Good everyone, it's Sam here. We've all heard the expression trust your gut, but what does that mean when our gut's trying to tell us something but we can't understand what it is. Well, today we're going to find out. So if you've been experiencing any kind of bloating or gut health issues, we're going to get into it today with an absolute expert in that area, so make sure
you stick around for that. But before we do that, I just want to tell you a little story about why I love my wife so much, because a few weeks ago it was Mother's Day and I forgot to tell you this story. So I'm going back a few weeks now. But I totally stuffed up Mother's Day and I asked, there is what she wanted for Mother's Day lunch and she said Greek food. I said, sure, let's do that. So on the Tuesday before Mother's Day, I googled best Greek restaurants that were around where we live.
But one of them was sort of got four point four stars on the Google ratings and was quite so I rang up and I said, hi, I just wanted to book in for six people one high chair for Mother's Day lunch, and the lady said, oh, let me just check, and I assumed she was checking to see if they had a table free, because Mother's Day lunch and assuming can be really busy. Anyway, she went away, spoke to someone, came back said, yep, absolutely, we can do that. We'll see at one o'clock on Mother's Day.
And we have to take two cars whenever we go out as a family because there's now six of us, so hopefully got on Mother's Day. We piled into the car, we got all dressed up in our Sunday best and we went off for Mother's Day lunch. And I pulled up first, and my heart just absolutely sunk because when I pulled up, what I thought was a nice Greek
restaurant was actually a TAKEAWAYSI Laki shop. I was like no, And literally, as I was about to call Snares and try and come up with a plan B, she rocked up with the car load, and so I sort of ran down to the camera. I've stuffed up. I thought it was a thought it was a restaurant, and it's not a restaurant, you know. They just literally they had one little table on the footpath that they'd probably put out there just for us, and the rest was like a takeaway silvlaki day. And I was like, oh god,
how embarrassing. And it was on at main streets. Everyone could see you sitting out the front and my beautiful wife, and this is why I love He was like, nah, this would be fun. Couldn't care less. So the six of us, all dressed up girls with their pretty little dressed in airing, sat there and you know, this guy's like, oh, how good's this got? This family of six coming in.
We don't even really do dine in, but he, you know, put on a put on a big sort of spread for us, for these meats and cheeses and pitters and sozeki. It was, and it was lovely. It was very nicely cooked food, but it was definitely not a restaurant. And I quickly realized the reason they were going away to see if they could do that was they've never done
a dining customer in their entire existence. I just love Snairs because she's so down to earth, doesn't give a crap about any of that stuff, and wasn't offended, didn't think it mattered. There was more that we were just sitting there together and there's a little story I wanted to tell you all because I was incredibly embarrassed, but
she was just a legend about it. Anyway, It's now time to meet the incredible gut health expert Rachel Larson, and then I'm going to give you some very simple tips that we can absolutely all do to help you sleep better. That's next on the wood Life. Were joined in the studio with the absolutely lovely, holistic gut health expert, nutritionists and natural path Rachel Larson. Welcome to the wood Life.
I am so excited to be here, Sam, thanks for having me.
So let's start with bloating. How do we get bloated? What is it?
Yep?
And then most importantly, how do we avoid it?
I guess So that is a huge question to answer.
So there's our forty five minutes right there. One question. I'm done. I've asked one.
Question, but nothing. Yeah, we've used up all the time. I'm going to try and put it in a way where it feels, I guess easier to imagine or visualize. And I'm just going to use an iceberg as a I guess something for people to picture. Sure, So think about bloating being the very top symptom, the very I guess the last thing or the first thing people see.
That's what you see out of the watery, Yeah, the belt.
And maybe you know, third of the way down the iceberg it hits the water, and at that point you might get a diagnosis like celiac disease, climatory bow disease, or ce BOW which is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth. You might get a diagnosis. At that point you think, Okay, well that's what's causing my bloating. But if you actually look underneath the water, you've got two thirds of the iceberg left, You've got all of these actual causes of bloating.
