Ep. 93: Holiday Gut Survival Guide: Feel Good Without Cutting Out a Single Food

If the holidays always feel like the hardest time of year for your gut with the bloating, the constipation, the fatigue, the heaviness after meals then this episode will feel like a deep breath.

The truth is… the holidays aren’t the problem.
Restriction, stress, poor digestion, and an unsupported gut foundation are.

In today’s episode, Dr. Heather breaks down exactly how to support your gut through the holidays without eliminating foods, micromanaging your plate, or white-knuckling your way to January.
You’ll learn what your symptoms are really trying to tell you and the simple things you can do right now to feel more grounded, nourished, and supported.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why minerals are your holiday superpower
• Digestion habits that actually move the need
• What your bloating timing reveals
• Sticky stool and bile support
• Travel-friendly gut support
• Why December is actually the best time for testing

Ready to stop guessing and start supporting your gut for real?

For December only, when you apply to gutTogether® this week, you’ll receive 3 extra weeks inside the program so that you can tart January with answers and not another quick fix that doesn't work

Apply for 1:1 support inside gutTogether®

Connect with Dr. Heather

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 in the middle of December, probably with you running errands and. Amidst the holiday hustle and bustle. So appreciate you tuning in when I know it is one of the crazier times of the year and you're likely tuning in because of that, and maybe you're worried about your GI symptoms or just how your body is gonna hold up over the holidays. I know in the past I used to have a lot of fear around the holidays and just. The chaos and the busyness and the different food and all the things and how my gut would respond, which is why I wanted to record this episode because I have been there and I totally get it. So before we really get started, what I wanna share with you today is that you do not have to dread the holidays because of your gut. You don't have to mentally prepare for bloating or exhaustion or feeling off for literally six straight weeks, which we're kind of in the middle of right now. You don't have to miss out on foods. Or pretend that you're fine. When your insides feel like they've been blown up with a balloon, there is a way to actually move through this season, feeling a lot more grounded, nourished, and supported without restricting or obsessing over every single bite. And that's what I wanna talk about today. The holidays are not the problem. The way that you are managing your GI issues is restriction and stress and these elimination diets and how you're supporting your digestion or not supporting your digestion. Are the problem. Your bloating didn't suddenly appear because you ate one Christmas cookie. It's because of the state that your gut is in when you actually eat it. So I wanna start off by sharing this story. Last year I was at a favorite things party, which by the way, if you haven't had a favorite things party with your friends. Highly recommend because not only do you get a lot of ideas of some new favorite things, but you also leave with some of your best friend's. Favorite things. But I watched several people at this party skip like half the table and talk about why they couldn't eat all the different foods that were on the table. I can't eat dairy. It does this. I can't, oh, I can't have sugar. It does this. I can't have gluten, this, that, and the other. And so several people at this party were literally avoiding every single food that they thought might upset them and also just feeding off of each other's energy of like, oh yeah, this food, oh, is that the food that causes you problems? Maybe I should avoid that too. And I didn't intervene because it was not the time and the place, but later on I actually heard from one of the women that was at this party just saying I still feel so awful, and I don't know what it is. And that is exactly why I wanted to record this episode because. It's really if you have symptoms, regardless of what you eat or regardless of what you do, it is not the food. It is the foundation that your gut is operating from, and there is a way to fix this, which is. The exciting part. So I want this episode to really feel like a deep breath, supportive and calm, and just a reminder that you can enjoy the holidays and support your gut at the same time. You are maybe a little more fragile than you have been in the past, but. You don't have to spend this season tiptoeing around every meal or white knuckling your way through January. This is not another avoid sugar or avoid dairy episode. This is about how to support your physiology and your gut so that you can feel good while living your life, and I want you to hear that it is possible. Because I think that so many people wait till January to go on this really restrictive diet or do something extreme thinking that that is gonna be, what helps them reset and finally feel better. But you've likely been doing that for years and years and years, and yet you're ending another year feeling the same way you did when you started