Ep.80: The Missing Piece(s) in Gut Healing (That No One Talks About)

Have you tried all the gut-healing protocols, supplements, and diets, but you’re still constipated, bloated, or exhausted? You’re not alone, and the reason you’re stuck may not be what you think.

In this episode of the Love Your Gut podcast, I’m sharing the overlooked foundations that can make or break your gut healing journey. These aren’t the flashy, “quick-fix” solutions you see all over social media, but they’re the simple, powerful pieces that actually help your gut recover.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• Why eating the same 5–10 foods can cause dysbiosis, leaky gut, and food reactions.
• How mineral depletion keeps you stuck in a cycle of low energy, hormone imbalances, and poor motility.
• Why low stomach acid, enzyme output, and bile flow can trigger infections like H. pylori and recurrent SIBO.
• The connection between nervous system dysregulation and low secretory IgA, reflux, and constipation.
• Practical steps you can start using today to finally support your gut the way it needs.

If you’ve been “doing everything right” and not feeling better, one of these missing pieces may be the reason.

Resources and Links: 

📥 Grab my free mineral guide to start rebuilding your foundation today

💻 Want personalized support? Learn more and apply to the gutTogether program here

➡️ For more tips, follow Dr. Heather on Instagram

Transcript

Dr. Heather Finley: 0:03

Welcome to the Love Your Gut Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Heather Finley, registered dietitian and gut health specialist. I understand the frustration of dealing with GI issues because I've been there and I spent over two decades searching for answers for my own gut issues of constipation, bloating, and stomach pain. I've dedicated my life to understanding and solving my own gut issues. And now I'm here to guide you. On this podcast, I'll help you identify the true root causes of your discomfort. So you can finally ditch your symptoms for good. My goal is to empower you with the knowledge and tools you need so that you can love your gut and it will love you right back. So if you're ready to learn a lot, gain a deeper understanding of your gut and find lasting relief. You are in the right place. Welcome to the love your gut podcast.

