How to Improve Gut Health

 Today we are talking about poop and how to improve your gut health. And this is something that most adults don't talk about unless you're talking about your children. So this will be so interesting to talk about related to yourself.

Welcome to Wellness in Every Season. We talk all things wellness to help you align with your goals, find balance in your life, and just recalibrate yourself. If you are listening for the first time, welcome, welcome. I'm so glad you're here, and let's get started in the rest of the podcast.

there are so many people who are struggling on one spectrum or the other with constipation, diarrhea, in between, and their gut health in general, maybe stomach pain, and that they need this so badly.

So share this away.

let me start off by first welcoming Katie Kirkland, and let me tell you a little bit about her so that you're already saying, "Yes, she knows what she's talking about." She is a certified functional nutritional counselor and licensed registered nurse. She's also working on a somatics, certification, so we're gonna be talking about that a little bit.

And she focuses a lot on root cause resolution to address health concerns. Helping others achieve their health goals has been a passion of Katie's from her time as a group fitness instructor to her days working as a registered nurse. While nursing led her on incredible adventures around the world, including volunteering in a hospital ship in West Africa...

working in a children's hospital in Australia and traveling nursing across the United States, Katie's true passion always pulled her towards a preventative approach to health that she couldn't find in a job description. After years of navigating her own health struggles, including gut issues, anxiety, and disordered eating, Katie discovered functional nutrition, an approach that emphasizes personalized root cause healing through nourished food.

Katie now focuses solely on functional nutrition, helping clients achieve transformative health results, combining her passion for preventative care with her expertise in functional health. She's dedicated to helping others experience lasting wellness through sustainable healing.

There is so much here that I'm excited to pull apart and talk about, because I can see how it's all related. Especially because I've done somatics work with a coach. I can see how that correlates with everything you're doing. And it absolutely makes sense that your own issues caused you to dig deeper and then want to share with other people.

It's totally been my journey as well.

But where I wanna start in all of this, because it's a question that's been burning for me, is you've said that you've traveled around helping people. How have you seen their health, their digestion, their food intake, the variety of foods, how has that differed compared to the American diet, and how is it better and worse than others?

well, I have seen quite a lot of diversity, but I will say that the American food culture is very widespread and has influenced other countries greatly. I remember when I was in college, I studied abroad in Costa Rica, and, the typical food there is, like, rice and beans and, you know, just this beautiful nourishing whole food.

And I remember driving around when I was down there and seeing a KFC, seeing a McDonald's, a Wendy's. I think the Hooters was the most shocking. But I was just like, "Wait a second. I thought I left the US. Why am I seeing all these companies here?" And so, you know, American diet culture has definitely...

and when I say diet, in that context, just, like, processed food, fast food. Has definitely influenced the way people eat in other countries. But I think it is still not the norm in other countries mostly for people to be eating fast food all the time like it is in the US.

Because I will say that when I was living in Costa Rica, I still ate majority typical , whole foods there.

What was the ratio, fast foods compared to processed foods?

Processed food was still pretty abundant there. I was studying, so I remember on the college campus,

the food they would offer was mostly whole food, which was great, but there were a lot of processed snack options, candy, chips, those sorts of things. So processed foods were abundantly available still, but the main courses, the main meals were generally more whole foods, and so it felt a little more balanced than what I see in the US.

I'm curious about your own health journey and how long it took you to recover from your gut issues. To give people an idea that it's not always a night and day difference. Yeah. It can be for little things, but for long-term.

It's definitely a journey, and something I have to continue to pay attention to.

Because even though I've done so much work for healing, it's not just like a one and done thing, it's something I continue to focus on and to work toward, is maintaining the health of my gut and subsequent health of my whole body, because the rest of my body is so influenced by my gut health.

But my health journey really began from a very young age. When I was in sixth grade, my whole family went on Weight Watchers, and that was really my first exposure to nutrition and weight loss diet culture. And at that time, that was all I knew to be healthy. I thought, "Okay, healthy means low calorie, low fat."

I was really intrigued by it and I loved learning about it. I was like a weird 13-year-old who subscribed to Prevention magazine 'cause I just loved learning about nutrition from a young age. But I ended up finding myself with all these health issues throughout my teens and 20s, and I remember thinking, "Why am I experiencing all these issues?

Like, everyone around me is eating junk, and I'm eating all these healthy foods, you know, all these diet foods, and I'm the one who's not feeling well. I'm the one with acne, headaches, allergies, GERD." And then as I got older it turned into depression, anxiety, disordered eating. And I remember just feeling like my body was a lemon.

Everyone else can eat whatever they want and do fine. And of course, I'm sure other people were having health issues that I didn't know about. But- I remember feeling frustrated because I felt like I ate so healthy, but I was having all these health issues. And it wasn't really until I was in grad school, which was when I was in nursing school, and I was living with my sister, and she...

