Ep. 95: New Year, New Gut: How to Make Sure You Find Relief in 2026

Do you feel like you’re always starting over when it comes to your gut health?

Every January (or month, Monday, etc), you might decide this will be the year you finally fix your digestion. You start strong… and then a few weeks later, everything falls apart.

In this episode, Dr. Heather explains why that happens and why it has nothing to do with willpower or discipline (you might be surprised what it is that actually holds you back!) 

This episode is a conversation about nervous system regulation, realistic expectations, and how to create gut healing that actually lasts.

If you’re tired of starting over every January (or every Monday), this episode will change how you think about consistency and gut health.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why consistency is actually a nervous system skill
• Why gut healing isn’t linear (and why that’s normal)
• How to interpret symptoms as information
• Why trying to fix everything at once backfires
• How a slower, phased approach to your gut health leads to lasting relief

Links & Resources

• Follow Dr. Heather on Instagram
• Learn more about gutTogether® programs

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Transcript

Dr. Heather Finley: 1:14

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.

2:06

Hello, and welcome back to the first episode of 2026. Happy New Year. I am really excited to record this episode and kick off the new year with a great just goal setting and intentionality episode, especially if you are looking to change your gut health this year, which is probably why you're listening to this episode. But. This might be a little bit of a different angle than you've heard before So. Let's just jump right into it. I was planning out this episode and just writing down some notes, and every January I see the same thing. People decide that it's finally the year. They're gonna fix their gut. They're motivated, they Google a plan. They've maybe already ordered supplements. They've cleaned up their pantry, they've. Thrown away all the things from the holidays, the sugar, the alcohol, the this, that and the other. They've Pinterest pinned recipes. They've decided they're starting fresh on a Monday. And then what happens is we usually have crickets the first couple weeks of January because everybody has got their plan together. They're going to do it on their own, and then a few weeks later, it quietly falls apart and. It starts getting really busy. I wrote a podcast episode a couple years ago about why February is our busiest month of the year, and that has remained true. It's one of our busiest months of the year, and I think it's exactly because of that. You come off the holidays, it's a new year, you're really excited to start something different. You know, I have all the, I have this plan. I'm gonna be super strict and rigid, and then about mid-January, everything falls apart. And it's not because you didn't care. It's not because you weren't disciplined. It's not because you didn't want it badly enough, it's because no one ever taught you how to stay consistent when nervous system is uncomfortable. So what I mean by that is when stress or GI symptoms or just life triggers a fight or flight or even freeze response, the brain deprioritizes long-term goals in favor of immediate relief. So habits like meal prepping or different morning routines, whatever. That once felt doable, suddenly feel overwhelming or impossible, and you find yourself saying, I can't, I don't have time, or that didn't work, or whatever it might be. When you understand your nervous system pattern. Things become a lot easier when you don't understand these patterns. People will blame themselves instead of adapting their plan to what their nervous system can actually tolerate, and we see this over and over again with clients. I haven't done my test yet, or I, I can't do this. I don't have enough time, or I am overwhelmed by this thing. And it's actually none of those things. It's that their nervous system can't take action because they're either in a stress pattern or they might be in a freeze pattern, which is really, really common. So we are not doing another like New year, new you episode because we know that that doesn't work. This is not an episode about a detox or a foods to cut out. This is not a rigid morning routine. That's gonna take you two hours when you don't actually have two hours. We're gonna actually go deeper than that because the reason most people don't see lasting changes in their gut or health isn't because they don't know what to do. It's because no one ever taught them how to keep going when things feel uncomfortable and. Some of this conversation might be a little bit uncomfortable, but that's not a bad thing. That discomfort is often the difference between starting over every January or every Monday or every month or whatever your pattern is, and actually moving forward. We're not talking about pushing harder, we're not talking about willpower, discipline, none of that. This is going to be an episode that teaches you actually how