Improve Gut Health and Digestion with Daina Rasutis [Ep. 108]

0:00 This is the Eat Well, Think Well, Live well podcast, I'm Lisa Salisbury, and this is episode 108. Improve gut health and digestion with Daina Rasutis. Gut health is a hot topic and somewhat misunderstood. I think we overcomplicate this issue, thinking we need to maybe take an entire handful of supplements or completely overhaul our diet to make any difference. My guest, Daina Rasutis, dispels that myth together. We talk about the simple steps you can take to improve your gut health, including your microbiome. This can drastically change the way your cravings and appetite affect your day. Listen to the end for the simple tip, I definitely needed to hear.

0:41 Welcome to Eat Well, Think Well, Live Well; the podcast for women who want to lose weight, but are tired of counting and calculating all the food. I'm your host, Lisa Salsbury. I'm a certified health and weight loss coach and life coach, and most importantly a recovered chronic dieter. I'll teach you to figure out why you are eating when you aren't hungry, instead of worrying so much about what you are eating. Welcome back to the eat well, think well, live well podcast. I'm delighted to have Daina Resutis here. She's a nutritional therapist master, and we are going to be talking about gut health, which is not a topic we've covered on the podcast. So I'm very excited about this. Daina, welcome.

1:22 Please introduce yourself. Give us a little bit about your background, and then we'll jump into our conversation. Yes. Thank you, Lisa, for having me. So my name is Daina. I'm a nutrition therapist master. I typically work with clients to really improve their gut health with a special focus also on skin health, which is interesting. A lot of people don't realize that so much of our skin is actually related to the gut, but honestly, most of the body is related to gut health. So I am a trained nutrition therapist. I've been in practice for about, Four years now helping clients all around the world, and I love talking gut health, so I'm glad you were able to bring me on. Good. Okay, so before we jump into the actual, um, you know, health and what is it, let's define what is actually the gut.

2:08 When we're talking about gut health, what parts of the body are we actually talking about? Mm-Hmm. that's a loaded question. A lot of people will think that you're just thinking about maybe the stomach. They'll think, oh, my stomach hurts, and that's all that gut is. But honestly, the digestive system, I mean, one way to think about it is everything that food can touch. So everything from your mouth to all the organs, it goes through to get digested and absorbed and broken down through elimination there. So through the large intestine, through everything that goes out there. So really, there is a whole collection of organs that you might not even realize exist. So, um, from your mouth, through your esophagus, coming through your stomach, through the small intestine, the large intestine, the liver is related, the gallbladder is related.

2:50 So there's so much playing a part in what the gut is actually comprised of. And those are the actual organs. It's more of an anatomical approach, but then you also have to think about the entire microbiome that lives in the guts. And so that differs from the mouth through the small intestine, through the colon, through Oftentimes when we think about a very strong microbiome, that's typically more talked about related to the large intestine. That's where most of the microbiome lives, but there's also my microbiome in the small intestine in your mouth. So there is things to think about throughout the whole system and it's extremely complex and there's lots to have to consider. Yeah. I'm glad you brought up that there is some secondary organs there. Cause I was going to say like, do you include the gallbladder and, and other organs that contribute to digestion?

3:36 And, um, clearly the answer is yes. So it is interesting also, just as a side note, when you're thinking about the microbiome that when we want to improve it, which we might touch on later. These types of things have to have to make it all the way through to the large intestine. That's a long journey. So it's pretty far down in the gut where we're talking about that healthy microbiome. So, um, good. Okay. So what are some of the signs of having what you would consider a healthy gut? And then of course, conversely, then what are some signs of a dysfunctional gut? Something that says, Hey, I need some help here. The easiest way to think about it and the most direct is your digestion.

4:18 So that's the first thing we think about. So how are you feeling after meals? Are you gassy? Are you bloated? Are you getting acid reflux? So all of these are definitely direct signs of something being off in the gut. You want to look at bowel movements. Really, we want to be having a bowel movement every single day. I would say that if you're not able to pass a bowel movement every day, that would lean towards constipation. But you also don't want to have very loose stools. You want to have one to maybe three bowel movements per day. So really looking at those digestive symptoms are ways to know whether something might be out of whack in your gut. So conversely, you should barely notice your digestion throughout the day. That would be my sign when I talk to clients.

