back here next week. I appreciate you all being here again.
So sorry it was a little chaotic this morning, but that's life. This is where I'm at, this is where we're going and sometimes it happens. So I appreciate you all.