I used butter spray. Like, I can't believe it's not butter spray. I used it all the time. I was like, "Look, it's zero calories. It must be good, right?" And she stopped me and said, why are you using that? You know it's just a bunch of chemicals, right?" And it was really this light bulb moment for me 'cause it had never occurred to me that what I was putting in my body so frequently was not real food.

It was just highly processed. That was probably about the worst it can get because there wasn't even butter in it. You can buy... there's probably a spectrum of butter from the most beautiful grass-fed butter rich in nutrients to completely fake butter spray. There's probably some things in the middle that are a combination of butter and oil.

But I was just eating pure straight chemicals. But so that really was a light bulb moment for me, and I would say that was a moment that began this process of unlearning for me.

And so over the next decade, I was on this constant quest for what is the diet that is going to, like, fix my body. I was looking for a fix, so I tried all these different diet approaches, paleo, vegan, vegetarian, intermittent fasting, you name it.

And some of them worked for a time, but none of them really considered me as an individual. And I remember the first time I heard about functional nutrition specifically, and the phrase no, there's no one size fits all really resonated with me. And I was like, "Okay, this is it. This is what I've been looking for."

I just did not know what it was called. But I knew that there was the food as medicine approach. I just didn't know what it was called. And so when I found functional nutrition, it was very much, this is it. This is the direction I wanna take my career, and this is the direction I want to go for helping to heal my body.

And then how long did this take? It sounds like you were on quite a journey before you were like, "This is-

Yeah ...

this is my light bulb moment, my life passion."

Yeah, so that was about five years ago, that I found functional nutrition, and I dove right in. I signed up for certification, same day. I was like, "I've been looking for this.

I'm all in." But what's really interesting is that I had already been practicing functional nutrition to a great degree with my own health before I knew what it was called. In 2020, I had a health wake-up call where I ended up treating myself essentially using functional nutrition or a functional approach without realizing it.

I had an abnormal Pap smear and then a colposcopy that came back with moderate grade lesions that my doctor recommended surgery, and I was just not comfortable with that. And so I ended up speaking with my doctor, and he said, "Okay, I'll give you six months to see if your body can heal on its own."

And so I went on a journey. I made dietary changes. I made lifestyle changes. I tried to manage my stress better. And six months later, everything came back completely clear, and it has remained clear ever since. And I remember my doctor saying, it wasn't just one thing that you did that healed your body.

It was a combination of all the things you did together that healed your body." And looking back, he was just a conventional medical doctor, but what he said was so in line with functional medicine because functional medicine is all about shifting that inner terrain of the body to one that promotes healing rather than one that allows for dysfunction to take root.

And so by making all of these small changes, it created this compounding effect that shifted the terrain of my body to allow it to heal itself.

There's a doctor whose work I love, a metaphor he's created. Are you familiar with Dr. Dale Bredesen?

No. I'll have to Google after though.

He is an Alzheimer's researcher, and he has this metaphor.

He says that Alzheimer's patients have 36 holes in their metaphorical roof, and he has found that if you patch just half of those holes, you can reverse cognitive decline. And those holes aren't... It's not, 18 pills. It's 18 lifestyle changes. So things like, consistently getting seven to nine hours of sleep at night, getting outside and getting da- like morning light.

So it's true lifestyle changes, not just 18 supplements. But what I love about that is it really applies to any health condition because there's generally not just one root cause. It's usually a combination of all these things compounding together that has created a state in the body that allows for disease to take root.

And when we make these small changes and patch one of those metaphorical holes at a time, we can do the opposite. We can compound to create a state of healing. And so I just love that metaphor 'cause I think it reminds me, and I think it's great to share with my clients, that even if one change you make doesn't feel like it's making a difference, like maybe you start going to bed 30 minutes earlier every night, you might not feel that different.

But that in combination with getting morning light, and connecting with your community, and eating a more blood sugar balancing breakfast, and hydrating well throughout the day, like those, all of those small changes add up, and each of them is patching one of those metaphorical holes. And so when we add them up compound together and really create this shift in the terrain.

And so that was a really long way to explain what happened with my body and how I essentially experienced how healing functional nutrition, which is a branch of functional medicine, can be, without even realizing I was doing it.

So what would this breakfast look like?

Yeah, breakfast. One of my favorite breakfasts is eggs and avocado and berries.

I also am a big fan of, like, chia pudding, maybe overnight oats. Really the most important thing is whole food and a combination of protein, fat, and fiber. That is going to set the tone for blood sugar balance through the rest of the morning, and subsequently the rest of the day. It helps regulate energy levels, regulate cortisol and stress levels.

And so when we have a really nourishing whole food breakfast to start the day, it just can make the rest of the day so much smoother

And we'll talk about smoothie in just a second. So, I have noticed my husband is doing the GLP-1 shots. And our insurance company wanted him to get into this program that they're doing where they give him vitamins and do the patch to check his blood sugar, and he had an extra one, so he's like, "Here, try it."