the year. And I don't say that to be harsh. I say that to be real because I was in that cycle for so many years as well. So really before we get into some of the practical tips, we really do have to talk about mindset because what you believe about the holidays directly affects how you're gonna feel during them. So if you go into the season thinking this is gonna be chaotic, my gut always gets worse, I'll just. Deal with it later. Start over in January. Your body hears that. Your nervous system hears that, your digestion hears that, and the irony is January doesn't magically feel any easier. You don't suddenly wake up with perfect motivation or a brand new gut. You don't have to wait for a date on the calendar to feel better. You don't need to just get through the holidays. You don't need to just punish yourself and fix it later. You can support your gut right now in very small, gentle ways, and then actually thrive through the holidays. You can protect your peace. You can say no when you need to. You can make choices from a grounded place and not a panicked one. So don't walk into the next couple weeks, assuming that you'll have to start over in January, because that sets you up for kind of this binge restrict mindset of well, oh, well, it's already gonna be bad anyways. And instead of approaching it from a place of what's gonna help me feel the best? How can I support my body, et cetera. So let's talk about tip number one. Minerals are your holiday superpower because your body needs raw materials to do everything. Digestion, hormones, energy, sleep, mood, not feeling snappy with your kids, or Aunt Susan or whoever. When you support your minerals, your digestion calms down, your cravings stabilize. You feel grounded instead of reactive. Minerals are really the foundation that actually makes the holidays feel doable and not chaotic. Holiday schedules come with the perfect storm of less sleep, more stress, more social events, maybe more alcohol, more sugar, less water. It's also colder this time of year, so you might be just naturally drinking less water, and that just speeds up mineral loss because minerals nearly drive every basic digestive function. Imbalances will show up very loudly this time of year. So, bloating, constipation, fatigue, cravings, irritability. So instead of just randomly cutting out foods, you can support the foundation. So here are the big three ones that you wanna focus on. If you don't have specific data or testing. To know exactly what other minerals to do. I know so many of you took advantage of our Black Friday HTMA sale. We sold out very quickly as usual, and so I know several people who are probably listening to this are waiting for their results to come back and getting even more specific data there. But if you don't have that kind of data on exactly what you need. Here are three minerals that you can focus on to support your body. Number one is sodium. Sodium helps you to stay hydrated. It is required for stomach acid production. Low sodium is going to affect how your body absorbs magnesium. Maybe if you have hard pebbly stools, you might need a little bit more sodium. If you sweat a lot, if you have a little blood pressure, if you drink a lot of coffee, which that's a whole nother conversation, but. Your body will deplete sodium when you're drinking a lot of coffee. So some really real easy examples. You can add a pinch of mineral rich salt, like Celtic salt or Redmond salt to your morning water. Just a little pinch. You can use something like. Redmond relight or any of the more sodium rich electrolyte supplements. If that is indicated, that might be too much for some people. You can make sure you add mineral rich salt to your meals just to taste or just add a small, like salty snack throughout the day. Maybe some olives or pickles or broth to support digestion. A lot of our clients will say that in the past, they have skipped breakfast or they drink coffee first thing. And when someone has low sodium and low potassium and they're combining caffeine with this picture, it's just an instant recipe for afternoon fatigue, noon bloat. Once you support minerals, really simply you'll find that you feel a lot better after lunch and you also don't crash in the afternoon. The next one is potassium. This is the mineral that you deplete when you're stressed. So especially this time of year, potassium is gonna help with stress reduction, gut motility, blood sugar, stability, carb tolerance, which definitely matters during the holidays. It's gonna help prevent that 2:00 PM crash. So there's some really easy ways that you can get more potassium, coconut water cream of tartar, which you probably have in your baking cabinet. Potassium rich foods at each meal. So like potatoes even yogurt, bananas, avocados, leafy greens can be helpful. So if you're craving sweetss nonstop, I would, number one, check your blood sugar. Make sure you're number one, eating enough and getting enough protein and fiber, but also. Try to really support potassium and see what happens. And then lastly, I would support magnesium. This is your stress buffer mineral. It's gonna help keep bowel movements more regular. It's gonna help with sleep depending on the type of magnesium that you're taking. And you can s. Supplement