4:58 That's what we're looking for. You don't want to have to worry about bloating or pain or, you know, gas that has to be passed us, you know, maybe an unpleasant smell, things like that. It should be really functioning in the background. You're barely noticing it. So that would be the main things that you want to think about with whether knowing whether your gut microbiome and your gut health is good. But then, like I mentioned at the beginning, there's so many things that are related to the gut microbiome. skin health, your, you know, something like migraines could be related to the gut microbiome or like gut health being off. So there's so many other things. So just a little caveat there, just because you might not have direct digestive issues, doesn't necessarily mean that your gut gut health is 100 percent great Perfect. Yeah. I was actually having this conversation with my mom the other day about, um, she offered me some gum, which is so innocuous, you know, gum.

5:47 Um, but About gosh, I don't even remember now. It's probably been five or six years ago. I realized that the sugar alcohols in gum was actually creating a lot of digestive distress for me, a lot of bloating and let let's be honest, I was kind of Also using gum as a anti anxiety tool. So I was chewing like a pack of gum a day. So, you know, one piece of gum every once in a while, like don't panic. It's not a big deal, but I realized it was giving just, you know, an overabundance of these sugar alcohols. And then just combined with just because as my clients and listeners know, I'm a big fan of having a food journal It's really just the best nutritional study you'll ever read is your own food journal.

6:30 And I just realized I'm really sensitive to sugar alcohols and they give me gas. They just do. And so I was saying to my mom, you know, after really working on it and looking at ingredients that that do this, I rarely pass gas, like, you know, like the normal at night when you're supposed to, you know, in your sleep. Cause if I ever say that my husband's like, well, that's a lie. I'm like, well, that's when it's supposed to happen. Right. But like, I don't struggle with it during the day because so, because I've looked at ingredients that are problematic for me, dairy being the other problematic ingredient for me. And, um, so that I think is a sign of Like moving towards more health in my gut is to just not be consistently.

7:19 And you know, those people that are just like consistently passing gas all the time. Like, not just the seventh grade boys. It's it's the unhealthy guts. right, but people get so used to it and they just think it's normal. So if you're out there listening and you're the kind of person who's passing gas. Many, many times a day and it's becoming, it's making your life revolve around it. That's definitely a red flag. yeah. Okay. I just such an obvious one, you know, um, but like you said, there are less obvious ones. So to the point of this podcast, how can your gut health really impact your cravings? Because of course I'm always trying to help my clients, you know, decrease their cravings and because That's really going to ultimately help us lose weight when we can manage our cravings better than we generally are able to, you know, drop a few pounds, which is what most of my listeners and clients are desiring.

8:13 So let's talk about how your gut health can impact your cravings. So the one thing that I like to think about is the gut brain access. And this is an established term in literature. And we're all intuitively understanding of it. Because when we think about, Oh, you know, I'm nervous, I might get nauseous or I have a gut feeling or butterflies in my stomach. So we all understand that there's some kind of connection between the gut and the brain, but it's bi directional. So it's not only. Our thoughts leading to gut issues. It's also something happening in the gut is leading to something happening in the brain. So that's really where a lot of the cravings stem from. If that's what you're trying to kind of understand and sort of put a tangible explanation to it. So with that in mind, the gut is so important for everything from neurotransmitter production, for example.

8:59 So serotonin and dopamine are related to what's happening in the gut. And really, those have to be in balance for you to be able to control cravings and overall your food intake. Also, the gut is really important for producing something called short chain fatty acids. And those help stimulate the release of certain appetite regulating hormones. So if you're not able to regulate those appetite hormones, that's going to lead to cravings. In general, the gut microbiome, we want to think of it as mostly the good bacteria, how they say. So you don't want a lot of pathogenic bad bacteria being overgrown there. And the reason for that is because different types of microbes will extract energy differently from food. So if you have the type of microbes that aren't very good at extracting energy from food, you might be craving more foods because you actually aren't breaking it down properly because the microbes aren't the right microbes to break it down properly.

