Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Marianna Moore on Gut Health, Bloating, Gut-Brain Connection, and More

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

One weird trick to improve your gut health, reduce bloating, and improve digestion? Listen to this podcast interview. That’s the trick. That’s because in it, I interview Marianna Moore, who offers practical tips on how to really influence your gut health. Hint: it’s not greens powders or supplements. The truth is gut health is a lot more complicated than many people (especially on social media) would have you believe, but in this podcast, you’ll learn things you can implement in your own life right away. In case you’re not familiar with Marianna, she has a Masters in nutrition (and focused on gut health during her education), and regularly posts healthy recipes and realistic meal prepping tips on instagram, as well as educational fitness and gut health content on TikTok. She’s also the co-host of the Fitness Stuff Podcast, along with Tony Coffey, who I also recently had on the show. In this interview, Marianna and I discuss . . . - How to determine if you have poor gut health - “Good” versus “bad” bacteria in your gut and why they matter - Different types of fiber, why it’s beneficial, and how much of it you should eat - The importance of a diverse diet and how to actually implement one - The role of stress in digestion - The gut-brain connection, the influence of the gut on mental health, the enteric nervous system, and why the gut is sometimes called the “second brain” - Considerations for when to seek out a prebiotic supplement, and the utility of probiotics and greens supplements - And more . . . So, if you’re interested in learning about gut health and getting advice on the best ways to effectively improve it, listen to this podcast and let me know your thoughts! Timestamps (0:00) - Please leave a review of the show wherever you listen to podcasts and make sure to subscribe! (6:24) - What is gut health? What are indications of good or poor gut health? (8:37) - What is good and bad bacteria? (13:19) - What are your thoughts on supplements for bloating? (20:40) - What are the common reasons healthy people get bloated and what can they do about it? (33:47) - What is the difference between soluble and insoluble fiber? (36:10) - Want 125 quick, easy, and delicious “fitness friendly” recipes? Get The Shredded Chef: https://legionathletics.com/products/books/the-shredded-chef/ (39:22) - What is the connection between gut health and mental health? (58:05) - What are some specific tips for improving gut health? (1:03:18) - What are your thoughts on fermented food? (1:05:50) - Where can we find you and your work? Mentioned on the Show: Want 125 quick, easy, and delicious “fitness friendly” recipes? Get The Shredded Chef: https://legionathletics.com/products/books/the-shredded-chef/ Marianna’s Podcast Fitness Stuff (For Normal People): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fitness-stuff-for-normal-people/id1627638588 Marianna’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mariannas_pantry/?hl=en Marianna’s TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mariannas_pantry?lang=en

Hello, I'm Mike Matthews and this is Muscle for Life. Thank you for joining me today to learn about gut health and how it relates to bloating, which is what many people think of when they hear gut health. They immediately think of, if I'm bloated, I have bad gut health. If I'm not bloated, I have good gut health. And as you will learn in this episode, it is not that simple. You're also going to learn about the gut brain connection. You have probably heard at least a little bit about that, that what goes on in our gut affects our brain and vice versa. And that's true, but you might not know just how true that is and how many different ways our gut affects our brain and our brain affects our gut and how all of that affects our mental health and mental well-being. And in this episode,

you are not going to be hearing much from me. Instead, you're going to be hearing from my guest, Mariana Moore, who offers practical tips on how to influence your gut health. This is what she studied in school. This is her passion, and she knows a lot more about it than me, which is why I wanted her to come on the show and explain things in better detail and more detail than I can. And as you will learn in this episode, gut health is a lot more complicated than many people, especially people on social media would have you believe.

But there are very simple things that you can do right now to improve your gut health or if you have great gut health, just to make sure that you continue to have great gut health. And in case you are not familiar with Mariana, she has a master's in nutrition, and she focused on gut health in her education. And she has a pretty big following on social media. She regularly posts a lot of healthy recipes and meal prepping tips over on Instagram, as well as educational fitness and gut health content on TikTok. And she also has a podcast. She is the co-host of the Fitness Stuff podcast, along with Tony Coffey, who I also recently had on the show. So if you are interested in learning

about gut health, if you want to know how to determine whether you have good gut health or bad gut health, and what to do to improve your gut health, then I think you are going to like this episode. Hello, Mariana. Hello. Thank you for taking the time to come on my podcast. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, yeah. I'm excited for the conversation, something that I haven't spoken too much about. I did write something and I think I used it kind of as an outline for a podcast on gut health years ago and gut health a lot of people are talking about gut health on social media it is used to sell a lot of supplements it almost has become synonymous or it has become yoked to bloating but like if

you're bloated you must have poor gut health. And if you take this supplement, whether it's a green drink or a probiotic, then you are not going to be bloated. And that means you have good gut health. So of course, I want to get into that. And also the connection between gut health and mental health, which is also mental health is a topic that more and more people are talking about and caring about. So I thought that would be good to get your thoughts on that as well as a few other things that we have kind of on our outline. So thanks again for taking the time to do this. Oh, yeah. I think this is a topic that a lot of people are interested in, and I don't really see it that stopping anytime soon. So hopefully we can answer some questions. Especially as more and more research is being done and then

you know you have that cycle of okay an interesting study comes out and then the media picks up on it often sensationalizes it in some way or misinterprets it not always but often but it drives the discussion and then of course that then sends people to the internet to start searching for information and yeah i, I think that that cycle is accelerating, at least from what I've seen over the last couple of years. And it probably will continue for the least of the near future. Oh, absolutely. I agree. And I mean, I think that the whole idea of using bloating now as this marketing tool for a lot of companies to sell because, I mean, people don't want to be bloated and there's become this like

overwhelming obsession with that, especially on social media. And so it's interesting how you will see a lot of companies take off for the same reasons, but it's one of those things that people don't really question it. And it's like, hmm, you know, this is such a complex topic, but it doesn't seem to be something that consumers are aware of, which has always interested me and is why I talk about it a lot with the bloating thing. Sometimes, yes, we get bloated. But many instances of so-called bloating that I've seen online doesn't really look like bloat to me., just has more body fat than maybe they're comfortable with. And so to even then be sold on, oh no, that's bloat. And you just have to now spend the next six months trying to optimize your gut health, eating certain foods, taking certain supplements to try to beat that bloat. It sets them up for failure and frustration because it's not bloating. It's just body fat. A calorie deficit will get rid of what you think is bloating. Yeah, absolutely. I totally agree.