And that's where we look at things like stressed out nervous system. We can look at different dietary choices, genetics, different issues with motility, medications potentially having different adhesions, and things from surgery. There is a huge list of things that can cause the I guess bloating, but can cause the issues that we then identify which is causing bloating. If that makes sense.
Sure, So glad you mentioned such a variety because foods where I mean, maybe it's just the space I live in, but when I speak to people and they're frustrated and they're bloating. It's almost always in their mind at least, and it's because of certain foods that are meeting in my body not reacting well to certain foods. Yeah, but I think bringing up all those other reasons is really important for people to get their head.
And food is obviously it's a space that I work in a lot as well, But I think it's important to discern, I guess, the difference between what's causing their bloating and what's triggering their bloating. You know, cause being if we take that out, the bloating's gone for good forever, like that is the answer to that. Whereas food being a trigger is that there is an issue in the body that when it's in the presence of a certain food or food groups or multiple foods, that then triggers
a sequence of events that causes bloating. So I want to challenge people's thinking about food if it is a cause or if it's a trigger, and for the majority of people it's going to be a trigger. There's a few issues that people would have, such a celiac disease, where yes, in fact, you know, gluten is something that
you're going to be pulling out forever. But for the rest of us that have bloating, I challenge that it's actually food being a trigger and that the real cause is something else that they haven't quite explored yet.
It's a really interesting way to position it, isn't it, Because from my experience, which is limited in this very specific space, but a lot of people jump to gluten free as the sole solution I have been looking for, or the soul it's going to fix everything, that it's going to fix everything.
And I think there's different aspects to gluten or maybe we could broaden this I guess conversation to wheat and those type of products, because you know, gluten is found in wheat, but it's also found in different forms in rye and different types of other grains, and so I think we vilify gluten, but perhaps it's another quality to those type of grains that are causing issues as well. Like you can certainly have Celiac disease, which we can get tested for and can be I guess, an easy
explanation for their symptoms. But for some people it's non celiac gluten sensitivity. For other people it could actually be a fermentable part of those grains like rye or wheat that's causing other issues. So it's not maybe necessarily the gluten, but it's other properties that are in those grains that are causing issues, and you know, along the line will
be causing bloating for them. So yeah, it's a quick one that people can pull out because I think there's so much conversation about it, and there's you know, if you go to this soop market, you can buy all these things at a gluten free so it's an easy swap to make. But I don't think it's the whole picture. For some people.
It makes a lot of sense to me, so we're not necessarily going to be able to allow our listeners to self diagnose at the end of our thirty minute chat. That's sort of what I'm gleaning from this. What is the process then that you go down when you're seeing your clients to work through all of those potential symptoms to find out what the deepest cause is.
So sure look can be really quite in depth, and you know, I think that's it. It is important to understand that because it adjusts expectations about you know, what to expect from healing your bloats. It can be a long, long journey for some people. But I start off with really needing to understand someone's history. What was your history as a child? Did you have a lactose intolerance? Then? Have you had food poisoning, gastri how many doses of antibiotics?
All these I guess assaults, all these incidences that are happening in their gut. But not only that. Are you a stressed person? Are you know, are you anxious you Have you gone through something really traumatic? Or is there a point in your life where you've never been well since and what happened around that point or leading up
to that. So there's a huge history I need to gather from people, and that I guess through my experience, I can start to narrow down it sounds like a digestive ends I missue or you know, it sounds like a nervous system dysfunction issue. But ultimately I also need to do testing to understand this, and testing is it's
not all testing is the same. And I think for a lot of people that experience bloating, testing is one of these points of annoyance because for a lot of them, all the tests have come back normal where they're told everything looks good. I guess this is just who you are.