9:48 And lastly, I just wanted to mention that any type of dysbiosis. So if there's some imbalances in the gut microbiome, those bad bacteria or bad pathogens are able to make source toxins that influence appetite regulating pathways. So it's sort of like you need good guys. You don't want the bad guys because all of them play a role in releasing all sorts of, molecules and different types of neurotransmitters that affect in the end your cravings. Okay. Um, that was a lot. I started taking notes. let's go back. So tell me more about the short chain fatty acids. So the gut produces those. What do those do? Um, so those are produced first of all through the fermentation of dietary fiber.

10:30 So when you think about eating fiber, we're really, the fiber is not for us. The fiber is for our gut bacteria. So when you think about high fiber foods and eat a high fiber diet, that's really what we're talking about, which is really interesting. So we're not able to break it down. It really honestly just passes through us other than the guts breaking it down and creating all sorts of gases. So one sign to know if some kind of imbalance is happening in your gut is if you get that gas and bloating, that could be because your gut microbiome is producing the wrong type of gases. It's. Or the wrong type of molecules. What you really want to be producing is those short chain fatty acids. And so those can stimulate the release of appetite regulating hormones, like GLP 1, um, PYY, and those will signal the feelings of fullness and, in the end, reduce cravings.

11:17 Okay, so if that has to do with the microbiome and then the, the good guys to break down and the bad ones that we want to eliminate so they're not making the toxins, how can we change our microbiome? Is that possible? I know I have to say that in my schooling, we did talk about the idea of, seeding where you seed the microbiome with the gut bacteria of a healthy or, you know, thin individual, and that if you seed the gut of an obese individual with the gut of a thin individual, that that actually can cause weight loss, which, by the way, seeding, we're talking about, you know, the way you get that is through poop.

11:58 And so we're talking about poop pills, which is a tricky, tricky science, right? So, uh, Are there, and it's not available, really, to everyone, and most people are going to say no to that anyway, so these were, of course, done in a laboratory. Is that available, and if not, how can we do that on our own? Okay, way is the fecal microbiotic transfers, which is definitely an extreme method and to everyone. So a way to do it is really changing your diet. And it seems so simple, but really what happens is your diet really impacts the gut microbiome composition. So if you're consuming a lot of processed foods and foods that are low in fiber, That's going to promote the growth of bacteria that thrive on those foods.

12:42 And then those bacteria are going to crave more of those foods. Conversely, if you're eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables and whole grains, if you can tolerate that, that's going to promote a microbiome that's going to promote the good types of food cravings and appetite regulation. So the gut microbiome can change. It's not like you're born with a certain gut microbiome and that's it. So everything that you're putting into your mouth is affecting the gut microbiome. And from my understanding, it can happen quite quick, the changes in the gut microbiome. So The problem is if there's some kind of pathogenic overgrowth, maybe that would be some kind of yeast overgrowth or a parasite or something like that, that becomes a problem. In that case, diet alone very likely isn't, it's not going to be enough.

13:26 So if you just have good guy, bad guy imbalances of the gut microbiome, diet is a very powerful tool. But if you have deeper, overgrowth that could require things like supplementation, natural antimicrobials, so more intense methods to try to rebalance that gut microbiome. and thoughts on probiotics. I think that probiotics are one of those things that really, Can add a what I call a health halo to foods. People say like, oh, well, I'm drinking or eating this, you know, yogurt because it has probiotics or I'm drinking this kombucha because it has probiotics.

14:07 Fine, but then I saw literally, I took a picture, but it's been several years, so I don't know if I could come up with it. Um, a package of dried apricots. With added probiotics, and I'm like, no, no, like there, there has to be some probiotics that are worth your money and worth your time, but certainly eating a few dried apricots with a few probiotics added in there. I mean, they're, they're not going to, it's not the right delivery system. That's not going to be, you know, stored at the right temperature, all, all of that stuff. So can probiotics help? And probiotics that come from food, you know, at what point do those help as well? I love this question. So really, we come to this point where one might say, you know, we just came out with all these probiotics.