to change your health and how to be consistent. Consistency is not a personality trait. It's not motivation, it's not self-control. It. It is a nervous system skill. You might think, well, I'm just not as consistent as that person, or I'm not as organized as that person. These are all nervous system skills that you can learn and you can do. When your nervous system feels safe enough and routines feel doable, your digestion is working, energy will stabilize and you follow through. Without forcing yourself. When your nervous system is overwhelmed, even the right plan will feel impossible. Think about anything in your life where you're like, that was not that hard, but why could I not stay consistent with it? You couldn't stay consistent because your nervous system was stuck. That's why. You might find yourself starting, stopping, skipping meals, abandoning routines, and just feeling stuck in the cycle of starting over. So let's talk about how we can build consistency from the inside out. How to work with your nervous system instead of fighting it. And how to finally create the change that you want so that you can look back next December, looking at the whole year and looking at the consistent progress that you made all year. Not thinking you're starting over just because it's another January. So with that foundation in mind, I wanna shift to how we think about failure and follow through because most people don't stop working on their gut health. Because the goal is hard. Most people stop because what comes up inside them is hard. I want to start by just reframing a few things. You don't quit because the goal is hard. You quit because the emotion is hard. Most gut health goals sound really reasonable on paper. Honestly, nothing that we do is crazy or extreme or anything like that. Eating more regularly. Sounds easy, right? Support, digestion, taking supplements, consistently, slowing down at meals, stop reacting and freaking out about every nervous system Flare. Sounds easy, right? But you know that it's not. What happens when you're bloated again at 5:00 PM You miss a supplement. You don't go to the bathroom for five days. Your digestion feels worse before it feels better. Maybe you don't see immediate results. That's when certain emotions will show up. Some common ones are frustration, like you've been consistent for a few weeks, your bloating hasn't changed, and you start thinking, why am I even doing this? Or maybe doubt you start questioning whether this approach is really different from everything you've tried or wondering if maybe your body just. Isn't like everybody else's or overwhelm when the plan feels really simple on paper, but suddenly life gets busy. Meals feel rushed. Supplements feel like just another thing to do, and it feels like one more thing that you have to manage. Hopelessness when you've had good days before that didn't last, and it's really hard to trust that this time would be different. So this fear that this won't work either. Especially if you've invested time or energy or money or all of the above in things before, and they didn't give you the outcome that you hoped for. Here's the key part. Your nervous system's job is not to help you heal. It's to keep you safe, and that's a good thing, right? Our nervous system is to keep us safe from danger, but the problem is a lot of things get interpreted as danger that aren't actually danger. So when these emotions show up, your nervous system will step in and say things like, let's stop. This feels like too much, or let's scroll, distraction will feel better. Let's try something new. Maybe that will finally work. So you're just constantly reinventing the wheel. Or let's start, start over on Monday. It'll feel easier at that point that's protection. Your body is trying to reduce discomfort the fastest way it knows how. By either distracting you, making you quit, stop, start something new. Whatever it might be. So I want you to picture gut healing, like climbing a mountain. Most people will expect it to look like you have very steady progress, right? Like you have one step forward, you keep taking steps forward, and all of a sudden you're at the top of the mountain. You have fewer symptoms every single week. They expect like every week you're making steady progress. And I wish that that was the case, but, and that does happen sometimes for sure, but a lot of the times healing almost never looks like that. It's a step forward than a dip, a plateau, a small win, a flare, a bigger win than another stretch that feels really uncomfortable. And if you've ever read the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, it's probably my favorite. Book that I recommend to our clients. He has a visual in there that talks about this, where you make progress, you have a setback, you make progress, and then you reach the point where you get to decide whether you're gonna keep going or not. And that's usually the point where you have the biggest growth. So this can. Look like this in real life, you start supporting your digestion. Suddenly you're having daily bowel movements for the first time in years. Maybe then a