And it was very interesting for me through working with a different functional medicine nurse than the one that I told you I'm going to start working with. She wanted me to do an orange juice and salt, sea salt, and, coconut water mixture in the mornings.

Yeah. It was interesting seeing that spike way up out of the green.

Yeah.

And then I follow that up an hour later with green smoothie and realizing, ooh, that's not good. So I'm curious for those of us who are on the green smoothie train like me, I'm wondering, just checking in with my own body separate from the app, I'm realizing that maybe that's not what my body should have first thing in the morning is that huge spike.

Yeah.

So what do you have to say about us And that can also be the same as people who have really sugary cereals.

So actually, on the topic of the smoothie, that is one of my favorite breakfast options. I love a good smoothie, but you want to pair it with plenty of protein, fat, and fiber.

So you don't want it to just be a bunch of fruit essentially. So you could add protein. You could do protein powder. I love a grass-fed protein isolate powder. You could also add a little collagen for some bonus protein in there too. And then lots of fiber sources. Of course, fruits and veggies are gonna provide fiber.

When it comes to fruit, unless you're drinking this prior to a workout, I would say focus more on berries, which are gonna be high in fiber and low in sugar. If you're going to be moving a lot, working out maybe after drinking this, a banana or something a little sweeter would be appropriate. But ground flax seed, chia seeds, hemp seeds, these are all great additions that provide a little bit of protein, fat, and fiber.

And so adding any of those three in a combination of the three can really help slow that blood sugar spike. When it comes to cereal-

I am not a big fan of cereal because cereal is, even if there's fiber in it, it's still processed fiber, so it's not quite as readily available for the body. And then also when we're eating carby cereal like that We're kind of crowding out other whole foods which are really nutrient dense. And so really with any, like, starchy carb, you wanna eat those really in moderation or sparingly because we don't wanna crowd out really nutrient dense whole foods.

Our food is somewhat depleted of nutrients and minerals just from more modern farming practices that have depleted our soils. And so it's really important that any opportunity we have to eat and choose a good meal, we choose something that's really nutrient dense. So that's why I love eggs.

Eggs, avocados, but also smoothies are a really great option for adding a ton of whole foods into your morning. But yeah, cereal, I would say if someone's going to have cereal, have a small amount of cereal and load it up with some other... Maybe throw on some extra sliced almonds or maybe some flax seed or maybe some chia seeds.

So really load it up, with extra fiber and fat and protein to try to balance out the carb, from that cereal. And I would also say stay away from, the kind of cereal we grew up with as kids.

Cartoony cereal. If there's a cartoon on the box, stay away from it basically.

Yes, 100%. I will occasionally buy cereal in my house, and I try to buy, cereal that, my favorite brand is Three Wishes, and I love it because it's made from chickpeas. So that chickpeas provide some specific nutrients, fiber, that are really great for the gut microbiome.

And it also has a little bit of protein in it too, so it kind of has some of those, blood sugar buffering properties naturally.

And the reason why this matters is when your blood sugar doesn't spike really high, you don't have the high and then the dip after, and you stay full longer,

I don't like having those energy ups and downs throughout the day, especially if you are working at a busy job, you are a full-time parent- It can be really hard-

Absolutely ... when those

energy crashes

I look back when I was younger, and I would have these extreme cravings that would lead me to binge eating at times, and I just have so much compassion for my younger self because I didn't realize that it wasn't a willpower issue.

It was a physiology issue. It was my body asking for nourishment. Because I would eat, like, a bowl of cereal, and then an hour later, my blood sugar would be crashing, and I would be craving intensely craving more carby foods, or caffeine 'cause my energy was crashing too, and I had no idea that if I just ate a really nourishing whole food breakfast- I wouldn't experience those cravings, and I also would have so much steadier energy.

I think, When I told you I felt like my body was a lemon, I just remember thinking like, why is everyone else around me, like why can they... Why don't they have these extreme cravings? Like, what's wrong with me?" And it really wasn't that there was something wrong with me, it just was that I didn't know how to...

I wasn't in tune with my body enough to know what it was really asking for, and it was asking for more nourishment, more calories, more fat, more protein.

From the work that I've done, I'm realizing, and I think this answers that question for anybody else who's wondering the same thing, is I have been low on magnesium my entire life.

But looking at my mother and my grandmother and their symptoms, they have been, too. So if you're wondering why your body feels like such a lemon, look at your generation. Look at your family tree. What is their lifestyle like? Because that absolutely influences you. And think about it just in terms of science, and when there's a fetus in your body or you're the fetus in somebody else's body, you are a parasite.

One that's loved, hopefully, if you're wanted. But you're a parasite, right? So you are taking whatever nutrients that your mother had or didn't have, right? So if they have that nutritional deficiency, so will you.