0:55

Welcome back to the next episode of the Love Your Gut podcast. I'm so excited to be here with you today, and so sorry, my voice is a little raspy. I'm recovering from, I don't know what, my kids went back to school, so whatever they brought home, but we're just gonna power through, and today's episode is gonna be a good one because. I would say that one of the big reasons that clients work with us is because they've missed some pieces in their gut healing. And the biggest thing that blocks people from working with us is fear because they've tried so many things and they think they've tried everything. But today I am going to break down the missing piece or pieces in gut healing that nobody talks about. And that you've probably missed. So honestly, it's not just one piece. There are several overlooked, very unglamorous foundations that can completely change your gut healing journey. And trust me when I say that I am a hundred percent guilty of skipping these in the past as well. So I can't tell you how many times clients come to me saying, like I said earlier, I've tried everything. I've done probiotics, I've done antimicrobials, I've done elimination diets, all these gut protocols, candida cleanses, but I'm still bloated. I'm still constipated, I'm exhausted. And when we dig in, the missing pieces are usually. Actually pretty simple, but very powerful. So today I'm gonna walk you through four of the biggest ones that I see, and then just give you some practical steps that you can start to use right away. So the first one that I wanna talk about is food variety. Most people eat the same five to 10 foods every single week. Breakfast is the same, lunch is the same, and dinners rotate maybe between two or three meals. And I understand this. I'm a busy mom. I don't have time for complicated meals. We actually just did a meal prep. Call for our educational call for the month for our got together clients, and I actually asked everybody, I said, what comes to mind when you think of the word meal prep? And someone wrote in the chat, horror, and I had to laugh, not because I want her to have that experience, but because so many of us have. That connotation with meal prep, that it has to be horrible. It has to take hours, it has to be miserable, and it has to be boring. And the thing is, it doesn't take a lot of work to prep a couple things and also have different things and have variety. So meal prep and feeding yourself should not feel like horror because here's the thing. Your gut thrives on diversity and research shows that dietary variety, especially the variety of plants that you eat, is one of the strongest predictors of your gut microbio to health. So the more diverse your diet, the more diverse your gut bacteria, and that means stronger digestion. That means better immune function, that means more resilience. Overall, which is what we want. We don't want you going to Mexico and every time you go to Mexico, you get sick. We don't want you to be susceptible to every food poisoning incident that could possibly be. You probably know people that have a sour stomach. Constantly, their gut is not very resilient if they're feeling like that all the time. So when you don't change things up, you're essentially starving Your microbiome and certain beneficial bacteria don't get the fiber they need. And then you can end up with overgrowths or depletions or imbalances. So. Keep in mind, your gut thrives on diversity and research shows that diversity variety or dietary variety is one of the strongest predictors of microbiome health. And specifically what we're looking for is 30 plants a week. This might sound like a lot, but by plants, what I really mean is fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans, legumes, herbs, spices. Think about making spaghetti you can easily add. Eight things to spaghetti. You can add different herbs, oregano, parsley, garlic, onion. You can add some mushrooms, you can add some shredded zucchini. You obviously have tomatoes in there so you can get a lot of variety by not actually making your meal. Any more complicated without dietary variety. Here's what happens. Number one can be dysbiosis or an imbalance of bacteria in your gut. I talked last episode about your gut kind of being like a target parking lot, and we really want all those parking spots full. When you have low dietary variety, those parking spots are not gonna be full. There's more room for things to come in and park where they don't need to be. You can also have loss of beneficial strains, especially Akkermansia and Persi and bifidobacteria. These are three keystone strains of bacteria that you need to have in order to prevent intestinal permeability and are big predictors of your overall gut health. Consistently. On stool testing, we see these strains low or not even detectable, so this is a very, very common problem. And then. Research shows also that dietary variety or lack of dietary variety can cause intestinal permeability or what you may know as leaky gut because your gut lining isn't being supported by short chain fatty acid productions like butyrate. When you eat prebiotic fiber, your. Probiotic bacteria produce short chain fatty acids, and that's ultimately the goal of consuming fiber. So long term, what does this mean? This means less immune resilience, more food reactions. So here's just a practical tip. If you always eat blueberries, swap in raspberries, maybe swap in whatever is in season. My kids are always asking for the same fruits, and they're probably sick of me saying this by now, but. Usually I'll say, well, that's not in season right now. Let's pick something else. We're meant to eat seasonally. We're meant to eat what is available. So if oranges are in season, try to eat some oranges. And I'm not saying don't buy the frozen version of whatever veggies you or fruits that you like, but try to eat seasonally. And that's a great way to improve dietary variety. If you usually eat spinach, try arugula. Try bok choy. Just start with one swap a week. It does not have to be overwhelming. We've had so many clients that have been so terrified of adding variety because they're so bloated and they live on like chicken and rice. And when you gently expand your diet, you will actually improve your gut symptoms so long as you're improving all the other underlying root causes because you're actually giving your microbes the nutrients that they're missing. All right. Cause number two or missing, step number two is mineral depletion. Now, you've probably heard me talk about minerals a million times, but this is a huge one, and I talk about it a lot because it's just that important. Minerals fuel your entire body. They literally help your body create energy, and if your body doesn't have energy, it cannot heal. So you can take all the probiotics, all the. Antimicrobials, all this, whatever, you will not get better if your body does not have the energy to actually push it out. We really started emphasizing minerals with our clients about three years ago, probably four now actually. And. It has been a game changer. We're seeing results quicker. We're seeing that we have to do less invasive protocols. Our clients are tolerating their protocols better. They're getting energy faster. Their hormone symptoms are balancing out. They're not losing hair. They feel overall so much better. So minerals, they power enzymes, they regulate your hormones. They keep your energy stable, and they directly impact your gut motility. So if you're constipated, bloated, et cetera. If your body doesn't have the raw materials, like I said, it can't heal no matter how many supplements you throw at throw at it. And here's the thing that we see on testing all the time, is women who have been stressed, they've been dieting. Maybe they're a mom of multiple children, or even one child is enough to do it, and they've been restricting food for years. They're so depleted, especially in the main four. Things like magnesium, potassium, sodium, and minerals, fuel, all the functions. So without them, the whole system is just in a tailspin. When your minerals are depleted, what happens is your nervous system actually becomes more dysregulated. So you might be wired and tired, you might have poor stress, resilience, you might not sleep as well. You might feel. Overwhelmed more easily, and we see this a lot on testing. You might have hormone imbalances. Maybe your estrogen is not detoxing properly. Maybe your thyroid conversion is lagging. You're not