week later you feel bloated again and you panic. Or maybe your energy improves and you think, okay, this is working. But then you travel, you miss a few meals, your symptoms come back or. Maybe you have diarrhea and your stools look more formed, your appetite feels better, but then your sleep gets weird for a few nights and then you go back to square one. Or maybe your gut feels calmer overall, but then one stressful week brings back cramping or gas or whatever, and you start questioning everything. That's where people tend to panic and they think, if this was the right thing, this wouldn't be happening, or maybe I need to. Have a totally different protocol. Maybe I miss something. Maybe I need to stop everything I'm doing. Maybe I need to try something completely new. Maybe this means it's not working. And of course, sometimes adjustments are needed. That's why we monitor things with our clients, of course, because if something needs to be adjusted, then we need to adjust it. But very often what's happening is the nervous system is just adjusting to change. So your body is learning that it's okay to di digest differently. It's okay to have a bowel movement every day. It's okay to not have bloating by 5:00 PM every day. And that's an uncomfortable, even though it's a positive change, it's still a change. So healing is going to ask your body to give up patterns that it's been used to for years. And even if those patterns cause symptoms, they were still familiar. Not that you want those symptoms, right? But familiar. Feel safe, maybe even to you too. It's hard to sometimes let go of the identity that you're the girl with the tummy issues, or you're the girl who can't eat that. It can be scary to let go of that identity, even if you know I don't like this. It still is familiar to you. So the dips, the plateaus, these flares, they don't mean that you're going backwards. They mean that you need to recalibrate your nervous system. While it heals. And healing is not going to be linear, like I said. So expecting it to be is one of the fastest ways to start going back down the mountain. The goal is not to never have a setback. The goal is to stop panicking when they actually happen and that this is one of the hardest mindset shifts in gut health and that symptoms are not a personal failure. They are just information, right? You travel, you get a little constipated. Okay. Hmm. Let's approach it with curiosity. How interesting. I'm traveling, I'm constipated. What can I learn from this for next time? Any symptom, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, reflux. These aren't your body being dramatic. They're just communication signals. So when someone first comes into our world, they almost always feel like their body is betraying them, or I'm the worst case you've ever seen. And the reality is. We work with a lot of very severe clients. Clients who have not had consistent bowel movements for decades. Clients who will go weeks without bowel movements. Clients who have like diarrhea every single day, multiple times a day, acid reflux where they can't get off their PPIs. We see very extreme things. And they'll say things like, I eat, well, this doesn't make sense, or I've done all the right things. Why am I still bloated, or I'm so frustrated because my labs are normal. My colonoscopy was normal. And when we really slow down and look at the full picture, what we see over and over again is that their body is not broken. We see other things that are contributing to the picture that you're not gonna catch necessarily on standard labs like colonoscopies or just standard blood work. We see a body that's been under fueled someone who's been so bloated or constipated that they're skipping meals, they're running on coffee, they're. Quote unquote, eating clean, but not enough. I don't care how clean you eat if you're not eating enough that's gonna affect you, or a body that's been overstressed. We work with a lot of Type A overachievers and it's very hard to address that pattern because it feels unsafe when you have to rest. It feels unsafe to take it slow to stop working out so hard to. Getting eight hours of sleep when you're constantly rushing from task to task or eating on the go. You're never coming fully out of fight or flight. Your body does not know how to function in a relaxed, regulated state. Or another pattern that we see is a body that's been overtreated. Someone who's just gone from practitioner to practitioner to practitioner, and they've done all the SIBO protocols, all the antimicrobial protocols, they've killed all the things in their gut. They've added tons of supplements and really done nothing else. They haven't addressed their lifestyle, they haven't addressed their nervous system. They haven't addressed their diet. So then they come to us and we're asking them to do some of these things, and it feels really scary and unsafe. Or a body that's been rushed, right? They're expected to heal on some kind of timeline, um, or even a body that's been pushed. They push constantly through workouts, deadlines, restrictions. I'll just get through it. So instead of asking. How