That happened to my little girl. She's very frustrated by it, but she knows there's something going on with the tummy, certain foods or certain things that are happening to me, and we have really only headed down the food paths. Get her to come and set you but for sure, okay, I mean that sincerely. It's really frustrating her, and she's also at that age where she feels like she's difficult. We're going at the dinner and I know we'll eat those foods or we'll order those foods in group with
my friends, and I don't want to do that. And you know, like weird things like watermelon triggers her, like weird, we like things that you think would be just a healthy, good option. So little foods that sort of out of nowhere triggered her.
And I totally understand that a gutt issue can often come from a nervous system but then cause nervous system issues because food is such an integral part of how we socialize and interact with people, and it's joy for us. But not only that, it's literally how we sustain our life. So every day, three to five times a day, you are looking at what you're about to consume with complete fear, thinking what's this going to do to me?
Typically? How long does it take to work with a client? I mean how long do you start to see some change? How long? Because it's not a clickif thing and now you're fine and you can go back to eating any of these foods? About it triggered you before? Is it? No?
And I wish, like I wish I was a witch and could do that in my naturopathic space. Unfortunately, I'm just a human with these skills. Is to look at it holistically, and even you know, with my skills, we have to appreciate what's happened to the body and how long the body takes to heal. So I guess just to paint out a very rough time frame for people, I like to have quick wins with people within the
first couple of weeks and months. I'm really putting in what I would describe as like symptimonally band aid reliefs. And I claim that, like you know, I don't think we should stop there, but they're so important to put it initially because these people need to have some sort of win in their body, and so that might involve certain supplements to support digestion. It might include maybe some sort of loaf fodmap diet, which brings me back to your comment on watermelon is a high fodmap food, so
very prone to bloating for people. But taking out a lot of those trigger foods, I would say, look, let's do this for four to six eight weeks, and then as we start to address the underlying causes, we start to introduce those foods to your tolerance as quickly as we can. And I'm feeling like people reach this place of stability where they might be like seventy percent on
their journey within about six months. And that means that, look, you still might not be able to eat without consciously thinking about food, but there are certainly there's a lot less anxiety, and there's a lot more options available to you. It's just we probably need longer for that remaining thirty percent to really take change. And that's certainly not for everybody.
I've got patients that are a lot longer and a lot shorter, because what determines I guess how long that is is what's happened like, what is the root cause?
I do think that term stability is interesting. So ultimately you're searching for what you coin gut stability, as in, you'll be able to reintroduce most foods, if not all foods, and you won't be back to square one, you won't have the same reaction.
Yeah, I feel like a lot of people when they're getting bloated, they're like, I'm gonna clean up my diet. I'm gonna eat more vegetarian, I'm gonna have a lot more veggies. And the kick in the gut, snow Pine intended is that these foods are high in a group of fibers called fod maps, and they are prime for menable products. Like so it feels like people are really confused because they're like, I'm eating healthier, Why am I
feeling more bloated? So to get people eating back those foods is important because eating a healthy, fiber high fodmap diet wasn't the cause in the first place. It's just that's what the trigger is.
So can we talk about that What is happening in the gut when we get bloated.
It's a combination of things. So bloating is either you're full of gas or fluid. Now when I'm talking gut stuff, it's mostly gas. Fluid could be from inflammation, you know, in those type of things where I mean, if anyone's had a big weekend or eaten too much bad stuff, they're like, I feel inflamed and puffy and bloated. That's
more like a fluid picture. But in the gut when we're talking about gas production, typically there's a lot of fermentation there, So fermentation being from a bacterial or fungal imbalance in the gut. And what they do is if they eat these healthy foods and through their natural metabolism,
gas becomes, you know, created as a byproduct. But lay it on that we could have issues with enzyme reduction, so you might have a leaky gut, which is where a lot of our enzymes live that break down some of these foods, so you might have insufficient levels of those which then create a malabsorption of certain foods. You might also be constipated, and imagine having all of this junk stuck in you, basically corking you up and not
letting anything through. Like you're going to feel pretty bloated to that you.
Can sort of understand why people put up with it for a long time without actually doing anything about it. You know, no one really wants to talk about who. No one really wants to say that they're gassy. No, you know, like it's not a.