14:53 Our ancestors never used to eat probiotics. They were fine. They were just getting it from food. Food's enough. The reality is that we live in a very different environment than we did before, and we have a lot more toxicity. Yeah, toxicity or water quality is in as higher foods aren't high in minerals and and all the things. So really, we do need a little bit of help. So I overall really support the taking probiotics as a supplement just to have that insurance policy. want to make sure that you're buying a high quality probiotic. So nothing from Walgreens or Costco or something like that. Like you really want to be using practitioner grade. Probiotics that have been tested and there's research on them because the thing is what happens with these companies is they hear they see your research paper on one strain. That's good for I don't know.

15:34 Weight loss. Another is good for appetite suppressing and they just kind of combine all these probiotics into a cocktail having never done the research on how they all interact together and that's problematic that you really want to use a brand that has done the research from beginning to end and made sure that their product actually does what they're saying it does. So that's one thing I would say if you're taking a probiotic, just making sure it's high quality, Probiotic foods I think are fantastic and I do recommend them for a healthy gut. So making sure that they're nothing that you're intolerant to, for example, if you can't handle dairy, dairy yogurt is not going to be your friend. Coconut yogurt would be a good alternative. Vegetables that are fermented are fantastic. So kimchi, sauerkraut, any type of other type of vegetable that you're able to ferment are great.

16:17 It's going to take a massive quantity. of those vegetables to get to the same level that's in a probiotic capsule. So unless you're willing to eat cups and cups of fermented vegetables or fermented foods a day, I'd say an easy option is also taking a probiotic pill just to make sure you're hitting all your bases. okay. Perfect. Perfect. Um, is there anything that we can do to test our gut? So obviously we've got some anecdotal evidence from ourselves as far as our digestion. Hopefully, like I have said, you're writing down your food. One thing I like to add is that To a food journal, especially if you're dealing with some of this digestive distress is, is a rating. So if it's like bloating, what was my bloating like today from a scale of one to 10, 10 is like, I look six months pregnant and one is I feel amazing.

17:02 Right. And so you just get to, you know, jot down a rating and that can really help, um, inform on your food journal. So that's just one little trick I like to do with my clients when we're trying to figure out some of our digestive things. But beyond that, beyond our own. records. Can we test for things? And when would that be called for? Definitely. I love the idea of starting with a food journal and trying to understand if there's specific foods that are irritating your gut. But you do come to a point sometimes where it seems like the most random things are irritating you. You don't really understand what the symptoms are because it's like bloating, gas, that could be so many things that are imbalanced in the gut. So that's where testing plays a really important role and is super beneficial.

17:43 So I like to run stool testing on my clients. So it's literally your stool sample is sent to a lab and they assess what's going on. And there's lots of stool tests on the market. Uh, the one I like to use in my practice is called the GI map. And so that one has a lot of practitioner evidence behind it. It's a popular one in the functional medicine space. So that's the one that I've seen a lot of benefits with, with my clients. And it tests everything from what's your, what are your good bacteria doing? How is, how is the beneficial microbiome doing? Are you a little bit low in everything? Meaning there's some kind of insufficiency. Are you not getting enough fiber? Are you not getting enough variety in your diet? You know, what's going on there? It tests for some, for yeast. So that's a really big problem I see in my clients, yeast overgrowth. So especially candida might be a familiar term.

18:23 And that's actually one that's very closely related to sugar cravings. So if clients are really struggling with sugar cravings, and not only just sugar, but also things like carb, high carb foods like breads and pastas and pizzas, that could definitely be some kind of yeast overgrowth happening. It tests for parasites, the stool test. So we think about parasites as being something that's only, that you can only pick up while traveling, but it's extremely common to have parasites in the U. S. or in Canada, wherever you might be. So that's something that a GI map could test for. So these are a couple of the things that you would never be able to necessarily find or really understand if you were just going by symptoms, because symptoms overlap. I mean, bloating could be from parasite, from a imbalanced microbiome, from a yeast overgrowth.