do I get rid of symptoms as fast as possible? It's very important to ask a different question. What is the symptom asking for when someone is bloated by dinner every night, which is a common symptom that we see. The question usually isn't what food did I eat that caused this? Especially if it's happening every single day. It's, did I eat earlier enough in the day? Was I stressed while I ate? Did I support my digestion? Have I had enough fiber? Does my digestion even have the resources to do its job? When someone is constipated, despite taking fiber and magnesium, or. Probiotics, whatever it might be, we need to look at is the body depleted? Is the nervous system stuck in protection mode? Is it even safe to let go? A lot of times when we're holding onto emotions, we will see that show up from a nervous system perspective as constipation. When reflux shows up, we can look beyond trigger foods and ask, is there enough stomach acid? Is there pressure from stress? Is digestion being rushed? And often the answers will point to the same needs. Their body needs more support. They need more consistency. They need more regulation, they need more nourishment. And this is why doing everything at once almost always backfires because. You can't just pile on supplements or routines or dietary changes and expect that everything's gonna change if the nervous system doesn't feel supported as well. Because all of these things, although maybe positive, are threats, and when your nervous system feels threatened, symptoms won't calm down. They'll get louder. So we can't heal by forcing. We have to listen and give your body, give our bodies what it's been asking for all along. So this is the point you're probably thinking, oh geez, this sounds like a lot of work. It's not. This is where I want to explain something really important. Most people come into gut healing thinking, I'll just fix everything. I'll feel better fast. So they try everything at once. You know, they overhaul their diet. Maybe that's what you're doing right now. You cut out gluten and dairy and sugar and coffee and alcohol and snacks and all the things. Then you add in a ton of supplements, enzymes, probiotics, binders, motility agents, and then you don't know which one is helping, and then you decide, okay, I also need to fix my sleep. I need to start waking up earlier. I need to add a nighttime routine and tracking everything. You change your workouts. You try to manage stress, you then wanna address hormones and fix iron and all these things on paper. This looks like a lot because it is a lot, even as I'm saying all this out loud, like you can't change all of that at once. Your nervous system is interpreting this as too much danger. So every change, even if it's good, is still change. So we need to do this very, very strategically and not overload the body. This is why our work with clients is structured in phases because healing works best when a body can adapt to one layer of change at a time. This is why before ever addressing testing, we're gonna make sure the foundations are in place. I had a conversation with someone. Um, earlier this year, and she's like, I know, but I, I need to do the foundations, but I just wanna address what's on my GI map. And I'm like, we can't because there's all these foundations, blood, sugar, and sleep and all these things that if those aren't in. In place then it doesn't matter what protocol we're gonna do, we need to stabilize things. And so that's really what we want to reasonably expect is the first phase is just stabilization. How do we get things to be more stable, our blood sugar, our sleep, our patterns, our digestion, our constipation, or the opposite? This is where your body can start to just feel safe with a little bit of consistency. Then that next phase is about consistency and also capacity. You're not necessarily symptom free, but you're tolerating food better. Your energy's a little steadier. Your body is not overreacting to every stressor, and then later phases is where the deep repair often happens, and you start noticing those big symptom shifts. You'll stop feeling like you're constantly managing symptoms. This is why program length really matters and why it's really hard to make changes if you're just doing a session. This is why we don't sell one-off sessions because I know that it is a nervous system stress to tell you everything that you need to do over the next couple months, in one hour. It's not fair to you or your nervous system to give you all of that, because realistically, you're not gonna be able to change all of that. You need follow up. You need, your nervous system needs accountability and healing needs to be strategic. because your nervous system also needs time to learn safety with all the things eating regularly, your digestion working differently. The safety of just letting go instead of holding on. so not necessarily always about doing more, just doing things in the right order and long enough for your body to trust the process. So this is where testing can be incredibly helpful, not because you need all these tests, not because one test is just