And I feel like there's a line between, there are people who really, really struggle with this, who have chronic diseases that you say bloating and you can have someone present themselves and they look seven months pregnant and it's debilitating and it ruins people's lives. And then you get people who maybe are just a little bit overweight or just ate and have a little bit of a food baby,

or it's that time of the month and you're a little bit bloated and you freak out about it. Like there's a lot of different ends of the spectrum. So it's like, where do you draw this line in terms of what should I really be focusing on here? What's really important for me? Well, that's a good segue. Let's talk about that. So maybe if you can start with just define what is gut health? What does that mean? What are the elements of this? And then we can probably talk about what are some indications of good gut health, poor gut health? You know what? That is an overarching question that I think could be answered multiple different ways, depending how you look at it. But I would answer that going back to what I learned in school, studied nutritional biochemistry, really focused a lot on research on the gut

microbiome. And when you look at diseases related to the gut microbiome or a lot of gut dysbiosis, that's where you can kind of understand gut health. So I like to talk on the other end of the spectrum when understanding it. So gut dysbiosis would be an imbalance of the good and the bad gut bacteria in your gut microbiome, so much so that it presents in different symptoms or diseases that may require you to rebuild some of the good gut bacteria, get rid of some of the bad gut bacteria as just one piece of the puzzle for whatever you're experiencing. So that's kind of can be poor gut health that presents itself in multiple different ways.

But looking at gut health in general, looking at the other end of what's good gut health, be more so a balance of the good and the bad gut bacteria. You don't really feel general GI distress, which could be just bloating or infrequent bowel movements or just discomfort frequently, but with no known underlying cause yet. You don't experience those things. And you sometimes it's defined as having a also a diverse diet. So that's something that researchers use a lot in explaining what good gut health, gut health is. You need a diverse amount of different species in your gut microbiome.

So eating a diverse diet can help translate into that. So it's not this concrete of gut health, but I kind of like to explain both ends of the spectrum because it's a lot more complex, I think, than people understand when you have millions of microbes living in there to help create this balance that could be gut health. And when you say good and bad bacteria, what does that mean? Yeah. So bad bacteria, say you get a bacterial infection. In order to fight off that bacterial infection, you want to have some of that bacteria that may be bad that's causing the illness already present within your gut or anywhere within your body.

To be able to be familiar with it, tell your immune system, hey, we know what this is. We can fight this off. We're still going to experience some of the symptoms because we usually don't have this much of this bad bacteria, but we do have some of it to allow us to recognize it. It becomes familiar. And that's kind of the relationship between our gut microbiome. And when you're talking about your immune system, how it could play a role there. between our gut microbiome and when you're talking about your immune system, how it could play a role there. So that would be more so the bad bacteria. And then good bacteria would be like the bacteria that consumes fiber. So fiber, people talk about fiber a lot and it's good for you. Why is it good for you? Well, it feeds the good gut bacteria and allows them to produce short chain fatty acids, which have a lot of anti

inflammatory compounds that they produce and contribute to a lot of the health benefits that are associated with eating fiber. So that could be some of the good gut bacteria. Again, not all good gut bacteria eat fiber, but it's important to have a balance of both good and bad. And so I guess broadly speaking, then good gut bacteria produce beneficial effects in the body and bad ones do not produce. They produce harmful effects and they're always present to some degree, but in a healthy gut, there is not so much bad gut bacteria that you are aware of them,

there is not so much bad gut bacteria that you are aware of them, basically, that you have any symptoms. Your body is able to keep them under control. And I'm assuming we're getting exposed to them just as an inevitable consequence of living and eating things. I'm assuming there's no way to get away from the bad gut bacteria. Yeah. And you really wouldn't want to, especially because that can lead to some overgrowth of specific strains of bacteria when you kind of get that imbalance. So when a lot of people talk about maybe IBS, which is irritable bowel syndrome, it's more so a lay term for a bunch of different symptoms you may experience without a known disease causing them. And a lot of those symptoms could may experience without a known disease causing them.

And a lot of those symptoms could be due to even the overgrowth of some good or bad gut bacteria, because again, we're trying to have that balance. But an overgrowth of one can produce some symptoms like bloating and gas. You would especially see that with the overgrowth of the bacteria that feeds off of fiber, because one of the byproducts is gas when they consume fiber. So if you have an overgrowth of that bacteria, you may produce a lot more gas and have a little bit more discomfort after eating high fiber foods. So that is kind of thinking about getting back to that balance, that almost harmony, so to say, of having a balance of so many different species in there. So, and I think that's something that a lot of people kind of don't really think about because there is good with bad bacteria. That's interesting.

Yeah, it's counterintuitive. Maybe it sounds like it could be likened to, let's say, LDL-C cholesterol, where if you're exposed to too much of it, if the vasculature is exposed to too much, then there's a lot of evidence that suggests that the risk of cardiovascular disease goes up. But of course, you do want some in your diet, or even just taking it even a little bit simpler and say saturated fat. Yes, you want to have some saturated fat in your diet, but if you have too much, it becomes a problem. Sounds like a similar where you want to have, even though maybe there's this simple label of bad applied to these bacteria, you do

want a certain amount of these in your body. They provide a balance with the good that as a whole produces a healthy, functional gastrointestinal system. Yeah. Yeah. I don't usually like to throw out adjectives like good and bad, especially in like nutrition, you know, it doesn't really give you much, but this is one of the cases where you see that used so much because there's just so many different names, strains that can, you pronounce them and they're just so long. Yeah. I mean, too much of the good becomes bad. I mean, you just explained, right? Try to keep it more basic there.