magnesium, like magnesium glycinate, which can help with sleep. Or three inate, which can help with focus as well. Magnesium rich foods like pumpkin seeds or almonds or dark chocolate. Epsom salt baths are another great way to get magnesium. Or you can take magnesium citrate if you need more specific bowel support like making a magnesium mocktail at night with some magnesium powder. Whether it's glyconate or citrate. So some of the magnesium products that I like are a mag soothe, which is a jigsaw product. Gut personal also has a magnesium product that's great as well. So most people will burn through magnesium when their stress is high, which is why holiday stress makes people more constipated, makes people more stressed, their sleep harder to come by, et cetera. So if there's one thing that you prioritize this holiday season from a nutrition perspective, I would really prioritize getting in mineral rich foods, supporting your blood sugar this way, not restricting and cutting a bunch of things out. When your minerals are supported, you will feel more resilient. You will tolerate food better, your mood will stabilize, your cravings will ease, and you'll just enjoy the holidays instead of surviving them. Once your minerals are supported from the foundation, the next layer is actually. How you eat, not what you eat. How? Because you don't need a perfect diet during the holidays. You need a gut that can digest what you're eating, and most people skip right past this part. They cut out foods, they restrict, they stress, but they haven't supported the basic mechanics of digestion. This is the piece that lets you enjoy food without feeling totally awful afterwards. And it's where symptoms really shifts. The most. I know our clients in our program of often say like, I was really hesitant to try breathing before meals or some of the meal hygiene habits that you talk about, and I was shocked actually how well it helped. But our bodies were not designed to digest food while we are watching TV or on a meeting or. Doing other things, so it seems too simple, but it really is a game changer. You can hum or gargle before you eat. You can take some deep breaths, you can pray. Whatever you can do to get in a calm, relaxed state before eating. It's gonna help your brain and your gut get on the same page. So that you can process food instead of fighting it. So I wanna, I want you to think about the last time you ate lunch or dinner or a meal standing at the counter, or you scarfed it down between holiday errands. And trust me when I say I'm not perfect at this either. You barely took a breath, you swallowed, you half chewed your food, and then within minutes you felt bloated, gassy your stomach hurt. This is not a food sensitivity. This is rushed digestion. So simply take five deep breaths before eating. Put your fork down in between bites, chew the food, and if you're thinking like I don't have time to eat, then that is a bigger issue that you need to address. Even if the meal isn't perfect, your body can process it. I also would recommend not skipping breakfast. When you skip breakfast, you are sending your stress hormones soaring, which really inhibits digestion. It can prevent overall digestion and just gut motility as well. Breakfast does not have to be complicated. You can have some Greek yogurt with fruit and some fiber source. You can have a smoothie. You could have leftovers from the night before. Forward. It doesn't have to be sweet. You can have eggs with some veggies and avocado or whatever you might wanna have. Cottage cheese can be another great thing if you wait until noon to eat. Your digestion is already behind for the day. You need breakfast to turn digestion on. Protein early in the day is really helpful. Fiber early in the day is really helpful, and we want to make sure that we are providing our body with the fuel we need to be stress resilient through the holidays and to prevent that feeling of like, I want to eat the entire cookie table. At the holiday party that night, you might think that by like saving up or skipping meals, you might help, but this actually makes things worse. So have protein at every meal. This is the simplest way to stabilize blood sugar, pair protein, and fiber together. To reduce cravings and re just reduce the burden on digestion. You can add protein to your smoothie. You can add chia seeds to add some fiber. You want to pair your carbs with protein to help stabilize blood sugar. So when your blood sugar is stable, your gut is gonna be calmer. You're gonna have less cravings, you're gonna think more clearly, and then you're not fighting your physiology all day. We also want to hydrate before we caffeinate. This is one of the harder things to do, but a dehydrated gut is an instant recipe for bloating. You can think of your stomach like a sponge, so when it's dry, it can't produce stomach acid properly. It can't help. Bring water to your bowels, coffee's gonna hit your system, and the system ramps up stress hormones. The gut is already depleted, and this is why so many people are getting bloated throughout the day. So try to drink six to eight to 12 ounces of water or a mineral drink before you drink coffee. You'll feel so much better. And then maybe think about adding in. Some