Nice sexy stuff.
No it's not. It's definitely not sexy. Out of curiosity, what percentage of people that come and see you a female?
I'd probably say ninety percent of my patients are women. I've been and seen enough guys that I know have gut issues, but they describe it as I just don't feel right. You know, they don't use the word blow. They say I don't feel right, or maybe I just need to oh too many beers, you know, that kind of thing, Like they'll play it off for something else.
Or they're scared that the diagnosis means that they're going to cut down on those fears, and they're not necessarily prepared to head down that path.
Exactly.
So, how much of a factory is alcohol?
Look, there's very little redeeming qualities to alcohol when it comes to gut health.
I probably very little redeeming quality is full stop. We're learning show quickly apart from fun, but exactly, Yeah, once the fund's finished. There's not a whole lot of good that happens yet.
And like you know, I certainly like I drink a bit of alcohol. I still drink coffee. Like I feel like I'm such a realist where I'm like, we're not here to be perfect on this planet. But in terms of what it can do to the gut, it's highly inflammatory. It's certainly depending on the type of alcohol you have. It can also contain different things that the body ferments. It causes leaky gut, It really changes your stomach, so people can often experience reflux and those type of things.
There's not a lot of good stuff happening when it comes to alcohol. But that doesn't mean that your forever looks like an alcohol free life. I think it just we need to be really conscious and you know, personally responsible about maybe the types of alcohol we have, how much we have and when we have it. In now healing journey, yeah.
I love that. I mean, you've got to have a realistic approach to these things. So it's just going to scare people off and they're never going to take positive steps. Bloating can't be a new thing. Why do you think it is that we're only just here or we're hearing that it's so much.
I think it's probably a combination of things. I certainly feel like the environment that we're living in as humans, it's probably not as conducive to health as it was years and years ago, in that there's more stress. I mean, that's such a weird I mean, is there. I mean I feel like I feel like we're talking about it a bit more so. Perhaps there always has been, but that gets acknowledged. So I feel like there's more stress. There's a faster paced environment, which maybe is feeding that stress.
Perhaps. I think they're definitely I don't think that's a rash all medications.
I think, you know, having like things like nexium that are really easily liches, a proton pump inhibitor for people that have refluxes, like given out like candy, which again, what are we actually like, what are we doing? You know, is that actually treating it or is it masking something? Potentially?
Food quality so obviously like in Australia, we've got wonderful fruit and vegetables here, but there's all the other stuff that we're potentially having access to as well, like the package stuff, the fast food those type of things are the different medications, not nexium for example, but how quickly are we prescribing antibiotics, even things like the oral contraceptive pill.
They've got different links with different gut conditions. And that's not to be anti medication, like you know, there's a place for everything. It's just questioning when and why things are used. There's lots of different reasons. There's also things which is a completely other topic, like mold illness, so the quality of our houses and things like that, you know, flood affected areas, those type of things, they can really
affect someone's health and their gut as well. So there's a mood of issues that are maybe increasing, which is potentially increasing our bloating. I would also say our gut health is in some ways going downhill because we live in a society where we're eating the same foods. Like how often do you go to the supermarket and you pick the same eight vegetables and that's all you eat, and you've got like your meal plans and you just kind of stick to those where we're not having variety anymore,
which is a huge disservice to our gut. But also how we are super clean you know, society where we're constantly you know, spray and wiping things, and that also is a detriment to our gut health because you know, those who's getting picking up bacteria from different places, from pets, from dogs, from other people having not a super sterile environment, that's important as well. So there's like it's a massive, massive conversation.
Yeah, so many factors in terms like microbiome, you know, like that. Even even in the life of twenty eight my own line program, I don't think we really answered questions on that throughout twenty eight ers in the first few years and then and it's coming from them, they're becoming more educated, more interested. I do feel like we're waking up to it's not just about what you see on the surface, you know, like a healthy gut is
not a six pack. A healthy gud is what's actually on the inside and working its way out.