Yeah. So you really need the balance. So before we get into how do you create, let's say, how do you create good and bad gut health? Let's talk a little bit more about bloating. It's used, again, to sell different types of supplements very commonly. It is, I see, greens supplements, probably the most common. As like a quick fix, one weird trick to banish bloating here, just drink this and use my code. And then probiotics as well. Prebiotics have been getting a lot of traction, gaining a lot of traction over the last couple

of years. Can you speak to those things? Yeah. Yeah. So more so like the specific products that are often used in the gut health rhetoric nowadays. Yeah. Especially the bloating. And if we want to talk specifically about bloating, just because it's such a hot topic, we could talk about, you mentioned a couple of causes. If there are other causes that are worth mentioning that are common, that could be helpful for people to know, and then talk about addressing it. We have things that are not going to work. And then there are things that do work again, because it's just so many people are looking to find information on gut health because of bloating or what they perceive as

bloating. Yeah. So, I mean, and bloating can be due to so many different factors. So to kind of narrow it down, I like to say, take away the people who, you know, maybe have Crohn's disease, maybe have diverticulitis, like they have a known GI disease. Those are when you can kind of separate those people. The cause is known and the treatment is very complex and I'm not a GI doctor, so that's not my realm to speak on. But what you think about in terms of this general lay bloating, you see a lot of it, people complaining about it on social media, you know, can't eat anything without being bloated or I feel uncomfortable all the time, but I'm healthy. Like what's, what's wrong with me on paper? I'm healthy.

So that gets into these functional gastrointestinal disorders, which is again, another just lay term to describe a bunch of different signs and symptoms that you may have something going on with your gut to produce very similar symptoms that don't have a known cause yet. So it could be bloating, irregular bowel movements, which absolutely contributes to bloating if it's on the end of very infrequent bowel movements. Discomfort after meals. Maybe you notice that you're bloating after you

eat a meal every single time. Maybe you have pants that you can't really put on and you notice that there's a lot of distension. Your stomach is hard, but you don't know why, which as a person who does myself have IBS and struggled with this for quite some time before I really started working through it, it can be debilitating. And so for those people, you know, when you see a greens powder can heal your gut, take this bone broth and heal your gut, take this supplement and you're going to be cured. Leaky gut is often something we should talk about. We can just set it aside for a minute, but that also is usually part of it, of the heal your gut discussion. Yeah. So a very big misconception that you'll see with any of these products is they are used as a

cure-all. And that's like the number one red flag that if you want to look out for one, if a single product is claiming to cure or get rid of bloating, then that's something you can just like immediately stop. Individual, you know, it tends to be from what I've seen more women than men. It's probably just a hotter button issue with women. And so I'll often see women selling it like that. Like I was bloated and then I took this and then I was no longer bloated. And now I take it every day and I'm never bloated. Yes. And again, our gut is so complex. So many different factors could contribute to why you're having unexplained bloating discomfort. It could be stress, your mental health, which I know we said we'd get into a bit later, your diet, exercise, the environment that you're in, your hormones, your genes, there are so many factors and a single product saying that this is the answer does not take that into consideration. It simplifies gut health, which is a topic that has been studied for decades now in vitro and animal studies. And it is just now

starting to get to human studies because it is so complex. Everyone's gut is different. The makeup is different. And that's what makes it so difficult. So saying one product is going to work for everyone is also something that is very hot that you can also look out for because there are a lot of different individual factors that you have to take into account. And that part, that narrative is absolutely not told when it comes to trying to sell products. Yeah. And sometimes people will then ask me, well, okay, fine. So, so you're saying this person is lying. Maybe many people will lie for money and many people will also lie even to themselves. So maybe they've convinced themselves that they were a little bit more bloated or they

noticed a little bit of bloating and then they started taking it. Yeah, my stomach does feel a little bit tighter. All right, great. And the checks don't bounce. So this is a nice arrangement. It sounds kind of cynical for me to say it, but I've seen many instances of that. It's one or the other. Yes, they're just blatantly lying to their followers for the sake of making money, or they first kind of lied to themselves. So then they didn't feel like they were lying to their followers. But in the end, they did not have some major problem with bloating that was

resolved by some vegetable or powdered vegetables or fruit. Like, come on. Yeah. I see this a lot, even in different topics. But when it comes to like health, illness, or even weight loss, like I call it the lemon water effect. Because if you're engaging in this new habit, whether that's lemon water, whether it's drinking your greens in the morning, what unconsciously did this new habit kind of cause you to do? Did it cause you to engage in any other habits? Were you just not drinking water in the morning at all and you were kind of going through your morning a bit dehydrated and now you have this greens powder that you have to have with a whole liter of water? Okay, now do you also want to have maybe a little bit of a healthier breakfast with that? And maybe that's causing you to just engage in habits that are maybe a bit better for you. And

sometimes you can see that happen. Or are you the type of person that is already having the salad for lunch, the salmon and the green veggies for dinner, and the fruit smoothie with protein for breakfast, and you want to have a greens powder? Are you the one that's already engaging in these healthy behaviors? And you're the target audience for a lot of these companies because one, probably afford it, and two, you're already interested in health. So are you someone who even really needs it? So there's a lot of things that I personally will think about, but there's never a easy answer to if it's just one item that you're talking about, it's never going to be the easy way out. It just isn't, especially with a complex

topic. And for people who struggle with bloating and it it's not just body fat, and they don't have a specific disease like Crohn's or IBS, and it seems pretty mysterious. And let's say they eat fairly well, and they exercise, they do a lot of the things that you're supposed to do, and they are often bloated. They are often just feeling discomfort after eating even nutritious foods. Is there a flow chart of sorts that they can kind of work through to at least look into some of the more common reasons that otherwise healthy people who do healthy things can struggle with regular bloating you've mentioned some of the