type of digestive support. This is gonna be different for everybody and it's where personalization can be really helpful. You don't need a million different products or enzymes, but you need to figure out what's gonna work best for you. So that might be digestive bitters before meals or ginger tea. Warm fluids can be helpful. Certain digestive enzymes, depending on what you're having trouble digesting. So pick one thing, not five. You're not trying to micromanage every single thing. You're just giving a little bit of support here to help your body digest. One of the most empowering things that you can learn about your gut is this. When your bloating happens, usually tells us why it's happening. So your bloating isn't always random. It's information. And once you know what your timing is trying to tell you, you can support. Why it's happening and not just try to cover up the symptoms. This is honestly one of the areas where our clients feel the biggest light bulb moments because they've never been taught why they're having symptoms. So let's just talk about the four most common timing patterns, and you might be able to see if any of this resonates with you. So the first pattern would be bloating immediately after eating. Typically, this has more to do with how you're digesting food versus the food itself. So if you take a few bites or drink a little bit of water and you instantly feel pressure, heaviness, bloating, that's a sign that the food isn't being broken down at the top of your digestion. So this can happen from low stomach acid, from rushed meals, eating when you're stressed. Drinking coffee and being dehydrated. Not enough minerals. We have a client or many, many clients that can relate to this, but one client in particular, she would eat something super simple like chicken and rice, and she was like, why am I so bloated? 10 minutes after that, once we actually got her slowing down and chewing her food and supported her stomach acid through. Some targeted support, got minerals on board, all that, all of a sudden the instant bloat is gone. So again, some deep breaths before eating. Chew, chew, chew, chew your food till applesauce. Consistency. It's gonna make such a big difference. Eat sitting down. Try to just eat when you're eating and if it keeps happening, even with simple meals, that's often when we need to go a bit deeper and see what else is going on. The next pattern would be bloating, one to two hours after eating. This usually has more to do with bile or pancreatic enzyme issues if you're fine at first, but then 60 to 90 minutes later, that's when food is moving into the small intestine and enzymes and bile should be breaking things down. So this can happen with sluggish bile flow. Maybe you have stones or sludge or no gallbladder. Maybe you have not enough digestive enzymes. Maybe you have mineral imbalances, maybe you have low stomach acid as well. That's also impacting. Digestive enzyme output around the holidays. We tend to see this pattern constantly where people are grazing more, they're eating heavier meals, they're drinking more alcohol, and then suddenly they're really puffy and uncomfortable 90 minutes after eating. So supporting digestion gently can be very helpful. Adding in bitter foods trying warm tea after meals, maybe trying some targeted enzymes. Adding in some motility support or bile flow support can be helpful. This is also where markers on the GI map or some type of stool testing can be helpful because if you're stuck in this pattern, we can look at the data and know exactly why that's off. The next pattern would be end of the day bloating, where you're thinking, I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. And then I look pregnant by 5:00 PM Typically, this happens more to do with bacterial imbalances or grazing throughout the day instead of structured meals. Stress hormones are high all day, incomplete digestion, just building up over time. So we really want to space out meals. We want to look at how we can support bacteria in your gut. We want to make sure that you're getting enough potassium to help with motility. We want to make sure that your, there's not other triggers going on there. If this pattern happens to you consistently, we would want to dig deeper into your gut terrain and see what might need deeper support. And then the last pattern, although there are more, the last pattern that I'll talk about is waking uploaded. If you feel like you never have a break from your bloat, it. Often is a sign that things aren't clearing overnight, so this can happen from slow motility. Maybe this was caused by food poisoning or sluggish migrating motor complex stress or nervous system dysregulation, constipation, et cetera. So adding in more potassium can be helpful. This is like the electricity for your gut muscles or any muscle, and we wanna make sure that we're supporting motility, whether that's through ginger or other pro kinetics making sure that maybe you might need some magnesium or other minerals. When you're waking up, bloated, and this is constantly happening, this is where we want to look at not only stool testing, but also mineral testing to see why are your bowels not clearing what's going on? On a deeper level and how can we support that? So if you