So for some people, they can easily eat junk food and still be okay, using quotes here.

Look okay on the surface. But maybe you can't, and it can be because of a nutritional deficiency that has gone on for generations. And for me, that was very eye-opening to realize, and to realize it's going to take me a long time to recover because of this. Because it's not just my body, it's I didn't have these needs when I was a fetus.

So it, it's not going to be a light switch thing, which is very frustrating, let's be honest. We all want a light switch, like everything's perfect now and we can go along the way.

Yes.

There, we talked about some key things that really give us an idea of things might not be okay digestion-wise, right?

The energy crashes.

What other things are really good indications? And we can go into poop in this part.

Yeah. Well, let's talk a little bit about, why poop is so important, and just kind of set that stage. it's our number one form of detoxification. It's critical for balancing hormones, reducing inflammation, and just overall gut health.

And the liver plays an important role in elimination, because it dumps out toxins, into the intestines for elimination. So thinking about nourishing our liver is really important, too. When we're not pooping daily, we're not eliminating daily, those toxins are sitting in the colon and can be reabsorbed and recirculated into the bloodstream, making someone literally feel like crap.

So if you've ever been constipated, you know how awful that feels, and that's because those toxins are literally being recirculated through your bloodstream. Let's also talk-

What about the people who are like, "My family's always only pooped once a week," or whatever?

As gently as I can say it, that is not normal. Actually, even if it's your norm, it's important to know that that is not optimal for health.

And if someone is only pooping once a week or maybe a few times a week, that is a huge opportunity for where they can focus to start feeling better.

So let's talk a little bit about what a healthy poop looks like. And first I'll mention that healthy poop is ideally happening one to three times a day.

So once a week is a major red flag and a huge opportunity. It should be medium brown in color. It should be soft and formed. Not too hard, not too loose. It should pass in one piece or a few smaller pieces. On the Bristol Stool Chart, which is a scale grading the consistency of poop, it should be right in the middle, a three to a four.

So not too hard, not too loose. It should be fully digested. It should pass easily and without strain, and it should also pass in 10 to 15 minutes or less. So if someone's sitting on the toilet for 30-plus minutes, that's also a clue from the body that it's asking for support.

So one thing we can talk about is undigested food could be a clue from the body that, it could be something as simple as someone not chewing their food well enough.

When we're eating in a state of fight or flight, we talked a little bit about the nervous system. So important to pause, slow down, take a moment of gratitude or a prayer prior to eating to allow the body to prime itself, the digestive system to prime itself to break down your food. And that includes chewing your food.

So many of us, just scarf down food because we just gotta get it in and get moving. But food mealtime really should be a slow time to allow the body to shift into the rest and digest parasympathetic state and relax and absorb the nutrients that we're eating. One thing we say in the world of functional nutrition is

you've heard the phrase, "You are what you eat." But we take it a step further and say, "You are what your body can do with what you eat." So you could be eating a really beautiful meal, but if your body is not digesting it, you're gonna be losing out on a lot of the nutrients that you're putting in.

One of the simplest ways to help improve your digestion is to just slow down and chew your food a little bit longer. I like to say chew your liquids and drink your solids. So what that means is, let's say you're eating a piece of chicken. Chew it down until it becomes a liquid in your mouth before you swallow it.

And let's say you're drinking a smoothie. Let it sit in your mouth for a second and kind of like chomp on it a little bit. I find adding chia seeds helps with this. You actually have something to chomp down on. So chew that liquid for a moment before you swallow it, just to allow your digestive enzymes to prepare and break it down a little more efficiently

don't do that.

I chug it.

Yeah.

No wonder why sometimes I don't feel so great after a smoothie.

Smoothies can be so easy to just, like, work and slurp them down really quickly. But if you can slow down a little bit, it can make such a difference. And that shifting into that parasympathetic state in the nervous system is also...

through the whole digestive system until you're pooping, is going to make such a difference. Because if you're stuck in that sympathetic fight or flight, your body is also... You're either going to be holding onto your poop more because it can't relax to release, or it's gonna be stuck in this urgency state where it's flushing things out too quickly and you're having diarrhea.

So starting your meal by relaxing, taking some deep cleansing breaths before you eat, taking a moment of gratitude or prayer can just help with the digestion from your mouth all the way till poop.

That makes sense, because we have the enzymes in our mouth that really start the digestion process.

Yeah. But that is what I learned, is that it all starts right here in the mouth.

Yeah.

And how many of us are sitting at our desk while we're eating? I sometimes do that, or I'll be reading my Kindle while I'm eating.

Yeah.

It's that reminder of slow down and actually focus on what I'm doing, one thing at a time. Don't do the whole ADHD thing.

If you can step away from your computer, step away from your phone, maybe sit outside or sit by a window, get some natural light, that is all going to help support calming that nervous system and allowing for smoother digestion, better nutrient absorption, and more efficient and smoother poops.