reasons why that that could be happening but now what am I supposed to do about it which of course is what many people ask me you know for example an elimination diet when is that appropriate should you just go to that right away or should you try some other things first to find out what is going on with your gut and set up your diet and your lifestyle in a way that allows you to not be bloated all the time. Yeah. So I'm actually happy you brought up the elimination diet. I think that's a good segue into this. But especially when it comes to trying to reach that good gut health, the diversity

in your diet is so, so, so important. So especially if you are jumping right into an elimination diet or cutting out whole foods, some people will just completely, I know, especially on the internet, you see people telling you to cut out legumes because they're going to make you gassy. So you shouldn't eat any or to completely cut out dairy or to completely cut out gluten instead of jumping or completely cut out everything but meat which is a great place to start for an elimination diet but you're not supposed to stay in the elimination phase forever they don't tell you that and that is what people don't understand and that because there is elimination diets can be extremely effective when they are

done under the guidance of someone who has been trained in how to properly administer them. A lot of dieticians will help, a lot of nutritionists or kind of anyone who would have a focus in GI health and has a little bit of a nutrition background can be really helpful for monitoring that because it's supposed to be done in phases. You are supposed to slowly eliminate foods and slowly reintroduce them to see if you are sensitive to any of them and any cause distress, because sometimes it may just be a quantity thing. So especially with legumes, they can make people gassy. For some people, it's, you know, after a half cup. For some people, it's after a cup. And those tiny nuances can really make a difference. But people don't typically

realize that because they're not reintroducing foods. And then not having a diverse diet can really affect the balance of that good and bad gut bacteria. So I typically will advise away from eliminating foods to be the first thing you do. And typically we'll say, okay, so if this person is a bit more health conscious, maybe they're already eating a pretty varied diet, which is what I would look at first, then maybe we could see how much fiber we're eating in our diet. Because some people will think, you know, yeah, I have like veggies at dinner and lunch, but are you eating enough veggies that are high in fiber and fruits? All right, let's look at that. So there's actually two ends of the spectrum. If you're not eating any whole grains, like,

you know, I've looked at these numbers myself, you can get there. But in actual experience in my own diet, what I've found is that to get enough fiber strictly through fruits and vegetables, which weights more heavily toward vegetables, just because the calories can get out of control. I mean, okay, eat a bushel of bananas a day, but yeah, that's 1500 calories of bananas or whatever. It doesn't exactly work. And for me, and I would say that I basically never have GI issues. I never have stomach aches, never have bloating, never have anything. So even for me, trying to do it through vegetables, it was too much. I would get gassy. I didn't really particularly notice it as bloating, but certainly if I was getting gassy, then there was some bloating to come with it. So it was upsetting my stomach to

eat that much vegetables. And even I noticed that in a, in one meal, I had to learn how much can I eat in one meal before it starts to upset my stomach. And by adding in some, I like oatmeal. So I just added in some oatmeal. I do. So it's a cup dry. Of course it's cooked or I do it overnight oat style, but I believe one half of a cup is one is considered one serving of whole grains, if I remember correctly. So, so I'm doing, so just by adding two servings of, of whole grains, which boosts up that fiber intake allowed me to bring my vegetable intake down to still, let's say four or five servings per day. It's still a good amount, but coming down from like eight or nine that allowed me to get enough fiber and my stomach issues were

totally resolved and pooping was better. And which previously when my stomach's upset and I'm just eating all these vegetables. So without whole grains, it can, it can be difficult in my experience. Yeah. Yeah. So that's typically what I'll recommend is leaning more into the whole, especially if you're already more conscious of your fruit, vegetable consumption, is making sure you're getting some whole grains. And I'm happy you brought that up because there, and I will also get a lot of clients like this, especially those who maybe have some underlying issues with food and have deemed foods as off limits, really only eat the purest whole foods, have a little bit of orthorexia. And this is also a population, eating disorder populations are the highest groups of people with IBS. And there are a few reasons why you'll see this, but there's the end of too much fiber can absolutely be a bad thing for your gut health because that, again, the bacteria that feeds off of it, the byproducts are gas. So if you are eating a large amount of veggies that are super

high in fiber, you'll see people even eating over 30 grams of fiber, way above recommended, and that can cause a lot of distress. And so maybe cutting a little bit back on the plant fiber, maybe transitioning into some whole grains, even sometimes, especially if the fiber intake is, I'll see a lot of women upwards into the 40, 50 range. Let's take this fiber down to 20, 25, add in some white rice, add in some plain potatoes instead of sweet potatoes, because they're a lot easier to digest. And that can be really helpful for some people. And then going into the other end of the spectrum, if fiber is very difficult for you to get, looking into a prebiotic supplement. So prebiotics are just plant fiber. And in what scenario would practically speaking, would somebody need to take a prebiotic supplement as opposed to just eat some fruit, eat some vegetables, eat some whole grains where they

refuse to? I don't do that. I look at that with just supplements in general, right? I never really like to recommend a supplement first if there are clear dietary interventions and decisions that you can make. But maybe sometimes someone who's really busy, maybe you're a mom, maybe you work in health care, maybe you don't have much time during your day to, especially in the middle of the day, you'll see this in with breakfast, have time to sit down and eat a lunch that typically higher fiber lunches sometimes can be higher in volume. Maybe you don't have time. This might not be every day, but on some days, okay, maybe I'll have a prebiotic supplement because I look at my diet as a whole and I'm only getting around

five to 10 grams of fiber on this day. So it's not a guessing game. I don't like to play that game when it comes to nutrition. Sit down, take a week, log your food, maybe take two weeks and look at on average what your fiber intake is because then it can tell you where to go and it can be really impactful. Maybe you learn, wow, I thought I was eating like 20 to 25 grams and I'm only eating maybe 10 if I'm lucky, or it might be the other end of the spectrum. And that can be a really good starting point to see where I can make a practical intervention with fiber that's logical within what I'm doing on a day-to-day basis. And then maybe I'll consider prebiotics if I'm finding that diet-wise, this is hard for me to do every single day. And how much fiber do you recommend 20 to 25? Is that men and women of all sizes?