hear yourself in one of these patterns, that's a clue that your gut is trying to communicate something. And the beauty is that the earlier you understand your pattern, the sooner you can support it. So with our clients, we can then map out, okay, this is what your symptoms mean. This is why they're happening. This is how we're actually gonna support your gut, not just taking random things. The next thing that we often see flare more during holiday times is stickier stool. If your poop sticks like peanut butter or leaves skid marks, or you feel like you have to wipe a lot. And it's flaring this time of year. Usually it has a lot to do with what you're eating as well as like how your body is digesting fat and maybe you're having higher fat meals during this time of the year. Bile is one of the MVPs of digestion. It helps to emulsify fats so that you can absorb them. It also helps you to absorb fat soluble vitamins. So this is really interesting and critical when it comes to vitamin D. Bile also helps you clear out excess estrogen. It helps to kill off pathogens or bacteria. And then it also promotes gut motility. So the holidays will challenge bile flow because we're eating richer fattier meals. So we have a higher bile demand, more snacking, so your gallbladder and migrating motor complex can be more sluggish, more alcohol. So this can really put a strain on bile production in the liver. More stress, which will impact gallbladder contractions, less water is gonna lead to dehydration, which will affect bile. And then just more sugar is going to impact liver processing. So if that's you, we wanna make sure that we're supporting your fat digestion either by Okay, being aware of what. A level of fat. Can your body tolerate or do we need some digestive support here? You might also see nausea or floating stools or strong smelling gas after fattier meals and maybe diarrhea after meals, or maybe you have a lot of, a lot more acne or PMS around this time of year. Some just simple things that you can do would be bitters before meals. Even bitter foods like lemon or arugula or dandelion apple cider vinegar short walks can be helpful. Even just five to 10 minutes can stimulate bile to release and just get rid of that like heavy brick feeling. Warm fluids can help specific enzymes or bile support, which you definitely would want to work with somebody to figure out exactly what would work for you and. Just monitor how you're doing. If this is kind of coming out of nowhere, looking at, okay, do I need to decrease my alcohol intake? Do I need to drink more water? What's going on here? So let's talk about if you are traveling. I know travel is very common this time of year. You really don't need a suitcase full of supplements to survive holiday travel. You need a few foundational supports that you know are gonna help keep your gut more predictable no matter where you are. Travel definitely throws your system off. Even people without GI issues get affected by travel. You have different food, different schedules, maybe less water, more stress, disrupted sleep. So let's talk about some simple things that you can do if you are traveling. Number one is bringing minerals with you. So not to be repetitive from what I was talking about earlier, but bring minerals with you, whether that is a sticks of adrenal cocktail or. Potassium cocktail or other mineral support that is on the go. Even like LM t packets or whatever your favorite thing is, bring that with you. You can also make sure that you're bringing fiber with you. Fiber intake is already hard. For many people, but especially when you travel. So bring a bag of chia seeds to put on things. Bring apples or pears or dried apples or dried fruits. Bring chia bars. Bring any kind of stick pack of fiber, like regular girl or sun fiber, that's easy and on the go. And then any kind of elective stool support. And what I mean by this is, especially if you get constipated while travel. Traveling, maybe some magnesium citrate, or you might need some ginger or prokinetic support. You might need whatever you take to help empty your bowels. Another thing that I would really emphasize is avoid skipping meals, especially when you're traveling, because your routine is already off, and this can mess with your blood sugar. So make sure that you are eating meals, bringing snacks with you to help kind of bridge between meals if needed. If travel always flares your symptoms, whether you're having constipation or diarrhea or reflux, that's usually a sign that your gut is operating on a very fragile foundation. So especially if you get home from a trip and it just takes you weeks to get back on track, it might be worth digging deeper and looking at, okay, what is going on under the surface? What can I do so that I don't have to dread travel? And I can actually enjoy it. I wanna talk about testing for a moment, not from a place of like, you have to do this, but just from a place of clarity. Because when your gut feels really unpredictable or you've already tried a lot, data is one of the most grounding gifts that you can give yourself. I know this was the case for me. This is the case for so many of our clients. Testing won't help you fix everything overnight. I wanna be truthful about that, but it will