There was another question that I had with this Oh, yes. I know that poop can change throughout a woman's menstrual cycle. So explain- Yeah ... this, and like what's still healthy along that cycle.

Yeah. I'm not sure that I could answer that very well.

That's

fine.

It's a really good question.

Because I know cramps that you get are some of the same muscles that you're using when you have cramping from diarrhea. I know that it can fluctuate during the cycle.

Yeah.

But I wasn't sure what's still healthy within that and what's not.

Yeah. It's a really great question, but

I'm not sure I have the answer that you're looking for.

That's fine.

Sorry. That's

okay. Or do you wanna address it?

I'm gonna... I should write that down, though, because it is a great question.

You can put it in your newsletter.

Yeah.

If you'd like, we can talk about just some tips to promote healthy and regular-

bowel movements beyond the slowdown

What's actually healthy? 'Cause I know that for some people it's simply they're just not drinking enough. So what is the right amount that we should be drinking? Because I know so many people do the, "I'm gonna have a gallon of water a day," which is actually too much.

Yeah.

And I know that it's not just water that matters, it's also electrolytes because if you have too much- water, you're diluting the electrolytes that are in your body. So what's the right amount?

Yeah. There's a good rule of thumb to aim for half your body weight in ounces per day.

So for someone who weighs 140 pounds, that'd be 70 ounces. And then of course adjust according to how much you're sweating. If you're working out, you'll wanna increase that. If you're working out in the yard and it's really hot and you're sweating, you'd wanna increase that. And also if you're drinking any caffeine, you would want to increase that.

That's a good general rule of thumb, half your body weight in ounces per day, I would aim for at a minimum for most people. And I do encourage my clients to at least once a day incorporate some electrolytes. Because electrolytes ensure that you're hydrating at the cellular level.

This is especially important of course if we're working out or sweating a lot.

But most people can benefit from a little bit of electrolyte support. So that could be, like, an electrolyte packet, but it could also be something as simple as sprinkling sea salt in your water, which is what I love to do.

I'm a big fan of Redmond Real Salt. I think it tastes so good, and I will just sprinkle it in my water throughout the day just for a little bit of support.

And this is where really paying attention to your body is important. If you're drinking a ton of water and you notice you're peeing all the time, your pee is clear, you're either drinking more than you need or you're not getting enough electrolytes at the same time to hydrate at the cellular level.

Or you might be drinking a lot and you notice, "Oh, I'm getting a headache. How am I getting a headache? I'm hydrated." But you might be flushing out electrolytes a little bit too much. So that's where it can be very individualized, just how much you need.

That was me growing up in Arizona.

Yeah.

And I served on a volunteer capacity, and I was switching who I was serving with. And she let the next person I was serving with know that she pees a lot, just so you know. Meaning me.

Yeah.

So interesting, that's actually not a good thing. Because I was always told, it needs to be more on the clear side.

If it's too yellow, that means you're dehydrated.

Yeah.

Interesting. Yeah. And when I had, extra blood work done and hair follicle analysis, I actually found out that I don't have enough salt in my diet, which-

Yeah ...

I grew up, you don't wanna have a lot of salt in your diet. That's not good for heart health.

Right. And my family loves to have a lot of salt. My extended family. So it was like, I'm going the healthier route.

Yeah.

Making notes here. Yeah. Add a little more salt. I've noticed that with electrolyte mix. That definitely helps me. Oh, here's one.

After I am done working out, I would do the same protein, shake that my husband does, and it actually hurts my stomach. I am pretty sure I'm not the same, the only person that has this happen.

Yeah. I would be curious what kind of protein it is.

Okay.

Yeah. 'Cause if it's

whey- It's interesting that he's fine with him

but it,

I'm not.

Yeah. Yeah ... yeah, I forget what kind. It's Costco brand.

Okay.

Yeah, your last name brand. Not quite. If only- Yeah ... right? You want some stock in that. But, I'll add glutamine to it, and sometimes- Ooh ... that helps my stomach, and I've even gone so far as adding a mixture of water and coconut water with it, and sometimes that helps.

Yeah.

And sometimes I just have pain in my stomach afterwards,

yeah.

I would be really curious to know what kind of protein it is. Is it, like, a whey protein? 'Cause a lot of people don't tolerate whey. I think it is. You could consider a vegan protein like a pea protein, or you could try a protein isolate.

Which I do that

in my smoothie. I do pea protein. We do that- for our kids, too.

Yeah. I, my favorite is a protein isolate because it's essentially like drinking beef. It sounds disgusting, but it is so good. My favorite brand is Equip, Prime Protein by Equip. It's really delicious. It's grass-fed beef, and you're, I mean, you're literally drinking the beef.