No. So for men, it's 30 to 35. And then women, I will typically say if you're struggling, you're eating a higher fiber diet to bring it down to that 20 to 25 range. But the recommendation is 25 to 30. So a little bit variation between men and women, but that's the standard goal. And it can be much, much harder than people think. I mean, we have so many public health interventions to try to increase fiber consumption, even in the school system and with kids because of how it can prevent a lot of chronic diseases over time, especially when it comes to like cardiovascular disease and other GI diseases. But people can tend to underestimate how much they're actually consuming. So yeah, yeah.

What it takes to, I mean, to get there for people listening, you can go look around online and compare your diet against what you find. But I'll say that unless you are a guy, probably lean bulking, eating a lot of food, if you are a guy or a gal who is either cutting or just maintaining, you're probably going to have to get 70 or 80% of your daily calories from relatively unprocessed and nutritious food. So you can take the protein out of that. It's like a view of the fiber, but your standard kind of flexible dieting 101, the majority of your calories is going to have to come from nutritious stuff to get enough fiber it just is you're not going to be able to follow the old if it fits your macros

and you know 60 of your daily calories are just highly processed food or other junk and get enough fiber without taking a supplement. But you shouldn't, as you mentioned, you shouldn't assume that you can just take supplements to replace what you find in food. The rule is the opposite, actually. You should always try to get everything that you need from food and only add supplements if it's called for, right? Yep. Yeah, absolutely. And again, there can be a time and place for them. But if you're just skipping past what you're looking at, what you're doing from a nutrition standpoint,

it's very counterintuitive because you're just feeding yourself something, covering up a habitual issue that you're creating, especially when it comes to, say, if you're just, yeah, I'll just take a greens powder instead. It has fiber and it has prebiotics. Well, we digest a greens powder much differently than we digest broccoli. Digestion starts with chewing and not secreting the digestive enzyme amylase can affect the bacteria that you secrete to also digest the fiber there. And how quickly you absorb that liquid versus a solid food can also affect how much is actually your bacteria feeds off of. So that's also a component of, I mean, I hear all

the time, you know, I can just take a supplement. I drink my greens. It's so much easier. It's very different with how our body sees that. It's also important. And there are other elements, right? Co-factors, other things in food that there are a lot of things that scientists are still researching and even discovering that are present in food that are not present in powdered foods that are in their own way, highly processed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, just with gut health in general, like I really like that you brought up scientists are still discovering. I mean, there's still so much that scientists who dedicate their lives to researching this have no idea about. And a lot of these claims jump ahead of that. And that is something that is just me personally, who's someone who's very invested in

the research and making sure that I'm keeping up with it, especially in a topic that I studied a lot in school. Like it is crazy to me how easily a lot of companies are able to get away with that. And it's okay to not know a lot about a topic, but it's also one thing to be consciously deceptive of it, which you see a lot. Unfortunately, that doesn't make for a good sales pitch. We don't really know much, but buy our green supplement. Yes. Yeah yeah and with fiber something else that that I know some people might be wondering about is what about soluble versus insoluble because you know I've heard people they really

start to look in the fiber and take nearly want to optimize their diet and then they run into this should I be managing these things separately if I just eat a good diet and get enough fiber do it not have to worry about that yeah and and so typically if you're eating the recommended amount, you worrying about insoluble versus soluble fiber is not something you're going to have to do because there's a lot of crossover between foods. So some will contain both, but there is, that is enough fiber for it to be broken down and like, oh, well, what if I'm not getting any insoluble? That'd be really uncommon if you're eating 30 grams of fiber per day.

You'd have to have a really weird diet, right? Yeah. Maybe if you're doing what's his name? The medical mediums, only celery juice. Celery is insoluble fiber. So maybe if you're doing that, wouldn't advise you to do that. Although if it's the juice, you're not even getting the fiber. So you'd have to, if all you do is you eat celery sticks and drink protein shakes, all right, probably other problems, but this is one of your many problems.

Basically, so insoluble fiber quickly through your digestive system. So it promotes the movement of food through your digestive system. You can think of like stringy vegetables like a celery or romaine lettuce, very watery vegetables, typically more in soluble fiber. Soluble fiber is where you get a lot of the health benefits. So like I was mentioning, reducing your risk for heart disease, reducing your risk for colon cancer, reducing your risk for colon cancer, promoting good GI health, that's where you get the soluble fiber. So what that does is it forms a viscous-like gel in your stomach. So it slows digestion. It allows you to absorb a lot more of the nutrients. It allows you to also feed that good gut bacteria because that's what soluble fiber does. And it also is the fiber that people will talk about when you say it has a higher satiety index.

So typically, if someone is cutting in a deficit, eating more soluble fiber can help you feel a little bit fuller longer. It also slows the blood glucose spike after a meal. So that's the big difference there between soluble and insoluble. If you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and want 125 of my favorite quick, easy, and delicious fitness-friendly recipes, you want to get a copy of my flexible dieting cookbook, The Shredded Chef. Because here's the deal. You don't need to follow a bland, boring bodybuilder diet to get into the best shape of your life. You can eat delicious home-cooked meals you love without living in the kitchen, struggling with hard-to-prepare recipes, or overspending on expensive ingredients.