19:04 So when you get testing, you get the results back, you can actually have a protocol that's bio individualized. So using herbs, using a special diet, because it's, the diets are a little bit different depending on what's going on, to really craft something that's best for that person so they can start feeling better and see results soon. Yeah. is helpful to, especially if, if it's a complicated case, like if you're not just like, Oh, it was the gum, like for me. there's other things that have, you know, come up for me for sure. But, you know, sometimes you can eliminate at least a few things just by your own research. And then you're like, okay, it's beyond me. Or I have also had clients where like, it's everything. It's everything. Every meal, every time, I feel this same way, and so, yeah, we definitely need some help there.

19:50 So, what, what do we do to support the gut? Well, I love your idea of a food journal. I think that's a really good place to start to understand if you can find certain triggers. The next thing I would say is just quality of diet. So really minimizing, honestly, getting rid of any type of highly processed food. So anything with long ingredient lists, things you don't recognize, you really want to understand the ingredients on everything you eat. And if there's something you don't understand, doing some research on it, because it's, it's important to understand what you're putting into your body and feeling empowered of knowing what these things are. So in general, minimizing processed foods, avoiding sugar, um, avoiding things that bother you.

20:31 So for example, if you know that dairy is something that bothers you or sugar alcohols or something that bother you, learn to avoid them. And if, if you're finding that you have a lot of other gut issues, it might be worth doing some gut healing. So, working with a practitioner who can actually find out how we can rebalance the gut microbiome. In general, diversity is your friend. So, really not getting stuck in the rut of 20 different things that you pick up at the grocery store every single week. So, finding diversity, trying out those things that you don't really know what to do with. Eating with the seasons is a really easy way to naturally incorporate that, like having tomatoes mostly in the summer and then kind of not having tomatoes the rest of the year, focusing on those winter squashes in the wintertime and then not buying them in the summer. So that alone gives a lot of diversity for the gut.

21:13 And it seems so simple, but that's so helpful for people to make sure that you're feeding the good microbiome, managing the cravings because you have a healthy gut microbiome. So those are some initial tips, and then just a general one that I would say everyone can work on is just chewing your food. Again, sounds so basic, I just saw this. Okay, no, but really, speak about this for a minute, because I am the worst. I'm always telling my clients to like, slow down, be the last one done, and part of that is because, I am the worst. a lot of times they're cutting down their, the volume of food that they're eating. And so they finish early and then they're like, feel sad and, and deprived. Right. So I think that there's two main benefits of this.

21:55 And, and one of them is what I talked to my clients about with, reducing their intake. But the other thing is the long chewing. So talk about that for a sec. Everything in your digestive tract is helping you digest food. So, starting with the teeth. there's enzymes in your mouth that are helping you break down food. If you're just basically taking a bite and swallowing things, the digestive process hasn't fully started and really begins in the brain because once you know that you're eating, your brains that it's time to release hydrochloric acid enzymes, all the things that are gonna help you digest food. So, really slowing down and letting that whole process happen is important. You don't have teeth in your stomach. So you really want to use the teeth in your mouth to help break down the food so that when the food hits your stomach and it starts churning it and digesting it, it doesn't have to do as much work, especially if you get bloating.

22:40 So that's really something that you want to focus on is slowing down, chewing your food, you know, I'd say 20 times per bite, which in the beginning is going to Crazy. It does. It does. Yeah. Yeah. Putting down your fork is really helpful. Because if your fork is in your hand, you're, you're waiting, you're, you're waiting for that next scoop of food. So putting down your fork, chewing, enjoying the flavors, especially if you just spent time cooking something, I mean, to eat it all in five minutes after you spent like an hour or two cooking everything, it seems like such a waste. appreciating the food, you know, thinking about the farmers, thinking about the animal, if you eat animals, whatever it might be. So all of that really slows down the process and in the end gets you into that parasympathetic mode for your nervous system so that you're actually digesting the food, you're resting, you're not in that stress state where digestion is bottom of the line of what the body cares about.