I like their chocolate but you can get unflavored vanilla. They have a ton of different flavors. But I cannot tolerate whey. I have tried so many different whey brands, and they just don't work for me. But protein isolate I love. It's so delicious, and I'm, I'm getting a complete protein still.

I will still use a vegan protein sometimes, but I like to have the protein isolate in the mix, too, just to get that real food- protein essentially

And I don't like the taste of pea protein. I have to hide it. Ugh.

Yeah.

Even from our kids, we have to hide it.

Yeah.

lot of options out there, and so yeah, I would be curious if maybe it's the way that you don't tolerate.

Interesting. A

nd then I've noticed that if I don't have enough magnesium in my diet, that also affects my poop, and I'm curious if that is what most people are struggling with?

I would say that's a huge factor for a lot of people.

Magnesium deficiency is so common. And so supplementing with a little bit of magnesium, magnesium citrate specifically, if someone is having constipation can be really effective for helping to move the bowels. But some people, even some magnesium glycinate, which is super gentle, some people, that's all they need is some glycinate.

There's also combination magnesiums that can be really helpful. And then of course, always starting with food and looking for, magnesium-rich foods and incorporating those into your diet as much as possible. But like I mentioned before, our food is so depleted of nutrients that sometimes a little bit of supplement can be really helpful.

And so magnesium is one of those supplements that probably the majority of people could benefit from. So if someone is having trouble with poop, I would say hydration is probably number one. Magnesium is definitely something to consider. Of course, considering fiber intake. So many people do not eat enough fiber, especially whole food fiber.

Can you explain what that is? 'Cause most people when they think of fiber, they think of wheat.

Yeah. They think of, like, Fiber One cereal. Fiber comes from any plant food, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains like brown rice and oats, legumes, flax seeds, chia seeds, hemp seeds. So those are all sources of fiber.

Majority of fiber really should come from these whole food options. So whole foods, I'll just define that. These are foods that come from the earth. They're single ingredient. You know, if you buy some nuts, they should not have any other ingredient on the label. There should be no oil added to them.

Maybe a little sea salt is okay, but whole foods are from the earth. The apple you can pick off a tree, or carrots you can eat, So just shifting to eating more whole foods can dramatically help improve someone's digestion and help improve their bowel habits. But yeah, growing up on Weight Watchers, I always looked for fiber on a label in a processed food.

I'm like, "Okay, this cereal has this much fiber." And I didn't really think about the fact that plant foods, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, those are natural sources of fiber, and those are going to be the most nourishing for the gut for helping keep the bowels regular, and keeping them at an optimal consistency because they can add bulk to the stool to prevent diarrhea, and when you're eating fiber and hydrating really well, that can also help prevent constipation too.

And something else that's so important about fiber is that it also feeds the gut microbiome. So the trillion bacteria in the gut need fiber from different whole food sources to maintain a healthy balance.

And my rule of thumb for this is thinking about eating a rainbow of colorful fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains, legumes,

eating a rainbow of those throughout the day and week to ensure that you're nourishing that gut microbiome. It's really cool because if you look at, a list of foods based on their color, and the type of fiber they provide, they all provide, a different type of prebiotic for the gut bacteria it's so simple to just think of eating that rainbow because you're going to naturally be feeding these different prebiotics to the bacteria to help maintain a healthy and robust, diverse microbiome just by the simple idea of eating a rainbow.

And so that's something that can be as simple as when you go to the grocery store, looking in the produce section and picking out one or two red items, so maybe a red apple and red peppers. Then some yellow or, and orange. So just going through the rainbow and ensuring you're having a little bit of each color.

And then also some white and brown in there, so cauliflower, nuts, seeds, and-

Persimmons.

Also just trying new vegetables and fruits and other plant foods from time to time is also so important for maintaining a really balanced gut microbiome. I will sometimes go to the grocery store and be like, "Okay, what have I not tried in a while?"

or, "What have I never tried?" Just get a little adventurous. Even if it's just one piece of fruit, like a dragon fruit that you've never tried or maybe some artichoke hearts that you've never tried. Just a little bit of diversity and change can go a long way in feeding the gut microbiome and helping maintain a healthy balance.

That's what I love about joining a CSA is you're kind of forced to try something new.

Yeah.

So what about those of us who- Maybe are a foodie.

Yeah.

Do you have any recommendations of places where we can find recipes that already are naturally going to have ingredients that are more rainbow-based and high fiber-based so that we're not having to think through everything?

Because we live in this fast-paced society where we don't wanna stop and think about one more thing.

Yeah. There are so many great blogs and recipe books out there.

The Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook is a good one. I'm also a big fan of just searching for, Whole30-friendly recipes.

The one caveat to that is there's no grains in there, and whole grains are also important for most people, unless you don't tolerate them for some reason. But I like to search for recipes. It can be really simple just to search, on Google, if you wanna make a breakfast casserole.