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that is why The Shredded Chef has sold well over 300,000 copies, has received over 3,300 four and five star reviews on Amazon, and has helped that I know of thousands of people build their best body ever. And you can find it on all major online retailers, wherever you like to buy books, Amazon, iTunes, Kobo, Google Play, bn.com, even Audible. There is an audio book. And yes, some people do buy cookbooks as audio books. Who knew? And you can also find The Shredder Chef in select Barnes and Noble stores. I think now we can segue over to gut health and mental health and what's the connection there. Yeah, I'll just leave it at that. Yeah. So, and this is, this was going to be another topic of interest if you are kind of looking into though, why might I be experiencing

this bloating gas discomfort? A large reason can be stress. A large reason can be if you do have some sort of mood disorder like anxiety or depression. So getting into why that is, kind of answering your question a little bit. Our brain has a direct effect on the stomach and intestines. So there's this bi-directional communication. This is called our brain-gut connection, the gut-brain axis. And it's communication between the central nervous system, which is in your brain, and your enteric or brain with your gut. And this is something that is very complex, but explains a lot more of this GI distress that people experience without any real known cause. And this has been a recent area of research that's really evolving. This connection has been understood for decades in terms of the enteric nervous system. And a person's stomach or intestinal distress can be the cause or the product of anxiety, stress, depression. And this can, where you see a lot of

this constant bloating or constant pain. It feels chronic. It just feels like it's something you're living with often. So to understand it a little bit more, I like to explain the enteric nervous system because it's not really spoken about much and it's really fascinating how it works in relation to our brain. But there's two thin layers and there's more than 100 million nerve cells lining your GI tract. And they rely on the same type of neurons, neurotransmitters that are found in your central nervous system. So they work very similarly. That's why it's gotten the nickname your second brain. So the second brain in your gut, and it's in constant communication with your brain. So where this really can relate to, you know, your mental health,

these mood disorders I was talking about is 90% of serotonin, which has a nickname like your happy hormone. It's a neurotransmitter and it plays a huge role in digestion and mood regulation. And it's produced by gut bacteria. So 90% of it is found and produced in your gut and the other 10% is in your brain. Most people would probably instinctively assume that's the other way around. Yeah. Yeah. If 10% at all is even the other, probably assume a hundred percent is in the brain. Yeah. And with serotonin, that's where a lot of you'll see anti-anxiety OCD medication will be treating almost a serotonin deficiency. So a lot of people with these mood disorders have low serotonin production, and that can be in your brain. It can also be in your gut. Again,

much more is produced in your gut. But an imbalance in your gut bacteria can heavily impact your serotonin production. So this can play a very important role in the pathogenesis of both emotional distress, that IBS, irritable bowel syndrome, the development of mood disorders, or kind of how intensely you may experience them. Again, very complex anxiety, depression. So it's a small piece of the puzzle, but a lot of research is showing that the severity of your symptoms can be impacted by gut dysbiosis. So that's why you'll see a lot of at least human studies when it comes to looking at this connection between the gut and the brain, look at individuals with IBS and anxiety or depression, individuals with a mood disorder,

and how maybe pro and prebiotics are going to help improve how they experience their symptoms. So again, special populations, but this connection can be really impactful for a good intervention for improving the amount of symptoms that you experience or the effect to which you experience them. So I find that very fascinating. Yeah, yeah, that is interesting interesting by maintaining a healthy gut. I suppose then you, you make yourself more resistant to depression, anxiety, and other issues. You may still experience them depending on many other things, but by maintaining a healthy gut, it sounds like you are going to be less likely to experience those things. And if

you do experience them, they won't be as severe as they would be otherwise. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then another piece to this is the stress piece. So especially in America, we live in a society that is very high stress, cortisol levels. If we routinely check them, which we probably don't, but cortisol is typically very high in an American who maybe is just going to work nine to five. He doesn't like their job. Maybe overwork doesn't move much. Maybe it's a standard American diet. Looking into how is that affecting or maybe just someone who does just experiences high stress on a day to day, which could be a double whammy, right? Because those things you just

mentioned are part of the recipe. Like if you want to make yourself depressed, then yes, work in a job that you hate with people that you hate and people who hate you don't exercise, eat terrible food, don't get enough sleep, drink too much alcohol, do all these things. And everybody will end up depressed at some point. It's impossible to not get depressed. If you, if you, the, the environment that is designed to produce it. And so when you, when then you, you already have somebody who is going to be if they are moving in that direction prone to it. Right. And then and then you exacerbate it with poor gut health. They're just going to get there faster.

Yeah, I like I like that you brought that up. I want to flip the coin. And then for the example, I'm going to give give you the under other end of the spectrum. So maybe looking at your type A person, right? Thinking about, and these are a lot of characteristics you'll see in someone with an eating disorder. This connection is also heavily studied in those with anorexia nervosa, people who under eat, do not eat enough calories. So a type A person really, really hyper-focused on what they put in their mouth, how much they put into their mouth, you know, how much they're moving, leans

towards the end of, you know, the distress is perfectionism surrounding diet, health. You see this a lot in academics or in your job. And that can also affect how you digest food. So you are in this constant state of fight or flight. When cortisol is extremely high and chronically elevated, you are experiencing a level of fight or flight on a day-to-day basis when you don't need to be experiencing it. And when our body goes into fight or flight mode, that's say if you're in danger. So if you are, I like to give an example, if you're trying to run from a bear, you're not going to be prioritizing digestion. So what happens is, you know, digestion slows and we're not putting much energy towards our GI system and

the functioning of our GI system because we're trying to get out of here. We're in danger. Even blood flow is diverted, right? Yes. So individuals with chronically elevated cortisol and are in a constant state of fight or flight, digesting food is more difficult because you're not in a state of, the other end is rest and digest. Those names are used for a reason. So being in that more relaxed, calm state

is optimal for digestion. So this can even be, I know I said two extremes of individuals here, but this can even be for a person who just is often stressed at their job and they go to sit down and eat a meal and they're chronically stressed. So maybe they're just not optimally digesting their food. And that could be why they're experiencing a lot of bloating after a meal without any other known cause. So that is also a factor that is interesting, but also that's where a lot of more interventions are starting to evolve in terms of, you know, breath work exercise or some sort of mental health practice

that allows you to know how to put yourself into a state of rest and digest, being calm and feeling like you have control over that. Because we so often mindlessly go through life, especially in the U.S. society, being chronically stressed without doing much about it. being chronically stressed without doing much about it. Yeah, I mean, I can speak to that personally. So something that has helped me is making sure that I'm doing some things on a semi-regular basis that are fun is really just for the sake of having fun. That's not connected to some sort of work goal or even necessarily a personal goal, unless the activity is just fun in and of itself.