help you understand why your body is having the symptoms that it's having. We can guess and just keep throwing spaghetti at the wall and see what happens, but we're not gonna get the clarity. December might seem like the worst time to complete a stool test or do a mineral test, but this is one of the best times in my opinion because if you're wanting to start something in January or you're wanting to make changes in the new year, you can start the testing now and already have the clarity. By the first week of January, this is one of the quietest times, the least pressured windows of the entire year when maybe your life slows down the week between Christmas and New Year's, and you'd have a little time to do these really easy at-home tests to help you have clarity Going into the new year, it's. Really easy to keep putting things off or think, oh, I'll just try another elimination diet, or I will try to do this supplement plan, but honestly, you need answers to why you're having symptoms. So many women reach out to me in January feeling so exhausted, so overwhelmed, trying to get back on track. And when you enter the year with clarity, you're not gonna feel that. You are gonna start January with answers instead of pressure. So we've been conditioned to think that January is just the time to overhaul everything, but nothing changes on January 1st. And I think that's one of the more empowering things to believe about this physiologically, emotionally. January can be one of the worst times to make huge changes because there's so much pressure. Everybody's doing something. Extreme restriction is everywhere. This cra, this triggers more cravings and stress and you try to do this crazy sprint. Yeah, without actually knowing what's wrong. I know, I think it's January 11th is like National Quitter's day. Um, it's like the second Friday of January or around there when they say that most people abandon their resolutions because they were never sustainable in the first place. Not because you lack willpower, but because you didn't. No, if you don't have a reason why you're doing something besides, you just think it's gonna help you not be bloated or lose weight or whatever your resolution is. It's just pressure with not actual like deep meaning. So I want you to just think back to January, 2025. So the beginning of this year, did you, now that we're in December, did you make any of the changes that you intended to? And if not, why did you feel overwhelmed? Did you not know where to start? Did you try to change everything at once? Did you burn out by February? Did you end up just cycling through the same symptoms again and again and again? This isn't for shame, it's just for insight. Patterns can be really, really powerful teachers, and if last January feels the same as now, you're not alone. Most of our clients tell us the same thing. They've tried, they've pushed, they've restricted, they still didn't get answers. The empowering truth here is that you don't need. A restrictive plan. You need clarity on why you're having symptoms. You don't need a reset. You need information. You don't need more discipline. You're probably the most disciplined person that you know. You need a plan that's going to support your physiology and not fight against it, not one that makes you feel restricted and like you wanna revolt against that. So you need a roadmap and I want to end today with just something really gentle that if you're ready for something different and if you're ready for a sustainable plan that will get you through the year and end up next holiday season, not feeling like you have to white knuckle your way through not feeling like I am in the same place. That I started the year then now is a great time to get started in one-on-one support and got together. We created an amazing bonus for the month of December knowing that it's a busy time. If you apply in December, you'll receive extra weeks inside of the program basically, so that you can use December as your month to get onboarded and get your testing done. No rushing, no pressure, no frantic timeline, just space to start the year off with clarity and with knowing that you're gonna have a plan. So that gives you time to send in your testing, get your results back, and. Really get going once the year starts. So if you've been listening today and you're thinking like, I don't want another holiday season to feel this hard, or I really wanna know why my gut feels the way that it does, no matter what I do, we would love to support you one-on-one inside of gut together. So maybe this is what you ask for for Christmas, or you have HSA funds that are expiring. You can use those for gut together, so the link to apply is in the show notes. We would love to support you. I'm happy to answer any questions that you have about gut together, and I'm wishing you a wonderful holiday season. Get excited for the next episode. I'm gonna walk through some of my. Favorite gifts and gadgets of 2025. This was a really popular episode. I think it was two years ago I did this, so I'm excited to bring this back. Just a little gift guide of things that I have loved in 2025, so get excited for that. A little bit of a different episode, but thanks for tuning in and I'll catch you on the next episode.