Absolutely, And the gut health presents itself in ways other than bloating as well. If you've got issues with chronic iron or B twelve deficiencies, if you've got any autoimmune condition, skin issues, all of those things have connections to the gut.
And it is because I always think of the gut as like the trunk of the tree, and then there's the branches that come off that, which are the different systems and is of their body, but they all have a connection back to the gut because the gut has so many functions, and you cannot live without your gut.
I mean, you can't live without any part of your body, but you can't live without eating food, which is ultimately a gut based process, and that's kind of what fuels everything else that happens in your system.
But almost, you know, we always just think it's all about our bones and our muscles and our heart, which of course it is, and I'm not saying that three of them and that I have those very important, but the guts almost in parallel with us having this awakening about our brain, like our mental health, I guess the last thing. And this is hard because I understand the
process that you going to go through. But for our listeners that are sitting there wondering if they have gut health issues, are there simple tests that you can do yourself, Like what I don't want to head down this path, but I'm going to diagnosing your pooh.
Asking how someone's pool is just as you know, I don't bettery. It's like asking someone how they are housy day.
So I look at my kids pooh yep.
Now got to look at your own.
Yeah no, I know, but like it's weird as a dad if they're a bit off.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's almost a subconscious thing that I do now automatically. But I don't do that on my own.
You know, that's your homework.
There you go, what do we want to be seeing? What do we not want to be seeing? And what what means what cool?
So for poo, I really just encourage people to google the Bristol stool chart Bristol stool Chat. It's b R I S t O L Bristol and it's a really good you know seven type as the spectrumcha. That's just I guess one easy way to be like, where do I sit on this scale?
Now?
Number three four is where you want to be healthy in the middle, and number one is too constipated where you've got those rabbit pellets and those type of things, and number seven would be no formation basically liquidy. So I think from a formation perspective, the Bristol stool Chat's a great place to look.
That's fantastic.
Other qualities that you can look for is you do want it to be like a dark brown. You want it to look like Cadbury chocolate, you know that type.
Of thing, the colors they're sponsored by.
Actually, but yeah, the color means something. So if it's really green, it might have been that the transit time was too quick and you know all the broccoli and the spinaches come through really quickly. If it's If it's black, it can be that there's internal bleeding or you're taking an iron supplement. If it's like orange or yellow, it could be an issue to do with like bile and your liver. And if it's things like floating, that can also be a fat melal absort, like your Pooh tells
you so much. Which is why I'm saying to people like color form, smell like, go go go, like I want to know red flags. I should say to people if you do see blood in your stool, you got to get it checked out. It could be something just like a little tear, but it could be something serious and you don't want to play it in case it is. Mucus can be a sign of inflammation. Undigested food particles mean that there's probably some sort of digestive enzyme or
acid issue. So there is just a few things that the pool can tell you. So if you're not looking at your.
Pooh, you got to what else outside of the PA word should we be looking at.
If you eat food and you get any symptom around it. So if you feel a sense of indigestion it makes you feel too full or sluggish and slow, or if you get uncomfortable, if you can't you know, wear jeans by the end of the day, or if you're feeling a bit tender in parts. That's all gut like a help from overeating.
It's from it's from. Yeah, it was a normal portion, but that particular food triggered this particular response.
If you're eating a standard diet of what you would consider normal food of a normal quantity, and if you're getting any digestive symptom, that's a problem. Like you really you shouldn't feel your digestive system as you like, kind of like you shouldn't feel your heart, you know, it should just kind of moves. You should obviously be paying
attention to your gut in terms of hunger. You know cues like you know, all fullness cues, but you shouldn't having to be experiencing any pain or discomfort or even outside of food, if you're waking up feeling bloated, or if you're feeling nauseous for no reason, like they're all kind of I mean, they can be other causes for that, but they can also be digestive based as well. Don't feel like it is this all right, well this is
now my forever. There are many holistic ways that we can manage this that are sustainable.