Think of people, okay, if you take up a sport and you're playing it as a hobby and you really enjoy playing it, then it's fine to have some goals. But me being a more type A person, if I were to take that to an extreme, then it becomes less fun because I'm so focused on the goal of achieving some level of, of, uh, performance in tennis or whatever. And then I'm not really having fun anymore because often if your goal is a very high level of performance, you have to kind of do a lot of things that aren't very fun. Like you got to practice your just one stroke a thousand times a week or something. And that's not very fun, even though eventually if you can get so good and you're playing at a high level, that can be fun.

But just making sure that I am doing things that are fun. And for a long time, I didn't, I just totally neglected that because I was so focused on work. and outside of work, I have obligations. I have two kids and a wife and, and you know, that those, those relationships of course can be conducive to fun, but you have to go do fun things together. There's the, the logistics of having a family are not necessarily fun. The time that you have to put into just random things to like keep a house running and limit. And I personally kind of found my limit and how it started to express itself in my life was primarily so in my sleep. So I just started to sleep worse and worse over time. And I would wake up multiple times at night, sometimes have trouble falling back asleep. So turning into like a form of insomnia and just kind of losing

the joy of kind of everyday living and not really looking forward to very much, you know, symptoms of mild depression, actually, which I didn't really realize being kind of irritated. And it was totally my own doing. And when I realized that and was like, okay, so then why don't I just do a little bit less of this stuff over here that just causes stress and let's let's spend some time doing things that are fun which for me it's more effective to counterbalance the negative effects of of too much stress than just relaxing for whatever reason, like actually doing things that, that are exciting and fun works better for me than just chilling or hanging out or whatever. So, um, for whatever that's worth for people listening, that that's been helpful for,

for me because it was getting kind of unsustainable. I was like, uh, I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but this is getting pretty obnoxious, you know? Yeah. I mean, I would even put like stress management when, you know, you're talking about ways to improve your gut health, stress management next to diet. Yeah. But I see, I tried the normal things. Okay. You relax, you do breath work, you do meditation. And what worked for me is do things that are fun. Make sure that, and meditating for me is not fun. Like, you know, I can do it. I'm not bad at it, but I don't, I'm not like, Oh yeah, I'm so excited to do my 10 minutes of breath work. I would probably liken it to, to stretching. I do a little bit of stretching

every day. I don't look forward to the stretching. I don't dread the stretching. I just do it, but it's not fun, you know? Yeah. And I think that's what people, like with stress management, like fun is something I would first think of. Many people know though, not adults, not here in America. Fun is for kids.

Like when you're an adult, everything is serious. You have to be spending every minute of every day working hard towards some sort of goal. And you should be working on your career at least 60 hours a week and, and, and. Yeah. So if you're going to look at like priorities and that's not something you're also prioritizing next to diet, definitely something to look into that you can have active control over. And again, that's not just, you know, waking up and meditating every day or journaling or getting in touch with your

spiritual side. It's living life a bit lighter because it doesn't, you don't always have to feel that constant heaviness and stress. Something that's going to take you away from what you're constantly stressed and worried about that you genuinely enjoy. Because I also think people oftentimes when you're stuck into that day-to-day routine, you hate, you forget that. So. Yeah. I actually had to, had to like, think about it a little bit. What do, what do I like to do just for the sake of doing it? And I wasn't even sure because I had been so long since I gave that any importance. It was mostly just what do I need to do? What should I do?

Like what's the rational thing to do, strategic thing to do to achieve a goal? Again, all that's fine. But in my experience, too much of that made life kind of boring. And again, I found myself not looking forward to much anymore and just kind of, kind of boring. And again, I didn't, I found myself not looking forward to much anymore and just kind of going through the motions. It was interesting, interesting for me to experience kind of new, because again, that's not in the past when I was younger, I guess I, I did prioritize fun more and so I never had the problem. Yeah. And the way that that can affect your digestion is something that goes so far past people's heads because you're constantly focusing on, well, did I drink the greens?

You know, did I have enough fiber? Did I do all the things that are so healthy for me? What about the health of your brain, your mental health? Stop neglecting that. And there's also the connection that our brain and our gut have is so sound and that research is only evolving. And that is something you can start implementing tomorrow. Sit down and start thinking about things that used to bring you joy that you don't do anymore.

It can go a really long way, especially when you look at the populations of people who have the highest rates of IBS, those with eating disorders, those with anxiety, those with depression. Your inner child can do a lot for you. It's interesting, too, that you can have somebody who is orthorexic to some degree, and that can lead to even worse so so they're already let's say they're eating too much fiber because they're so focused on what they eat and you add the stress on top of it that they're stressed about what they're eating and if they're eating i mean it's calories it's macros it's food choices and then you have the added stresses of of life and then they're having gi issues, and that can lead to even more stress of trying to figure out, okay, maybe they need to add even

different foods or different supplements. So just given that this is a fitness podcast and a lot of people that are very into fitness, I just want to really repeat that message that there is a point where you can take this stuff too far and start causing problems that you would otherwise not have. Yeah. Yeah. I think, and also as someone who's had experienced that firsthand, a lot of people fall into that and have no idea. And you'll see a lot of, especially, especially, especially women are so pronounced in this anti-bloating and this obsession with curing your bloating. And you see a lot of people more so in the fitness space, people who are already healthy. It's like, well, you say you're doing really good things for your

body, but in a way, is this starting to lean into something that could become an obsession, could become too much? Again, that doesn't happen to everyone, but it happens to a lot of people. It also can probably happen in degrees, right? You have some people who the volume is way up, but then other people, maybe it's only a two out of 10, but they're starting to experience some issues. What I described with me was probably like that, where it wasn't extreme,

but it was enough that I was noticing that something was wrong and it shouldn't be like this. It wasn't like this, what's going on. So if though somebody keeps doing what they're doing, that's causing the issue and starts doubling or tripling down, then it can really become a big problem. Yeah, definitely. Can we talk quickly before we wrap up on some, if there are any other specific tips that you have for people for improving gut health, you've mentioned, for example, a diverse diet. Maybe some people are wondering, what does that mean exactly?