Whole food breakfast casserole, maybe say you could put Whole30 or paleo or use one of those words just to kind of filter some other things out to find more clean ingredients. There's some tricks like that, and also obviously, we can use things like AI to look up to create recipes.

That can be helpful based on what you have at home. Like, "Hey, I have these 10 ingredients. C- help me build a recipe around this." But I will say my very favorite thing, and what I find is most sustainable for my family, is typically not to use a recipe, but to do more ingredient prep. So when I go to the grocery store, I'll buy a bunch of different veggies.

I'll buy a bunch of different protein options, and then I'll just prepare them for the week, or maybe twice a week I'll do a little haul and do some meal prep. and then I'll prepare maybe some quinoa or rice, have some greens on hand that are already pre-washed, and then I can just throw together a bowl or a salad.

And then when we have those ingredients prepared, then I can easily feed my kids, some chopped, sweet potatoes and other veggies that we've prepared. And that's also really easy if you're going to sporting events, to throw those in a glass container and take them with you.

Throw together a quick bowl. So that's really my favorite way to do it. I know some people love recipes, but I find that I just don't have time to prepare recipes. But it can be fun. I mean, there are some really great recipe books out there, or cookbooks.

I looked up Buddha bowls, and that totally fulfills that

Yeah

you get the chickpeas, the sweet potatoes, the black beans, and then you add in the vegetables.

Yes. That's what I do.

I'm also a big fan of keeping some frozen and canned items on hand, like canned beans and canned chickpeas, because those are pre-cooked

I Instant Pot it instead. I can't stand the smell of when they're canned, opening it,

I will say I use that mostly for my kids. I'm just like, "Here, we- you need some beans. Let me just give you some of those," and they don't seem to mind it. But it's just a simple way.

It, I feel like we all need a little simplicity and we could all benefit from food prep being a little bit easier. I also like to highlight frozen food, like frozen veggies as an option because frozen food actually, it's frozen at peak ripeness. And so it actually is often more dense in nutrients than what you get fresh out of the refrigerated section or, from the produce section because it's frozen at peak ripeness.

So I know for me, it took me a little while to... I always felt like fresh was superior. And fresh is amazing, so not hating on fresh. But if frozen is more accessible to you and it's going to allow you to have more options throughout the week, or maybe you've gone through your supply of fresh food and now you need to reach into the freezer because you're kind of due for a grocery shop, frozen food is such a great option there just to have a, a back stock in your supply.

I grew up on fresh and frozen, so I can tell when it's canned and I will avoid it.

Yeah.

I'm a bit of a snob there. But also looking at it nutritionally, it's not as good when it's canned. So that makes me feel better for being a snob.

Yeah. With canned, I do always try to buy, I make sure that it's in a non-BPA liner-

because of the plastic, which is so unfortunate that we have to think about that. But I am particular, in that sense when it comes to canned.

Are there any other things that we should keep in mind with our poop, with the health of it?

Something else that's so important for promoting healthy poop, we talked about stress and slowing down and calming the nervous system.

But something that is so important to both calming the nervous system and promoting good detox is sleep, and really prioritizing good quality sleep. 'Cause sleep is critical for detoxification. It's critical for processing hormones, nutrients, and even emotions. And when our circadian rhythm is aligned, that can actually improve bowel function and regularity.

So just prioritizing optimal sleep, seven to nine hours for most people. Some people might be able to get away with a little bit less. But if you're sleeping less than six hours, then I would really consider that and prioritize that, especially if someone's not pooping every day.

Really when it comes back to most things, thinking from a functional nutrition perspective, a lot of it is just going back to the basics. And with sleep, the basics are good sleep hygiene. So having a dark, cool room. Avoiding screens before bed or maybe wearing blue light blocking glasses if you can't fully avoid screens.

Making your bedroom a sleep sanctuary. So these simple tweaks can go such a long way for helping promote deeper sleep, and subsequently helping support detoxification and regular healthy bowel movements.

What I love about any of these conversations is we went in saying we were gonna talk about poop, but we talked about so much more.

Yeah.

And the goal for anybody listening is just take one thing and try it, and then build upon it. So many things were offered to you in the discussion that we had today. Pick one and share this. There are so many people who need this because there was a guy I dated in high school who would always say, "I'll sleep when I'm dead."

Sure. Do you wanna die sooner? I mean, that type of idea. And there's so much related to sleep. If you, any of you have watched the movie Inside Out, those marbles come through. It's actually true. With our memories, our memory storage is in there. That's when we can detox.

That's when we can- reprocess traumatic things that have happened. So you actually are healing yourself in a mental health way. And that's where, trauma comes in, is you can't reprocess it enough for your sleep. So that's where we can get stuck, and that's when we need to see a therapist and do EMDR or all the other different tools that are out there.