It's a lovely thing to tell people in case they are really worried about it, because it it does have a bit of a doom and gloom reputation. This impacts far more people than perhaps we realize, and so often those people don't know what path they go down or
where to turn. I just thought, with the rising awareness around gut health, which is a really good thing, if we could have a bit of a chat and you could just help people to understand themselves a bit more, and then if it was something that they were being impacted by, where to turn. And you've absolutely done that, So thanks so much for joining us.
I know pleasure to be here, and I'm all about giving people just that little slither of hope that they can overcome their bloat and they gut health end they can live a healthy, happy life.
I'll also put that Bristol stool chart Bristol stool Chat in the inner link in the show notes, so that if you are looking to do a bit of self diagnosis, you can do that. We're going to go from bloating to stretching, because I am going to help you with some stretches that are can give you a better night sleep.
So we've spoken on the wood Life many a time about how much sleep we need to get, and you know, I've spoken about wanting to get that seven hours eight hours if you can, but with four kids, I'm shooting for seven. But it's not just quantity of sleep, it's also quality of sleep. So it just made me think about giving you all some really simple, practical stretches that I believe will help with your quality of sleep. I also believe it will help with the way you wake
up the next day. It's sort of twofold. You definitely sleep better, but then in turn, you wake up and you're already moving better, feeling better by the way that you wake up. So I like to do these four. I like to do knee to chest where I simply lie on the floor. I tend to do them on the floor next to my bed, either on a mat or just on the rug or whatever it is, rather than on the mattress. The mattress is nice, but you tend to sink into them, perhaps a bit too much.
So I bring my knee right up to my chest and I just pull it in as close to my chest as I can. I hold it for sort of three to five seconds, gently rock it from side to side a little bit, and I get a bit of lateral movement there if I just pull it across to my opposite shoulder and then outside my shoulder, and I'll do that the same on both legs, you know, three
or four times, so that's knee to chest. Then still in the lying on my back position, I'll do a spinal twist, and again you can do both knees at once as long as your shoulder blades stay on the floor. So I'll open my chest up by putting my arms right out by my side, and I'll let my knees gently roll to the floor on one side and on the other, on one and on the other, trying to
keep my shoulders in contact with the floor. Then I do a nice relaxing one where I put my feet against the wall and I get my bum in as close to the wall as I can and I just let it's a great HEMI stretch, but it's also just nice to get all the blood flow coming back to your heart, coming back to your head, and it's a really nice way to sort of just do some gentle breathing exercise. Us you close my eyes, breathe in through my nose, breathe that through my mouth, and I'll stay
in that position for about sixty seconds. This is a stretch that I love doing at the end of a really hard running or cardio workout because all of the blood rushes to your extremities. If you just rock your legs from side to side while lying on your back and let all that blood flow come back up the body, it just feels really, really nice. And then the last one that I've just been adding is I've found my
hips are getting really tight. And then I think, when I sleep, going into my spoon position with sneeze or whatever it is, I must tuck my hips under and I find if I open the map I sleep better. I sleep in a straighter sort of line. So this one I do on the bed, but I'll put my feet on the end of the bed and I'll just let my hips sink right down. And if I want to increase the intensity of the stretch, I will lift my arms up above my head, but I lift those
fingers up. I sink into the stretch while I breathe. Breathings really important. You should exhale as you go deep into the street. And I'll hold that for thirty seconds on each side. And I just thought I want to just share this with you, not for everyone, but if you're finding that you're waking up a bit stiff, you're waking up a bit sore, you're looking for little one percent of ways to improve the quality of your sleep. I couldn't recommend doing these four stretches more highly. Give
those four stretches a try. I'd love to hear your feedback and any other tips that you've got with me that you'd like to share about improving the quality of sleep, anything that you've been any little hacks that you've been given, or little things that you worked out for yourself. I'd love for you to share with me and I can share them with the rest of our wood Life listeners. I love hearing from you guys. There's a link in the show notes where you can do that. Have a
wonderful week, he's to do. A good week's sleep.