23:26 So all these little things are really helpful to just improve gut health and digestion. I noticed I seemed like this would happen to me so often when I, especially when I had teenagers because they would be needing to be somewhere at seven. Like they had an evening activity. It seems like all the time, a couple of times a week, someone has to be somewhere at six 30 or seven, or we've got a game or we've got a, you know, an event. And so I'm rushing to make dinner. I'm rushing, rushing, rushing. I'm making dinner so fast. I get it on the table. And I'm not the one that has to leave because they have a driver's license, right? And who finishes first? Me! Me! I'm, I finish first and I'm like, what the heck?

24:08 Like, slow down. And so I know sometimes, When, when we feel like, or even if just, you know, people are hungry or what, for whatever reason, you throw together a meal really quickly, try to take a few breaths. And I know there has been some research done even on, um, a prayer or a moment of gratitude before a meal. Do you know about that, that it actually can improve digestion? I mean, I believe it just, if anything, getting into that parasympathetic state to be able to digest food, Yeah, that's a good point. That's probably what's happening is to get out of the fight or flight, which is what I totally am in when I'm making dinner. Sometimes I'm like, get out of my way. I'm in a rush.

24:49 The dog is begging. I'm just like, ah, right. And then just getting into that rest and digest and, um, and just taking a minute, breathe in the food, take some smells. And set yourself up to really, like you said, chew and put your fork down between each bite. definitely. Good. Um, okay, what did, what did we miss? Anything else on the gut? Especially as relating to, weight loss, if, if there's anything else there? I mean, I think just in general, thinking about your gut microbiome and you can be implementing, especially if you're implementing all these great lifestyle changes, you're ticking all the boxes. You're like, I'm doing all the right things.

25:31 The cravings aren't going away. Thinking about your gut microbiome because it's, it's not you necessarily. It could be something that's completely taken over your body in a way and is controlling those cravings. So I think that's a really good place to look at if, if you've tried all the other methods and you're still kind of struggling with a lot of that. Okay, great. if people are looking for a probiotic, is there one that you like and recommend? I really like the mega spore by microbiome labs. So that's a really good one to start with. It's a spore based probiotic, and it's really good at just rebalancing the gut microbiome. So it's typically easy to tolerate a good one to start with. So that's one that I would recommend. Okay. Great. I think, um, just one more thing and we're kind of jumping around, but just one more thing on this.

26:15 Because I was taking some notes earlier, just remembering that when I talk about including fiber in your diet, this is part of the main reason why that fiber is not for us. I love that. What you said, fiber is not for us. It is for the gut bacteria. So. So supporting them with, you know, seeding them with some of those spores and trying to get some of those healthy guys in there. But just remembering that the fiber that you're eating is really, really supportive. And so when Diana says to change your diet, that's, it's the food for them. You're offering it. I know that sounds like sort of like alien, like what in world, what do we have growing in us?

26:56 That's what we have. So much bacteria in us and, you know, making sure we're supporting the right ones really can make a huge difference to our comfort level, as well as like you said, our, our cravings. So thank you so much. Where can people find you online and hear more from you Yes. So my business is table to crave. That would be both my website, my Instagram handle. I'm pretty active there. On my website I have some freebies about gut health and I have a whole diet handout if you're looking for a gut healthy diet. So that's there on my website to download and that's a really good place to start. rates? We'll put all of those links in the show notes. Thank you so much for your time. Yeah, thanks.

27:36 It was great chatting with you. If you're interested in trying that probiotic, that Diana mentioned there is a link to create your own Fullscript account in the show notes. This is just a way for you to access professional grade supplements at a discount, because I give all my podcasts listeners a little discount on any supplements you wanna order, just because I want to say thanks for listening to the podcast. As always, if this episode has helped you in any way, could you share it with someone, take a screenshot of this episode, post it to your stories and for sure. Tag me and Dinah. If you're looking for that extra bit of personalized help with your weight loss, or you need help figuring out some of your digestive issues, be sure to schedule your free coaching call with me and see how much you can benefit link for that is in the show notes.

28:19 Have a great week. And thanks for listening to the eat. Well think, well live well podcast.