So it's amazing that we ended up talking about sleep. We ended up talking about diet. We ended up talking about stress. We talked about really the signs that our body isn't doing well, that maybe our acne is telling us something. It's not just, "Oh, well this is just the way my skin is, is oily," or whatever.

That it, you need to look under the hood a little bit more.

Any symptom that we're experiencing from the body, I always say it's information. It's the body speaking to us and saying, "Hey, I need a little bit of support." And that's really where the idea of looking at the root level, the root cause level, and shifting that inner terrain makes such a difference.

Not just seeing acne as, "Oh, I guess I just have, a skin issue." No, this is like a clue. It's information. It's like a check engine light from your body saying, "Hey, there's something going on under the surface," under the hood, like you said. And this is an opportunity to support the body there.

And it's not one of those here's a pill for it type of thing.

Exactly.

That it probably needs to be a layered approach, like you were talking about. And that, like I said with my own journey, is it's not gonna be a light switch. Which- Right ... would be amazing, but if it was this light switch, then that means it would be something that we would ignore again.

And before we hit record, I was telling Katie that it feels like all of this is like a really long hike, where you get these vistas in there, and you get this chance to pause and be like, "This feels good. I get to observe this." And then your body starts to tell you, "Okay, I need this next thing to up level and to become better."

So that's why it's this long journey. You've s- seen this vista, and now you get to go up m- further in this hike. And because she and I both like hiking, we both resonated with this and talked about it for a while. But we keep waiting to get to this point where we've suddenly arrived, and it's never going to be that, because then you're gonna realize, "You know what?

I can make this better."

Mm-hmm.

And that is the goal. And then we turn around and we help other people behind us, and that is the whole point of this podcast on having people on, is you're healing yourself, and then you're turning around and you're sharing this, and you're helping to heal somebody else.

Mm-hmm. And that's what I love about this community, is that we all want to better ourselves in a very holistic way, and modern medicine makes that... It's very broken. We'll go to the doctor for one thing, and we're only told that we can only talk about that one thing in the appointment. Mm-hmm. Where with functional medicine, we're learning that no, it's all of these things, and then here's the iceberg, and we're gonna drill down, and here's what the root cause is, and here are all the different ways that you could heal it.

So I love that- Mm-hmm ... this conversation talked about that further.

And that we talked about that we have this really great indication of how we're doing is our poop.

Yeah.

What does it look like? Is there blood in your poop? Is it black? What is the color? What is the texture, and things like that. And that's something that sometimes we forget about until we're changing a diaper for maybe someone elderly or a baby, because then we're seeing it, and we forget to notice that with ourselves.

We just quickly wipe, flush, move along our day, and we don't look.

Mm-hmm.

Or we don't tune into how are we feeling before we even poop, or after we eat, or before we eat.

Yeah. I like to say that poop is like a free daily health report. We can learn so much from it.

Yeah.

So tell us how to work with you.

Yeah. I currently offer one-on-one coaching. I am moving into a group program as well soon. My website is katiekirklin.com, so it's K-I-R-K-L-I-N. I'm also on Instagram @katiekirklinnutrition. I'm on LinkedIn,

Facebook, all the socials. It's really such an honor to get to work with people. And so, you know, when I can help guide someone through what I've talked about, shifting that inner terrain of the body to a state that promotes healing, it is just so rewarding, and it's just such an honor to be able to help people with that.

By the time this goes live, I will have recorded it, is talking about the whole idea of blue zone living, that we can have that within our own family, within ourselves to start with, and then within our family. And blue zone means there's a lot of people in that area that are living well,

like, everything's functioning properly. Yeah. And we're living with vitality, and we're living until we're well past 100, and that should be the goal. It shouldn't be this idea that maybe we live that age, but we're not living well. And there's so many people that are going through their day, and it's kind of like they're driving their car, and you can hear that serpentine belt, you know that noise?

Mm-hmm. Or it's... I can't stand that noise. Or you hear, like, the clunky wheels, or you're driving on a flat tire. You, your body is, think of it as a car, and you want it to be that sleek race car where it performs well, not you're racing along at top speed and things aren't working well.

Uh-huh.

But it's that idea that you wanna be at top performance for whatever life throws at you, and you wanna be able to find your purpose and have your body functioning properly that this life has meaning for you, and that you're showing up for it in the best way possible.

Yeah. I love that.

Well, thank you for being on, and thank you for all of you for listening and for sharing, and we will see you again in a couple days. And look in the show description if you are ready to work with Katie, or if you wanna jump on her newsletter, or learn more about her or dive in deeper with the things that we talked about here.

Yeah. Thanks so much for having me, Autumn.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope that you found the answers that you needed and you had some amazing aha moments. Please share this episode with others because it helps us align ourselves and then better align the world so that we can seek the healing that we really are looking for.

As part of the legal language, I am a certified life coach with a bachelor's in applied health. That is what I am leaning on for this. This is general advice, take it as such. See you in the next episode.