magic, but because clarity also reduces nervous system load. Think about how many times maybe you have Googled what to eat for IBS or. What foods improve constipation or how to eat for diarrhea, or what foods to avoid for reflux, and you Google it and then every blog you read tells you something different. That is so overwhelming. Plus, if we know that food is not the issue and it's more your gut, that's the issue. When you don't have data, everything feels urgent, and you feel overwhelmed. So every symptom feels like it has to be fixed. Right now, every flare is more proof that something's wrong, and every recommendation maybe feels like something that you should just do just in case. So you're guessing, you're reacting, you're adding in all these things, and then that constant urgency is what keeps your nervous system on high alert. So testing will help us to slow everything down by answering some questions. What actually needs attention right now? What can wait? What is not the priority? And so what that can look like in real life is, for example, when we run a stool test like a GI Map. We're not just looking for like what bugs we need to kill. We're looking at digestion and inflammation and immune markers and how the microbiome is functioning as a whole. And if that test shows that your gut's on fire because there's tons of inflammation or there's tons of just imbalances, we're not gonna just go in with antimicrobials or antibiotics and kill everything because your gut's not ready for it. Um, the GI map might show something like low digestive capacity, things like low elastase, or signs that your food isn't being broken down. Well, when we see that, we're not gonna just jump straight into adding in tons more fiber. Your gut isn't ready yet. So inflammation markers might be high. That can tell us that your gut needs calming and support before we push anything aggressive. Another example would be when we look at HTMA or hair tissue mineral analysis, we're getting a longer term view of your mineral patterns and nervous system stress. So if minerals are depleted or ratios are off, the body is often not going to respond well to protocols, even the right ones. So your motility will be sluggish, your energy is going to not rebound. Your hormones will feel stuck. And in that situation, the work isn't about doing more. It's about rebuilding capacity so that your body can actually respond. And one thing that I. Emphasize a lot to our team and our clients is you can also, on the other side of the coin, you can do all the nervous system regulation in the world, but if your body is depleted, it is very hard for your nervous system to actually buffer stress. Because one of the ways, and many of the ways that we buffer stress is through minerals. You deplete a lot of minerals when you're stressed, and so. If your minerals are depleted or imbalanced, stress is also gonna feel even more overwhelming. That email or that uncomfortable situation at work is gonna feel even worse if your minerals are depleted. So you have to address it from both ends. You can't just do nervous system regulation if your body is also depleted. It's very, very hard to achieve that goal, which is why we work on both. So we're not necessarily trying to just like breathe our way through or anything like that. It's how do we support the body from a foundational nutrition standpoint as well as giving really simple, easy tools. This is why we have nervous system coaching built into our program to help our clients identify patterns, to help our clients identify where they are, where they're stuck, what beliefs or limiting beliefs are coming up. Up and get through them. It tells us if we see on testing that there's a lot of depletion or imbalances, it can also show us just that the nervous system is fried. And that can also just be physical evidence or just something to look at that shows us okay. Your body has been in a really stressed out state for a long time. And sometimes good motivation for our clients too. So that's really what testing gives us is a map. It shows us where to start, what we can support first, what to leave alone for now. Because you don't need to do everything. And then when you have a map of here's what's going on, here's what I need to do, and you have a practitioner guiding you along the way, you don't need to rush. You can move slowly, intentionally, confidently through. Not reacting to every symptom, you can focus on one layer at a time. That's why our work is not one session or 30 days. It's why it's not a quick fix. I will never sell a quick fix. Uh, why We don't do everything at once, because healing doesn't happen. By forcing everything, it happens when the body feels safe enough to change. So people sometimes will ask like, well, how long is this gonna take? Or, and that's a super fair question, especially if you've been marketed with like 14 day. Gut health reset or a 30 day detox or quick fix, that's so appealing, right? But the honest answer is when you're just trying to cover up symptoms and doing something like that, you're not rebuilding trust with your body. And that's why you feel