able to convert T four into the active hormone T three. Maybe you have poor stomach acid or enzyme output because zinc and sodium and so many other minerals are critical here. Maybe you have constipation or. Sluggish motility because you have low magnesium, low potassium, low boron, so many things. We constantly see this on HTMA testing. I can't tell you how many clients have come to us. Super constipated. The typical story of I've been constipated my whole life. I've done MiraLax, I've done magnesium citrate, I've done magnesium oxide, I've done colonics. I've done all the things. And then when we look at HTMA testing. They have like no potassium, no sodium. They're in a super depleted pattern. And once we support their minerals, their bowels start moving and they're shocked at how quickly that happened. So here's just a practical tip for this one. Start with a daily mineral drink. You can add. You can make this super affordable. You can download my free mineral guide. I'll put that in the show notes. But you can add cream of tartar for potassium. You can add sea salt for sodium and you can do even like Epsom salt bath for magnesium. Or obviously there are magnesium options. There's even food options for magnesium. So my mineral guide will walk you through this step by step. I'll link it in the show notes. All right. System number three as a missing piece is upper GI support. So when I say upper GI support, I really mean stomach acid enzymes and bile. This is the third missing piece, and really when you don't support digestion from the top down, it's supposed to work like this. Stomach acid breaks down protein, and it signals the pancreas. The pancreas releases enzymes, enzymes, and bile. Breakdown fats, carbs, proteins, to then be absorbed if that chain reaction is off and your stomach acid is low. Or your bile flow is impaired or pancreatic output is impaired food for mens instead of digesting, and that leads to gas and bloating and nutrient deficiencies. And low stomach acid is incredibly common from possibly stress. From different medications, maybe proton pump inhibitors, nutrient deficiencies, like I mentioned in the last section. And then when stomach acid is low, it affects the whole process. So the pancreas isn't working, bile doesn't flow either, and when stomach acid enzymes and bile aren't working, here's some downstream effects that you see. Number one thing that we see is h pylori infections. This is so common. Because h pylori thrives when stomach acid is low, and we have to address the h pylori as well as the low stomach acid. Because it's kind of a chicken or egg scenario here, we also might see recurrent SIBO because poor bile flow allows bacteria to migrate upward, and we really need bile as kind of that washing detergent in the system. We might see gas and bloating because food is fermenting. Without enough enzyme output, we might see nutrient deficiencies, especially in fat soluble vitamins, a de and K, with lack of bile. And this is why people can treat SIBO or candida or anything over and over, and it keeps coming back because the root cause is much higher up. So here's a practical tip. Slow down, chew your food thoroughly. That alone. Increases stomach acid and you can also sip ginger tea before meals that can help. You can talk to your practitioner about enzymes or digestive bitters if needed. We've had so many clients that have said, I thought that digestive bitters wouldn't work, or I thought that just chewing my food wouldn't work. And I was so surprised at how well this impacted so many of my other symptoms. So sometimes it's the simple things, taking a couple deep breaths before eating. Chewing your food, eating away from the tv, all those things. All right, fourth one that goes along with what I just said is nervous system regulation. This is the last missing piece and really the hardest one. You cannot heal your gut if you are stuck in fight or flight mode. And when you're stressed, you're rushed, you're anxious. Blood flow is diverted away from digestion. Stomach acid lowers, motility slows. You feel bloated. You feel constipated. This is why you can eat the perfect gut healing diet and still feel terrible. You cannot heal your gut if you're in fight or flight. And I will say that so many of our clients don't even realize how stressed they are until they start supporting their nervous system and they realize that they've basically lived their whole life in fight or flight. We have actually brought on a nervous system expert into our program to do monthly nervous system sessions with our clients because of how much we believe in this and how important it is. Sometimes even subconscious beliefs or past experiences with your nervous system rewire things, and you don't even know how much your nervous system is responding to scenarios until you've had that insight and until you've addressed it. So most of us are overstressed. We're eating in the car on Zoom while scrolling on phones, and our lives are just go, go, go and busy with no breaks and we need to take a step back. When your nervous system is stuck in overdrive, you might see low stomach acid, which can cause more bloating, more reflux, a lot of lower GI issues as well. You might see sluggish motility constipation or just incomplete emptying. You might see low secretary IGA. This is something that we consistently see on testing when you are very stressed. You've been under eating for a long period of time, or maybe you have really negative thought patterns. There is actually research to support that. All of those things. Lowers your secretory IGA, which is your gut immune system that helps protect you against unwanted pathogens, food sensitivities, and so many other things. So when your secretory IGA is low, you will have a weaker gut immunity and more susceptibility to infections. And then another one is chronic inflammation. If you're constantly in this overactive stress response, that can cause a low grade of inflammation in your body. So a practical tip is before meals, take three to five breaths, try humming, singing gargling to stimulate the vagus nerve. Even just sitting down and eating without scrolling, your phone can make a huge difference. We have so many clients that I could talk about where this was the thing that they were most resistant to. Even one client who was very terrified of eating without her phone because of the job that she had, and she noticed a huge difference when she didn't. Eat with her phone. And that was a really hard habit to change, but it made such a big difference. So you have to work on chewing, deep breathing, activating your vagus nerve, and you will see a difference. You'll feel like a new person, a. You'll feel like your digestion is working better. Just a couple other missing pieces that I won't go too much into, but some honorable mentions meal hygiene, which I talked about. Um, motility support. You really need to make sure that your bowels are moving and clearing out bacteria and waste. If you can't go to the bathroom every day, you have to fix this first. And then you have to address foundations before protocols. So foundations like blood sugar. Sleep, hydration. These matter so much more than just a fat supplement stack. You have to address these things first. So if you've been stuck in your gut healing journey, I want you to ask yourself number one. Am I eating a variety of foods? Number two, am I supporting my minerals? Number three, am I caring for my upper gi, my stomach acid, my enzymes, my bile? And then number four, am I calming my nervous system so my body can actually digest? These aren't the flashy things that you see all over social media, but they are the missing pieces that. Can make everything else work. So if this episode resonated with you, be sure to grab my free mineral guide. It's a great place to get started. It's packed with practical tips and recipes and links and all the things that you need to start replenishing your minerals today. I'll leave the link in the show notes and then of course, if you are ready for more personalized support, that's exactly what we do inside Got Together, we have an amazing team. That is unlike any other team, and I can say that with full confidence. We look at the whole picture and build a plan that actually sticks by getting to some of these unsexy pieces that really make a huge difference. So thanks for listening. This was a shorter episode, but it was packed with information. Hope you loved it, and I'll see you next week.