Is it just eat some fruits and vegetables and whole grains? Or is there more advice as to choices? We've mentioned green supplements. If it's powdered fruits and vegetables, I don't see the connection at all. Just eat your fruits and vegetables. But what about probiotics? Are those ever indicated and why? And any other things that people could think about, just start doing right away to improve their gut health. Varied diet, a diverse diet is again, of course, the fruits, vegetables, whole grains, but also the proteins, you know,

getting some, this may be controversial of me, but getting some animal protein in there, getting some dairy if you're not lactose intolerant, but you can even still get dairy if you're lactose intolerant. There's a lot of low lactose dairy products and lactose free dairy products. Having a lot of color on your plate can also be a good guide. A lot of people get stuck into eating the same thing over and over again, which can serve a good time and place. But really thinking about, you know, am I getting a different amount, a different type of the larger food groups? And again, there's dietary restrictions, people have those, and there's still ways to make sure that what you're eating is varied. I mean, even if you are vegan and making sure you're combining different types of plant

proteins to make a complete protein. But that's kind of what I would say think of when you're thinking of a varied diet. Do I eat the same thing all the time? Yeah, I like vegetables, but I actually really only eat broccoli and green beans, which is one color. So thinking in color can be pretty helpful too. And then I would say the next stress management we talked about, next thing could be considering probiotics. Probiotics, again, no supplement is going to completely fix anything. Probiotics, there's so many different strains, so many different species of bacteria that could take a few to find out one that may just provide a little bit of relief. And making sure that you understand that point that you just made, that there are very

different strains. And if you are looking at the research used to support a probiotic supplement, that the research is on the exact strain or strains that are in the supplement. And I went through this whole process because Legion has a probiotic. And of course, we are very specific about the strains that we chose because of the research on those exact strains. But there are many probiotics out there that will cite research on different strains, even though it might be in the same family, so to speak. And so a less educated consumer might not pick that up and think that the research on strain A, so to speak, applies to strain B because they sound kind of the same. And that's not the case, right? Or not necessarily the case. You can't

just assume because, oh, well, it had these effects in this similar strain. So it's probably going to do the same thing. Yeah. So that's very important. And probiotics is what you can do. They add in the microorganisms, specific strains of bacteria that maybe you may be lacking or your symptoms are showing that you may be lacking, or they could just be to help maintain good gut bacteria. But again, it's really important to make sure that the specific strain is correct for your need. And then there's also foods with probiotics. But a few things to look out for too, especially with probiotics that just quickly come to mind is a kombucha. So thinking about shipping and handling. So like shipping and handling, do you think that those

microorganisms are still alive once they get to your mouth after going through the process of shipping and handling, losing refrigeration. After being vigorously shaken for who knows how many hours over the course of it could it could have been produced six months ago and it's been shipped all over the place. And yeah, yeah. And then the next piece also to consider if it's a supplement thinking about. And again, this is going to have to come more so from transparency, I think from companies, but is the capsule, the capsule that the probiotic in, how is that made? Does it allow for the strain to survive stomach acid? Is the capsule protecting the bacteria from stomach acid before it gets to your intestines? And I know that I've personally seen more companies

kind of talk about that. Some it's becoming a bit more standard practice with different, I guess, different manufacturers will be open about that, but that can be something to consider. And also usually looking at supplement companies, are they educated on the different types of strain? Can you kind of go somewhere on their website and learn a little bit more? I know Legion does a great job at doing that. So that's also something to consider. Yeah. And any other thoughts on other fermented foods? People ask about kimchi and some of these other things. Yeah. So I would say like, again, it's hard to say. So with like yogurt, yogurt has probiotics. It's hard to say how much and whether

or not those probiotics are still alive from the time that they reach your intestines. But there are some, I'd say the fermented foods. So like if you're making your own kimchi, that's where you would probably see more live bacteria. But again, the shipping process, it's tough to know. It's still kind of an area where it's not required to determine that for those companies. And if it would cost more money to preserve the bacteria, they're not going to do that. Yeah. So I would say like recommend if that's something what you're really looking for, kind of your best bet could be to get something locally or try to look into making it yourself. Yeah. Yeah. Or I asked you, you could

kind of liken this to fish oil, like a fish oil supplement. Do you need to take one? No, no. If you are willing to eat enough of the right kind of fish you will can get at least enough omega-3s to maintain health if you wanted to to reach higher amounts maybe for benefits of reduced inflammation in your joints for example probably going to be kind of hard to eat to get there with fish alone. And so supplementation, that's an example where a supplement can make sense. And it sounds like a similar case could be made for a high quality probiotic supplement. Oh, absolutely. I completely agree. There are some things it's just very impractical to get everything that you would want from it just with food.

Okay, awesome. Well, that's all I had for you in this interview. Is there anything else that you wanted to say before we wrap up here? No, I think that's it. Just really kind of if anything that you can take away is it's just not our gut is not that simple. So there could be a few things you try. Some things may not work. It's not this one and done easy fix. So if that's something that can guide you, that you take away from this, I think you'll be in a good starting point.

Yeah. And you shared a lot of great practical tips people can put into use right away to attack this from different angles, so to speak. So again, thank you for your time. And let's just finish with where people can find you, find your work, anything specifically you want them to know about. Yeah. So on social media, I'm Mariana's pantry. So Mariana's underscore pantry that's on Instagram and Tik TOK Tik TOK. I definitely discuss a lot of gut health things in Instagram, I have a lot of recipes. And then I also co-host a podcast, Fitness Stuff for Normal People. We talk about a lot of different topics.

And it's a good basic learning point if you want to learn about foundation of fitness, health, nutrition. And yeah. Okay, perfect. Well, thanks again, Marianne. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email, mike at muscleforlife.com, muscleforlife.com,

and let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future. I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.