like you're constantly starting over and trust will take time. So when people come to us after years of gut healing, they have been ignoring their hunger cues, pushing through fatigue, rushing meals, overriding stress signals. I know this was something that I. Still have to work on and really had to work on in the past was like not always being on the go, starting and stopping protocols or just trying random things. So your body may have learned to just stay on guard. And when we start this work, we're not just asking the gut to function differently. We're trying to ask the whole system to soften so that you can build consistency. Not necessarily the kind that comes from willpower, but the kind that comes from routines and consistency that you can actually tolerate. We're expanding your nervous system capacity so that a little symptom or stress doesn't immediately shut digestion down, or that a missed meal or busy week doesn't completely derail your progress or a trip you can get right back on track. We're teaching the body that it is safe to digest, to rest, to eliminate, to eat, to heal. All the things, and what that might look like in real life is in the beginning, someone might still have symptoms, but they're less chaotic. You know, you might still see bloating show up, but it's predictable. Or maybe bowel movements might not be perfect, but they're more regular. Or you notice, okay, I notice I'm getting bloated less, but at these times and I know how to get back on track. This, that phase matters because you're learning too. You're learning how you can get yourself back to that relief that you want. And you're learning, okay, this is different. You know, the body is learning too. And then over time that consistency starts to feel easier. Meals don't feel like a chore. Supplements don't feel overwhelming. Stress doesn't immediately spiral into symptoms. And then the deeper changes start to stick where your motility improves. So you're having daily bowel movements, your digestion becomes more resilient. You're not constantly getting food poisoning or. Bloated after every meal, your hormones respond, your cycle regulates. Because we're eliminating hormones through our stool, our sleep gets better. Our nervous system stops overreacting. And then if that happened in two weeks, it probably wouldn't last, right? Because quick changes that come from pressure usually disappear as soon as life gets busy again. The goal is not to feel better for a moment. I think you have tried that before. It's not to just have one good week and then slide backward. The goal is to actually stay better, especially when life gets crazy. To have a gut that can handle real life, to trust your body again, to stop starting over. So as we head into the new year, I wanna leave you with this. You don't need more willpower. You don't need. Another perfect plan. You don't need to fix everything at once. What you actually need is much simpler. You need one focus, not 10. One area where you're willing to show up consistently. You need one small repeatable action, something that feels doable even on your hardest days. Not a big overhaul, not a, not a reset, just one thing that you can say yes to, and you need a nervous system that feels supported enough to stay in the process and stop starting over, even when progress is slow, when symptoms fluctuate, when life gets busy, and when you can be consistent. So when you know what actually matters, when you know what you're doing and why you're doing it, you can stop starting over every Monday or every month or January. And if you're listening to this thinking, I'm tired of guessing, I'm tired of rushing, I'm tired of everything, uh, not working, you're not alone. In our programs, this is exactly what we help people do. We slow down the process. We bring clarity through testing and structure. We build consistency in a way that your nervous system can tolerate. We are able to help you support your nervous system by teaching you those tools and we support you through the messy middle, uh, where most people quit. We'll tell you when to keep pushing through or when we need to change things so that you can stop micromanaging it. It's not about having the perfect plan. Like I said, it's about staying in the work long enough for it to actually change something. So this year is not about a new you, it's about a new approach and a new support for your body. A steadier approach, calmer nervous system. And a gut that can handle real life. That's what you want, right? So this time we're gonna do it differently. I would love to hear any questions that you have after this episode, send me a DM on Instagram. And don't forget that if you leave a five star review and you screenshot it and you send it to our support email, which I'll put in the show notes, we pick an HTMA winner every month. Just for leaving a five star rating and review. So I hope this was helpful. Maybe a little different approach to goal setting or just your gut health plan, uh, that you've, than you've had in the past. But I'll see you next week on the next episode of the Love Up Podcast. Thanks for jumping in.