Ep 62: Your 2025 gut health plan

 

Resources

Links from the episode:

• Enroll in gutTested and get 1:1 support for your GI issues

• Instagram
• Website
• Learn about Dr. Heather & team’s life-changing programs 

Transcriptions:

SPEAKER

Dr. Heather Finley

Dr. Heather Finley: Welcome to the Love Your Gut Podcast. I’m your host, Dr. Heather Finley, registered dietitian and gut health specialist. I understand the frustration of dealing with GI issues because I’ve been there and I spent over two decades searching for answers for my own gut issues of constipation, bloating, and stomach pain.

I’ve dedicated my life to understanding and solving my own gut issues. And now I’m here to guide you. On this podcast, I’ll help you identify the true root causes of your discomfort. So you can finally ditch your symptoms for good. My goal is to empower you with the knowledge and tools you need so that you can love your gut and it will love you right back.

So if you’re ready to learn a lot, gain a deeper understanding of your gut and find lasting relief. You are in the right place.

Welcome to the love your gut podcast.

Welcome back to the next episode of the love your gut podcast and the first episode of 2025. So excited to be here with you today, whether you’re Popping me in your AirPods on a walk or doing laundry or whatever it is that you’re doing. Excited to chat about your gut health goals for 2025. Now I’m not a huge resolution person.

I know many people are and many people aren’t. But today I want to take the time to map out a plan for you. To help you make some changes, whether you are looking to improve your energy, your gut health, your hormones are all of the above in 2025 and focus on a way to make some sustainable changes. I think that’s why I’m not a huge fan of resolutions because I associate that with something that you do for 30 days and then stop, I am a fan of slow, sustainable changes that really make a lasting impact in your health. So I want to start off with just a client story. I remember distinctly having a conversation with a woman last January, probably mid to late January on a discovery call. And she just was telling me how defeated she was. She said, every year I tell myself I’m going to get healthy, but I don’t.

By the second week of January, I’ve already failed. I have great intentions of cutting out sugar, gluten, dairy, you name it. And then I cave and I feel like I have no discipline. And so if you can relate to this story, I want you to know that you’re not alone. After the holidays, it can be so easy to feel overstimulated.

I know I certainly was. I Was ready for the Christmas decorations to be gone. Literally the day after Christmas, I took them down because with all the holiday get togethers and activities and then extra decorations in my house, I was so overstimulated, but between kind of the endless decor, family plans, social hoopla, all of that.

Yeah. You might feel like the solution to your oversimulation. And the way to fix that is to jump to something extreme, no sugar, no carbs, no fun. And then by mid January, that all or nothing mindset has you feeling like a failure when in reality, the problem is not you. The problem is the plan. If you’ve ever felt like this, you are not alone.

This episode is here to help you set some realistic and sustainable gut health goals for 2025 ones that work with your life and not against it. So I’m going to give you eight strategies today to help you. As you navigate the new year, you are welcome to come back to this episode throughout the year to sustainably slowly add some of these things.

And so the first strategy that I want to give you is to focus on foundations first. Now, let me say that. I know that this is probably the not the most sexy thing. But I want to make it something that feels doable and exciting to you. So let me tell you about one of my clients, Sarah, that’s what we’ll call her.

When she came to us, she felt like she was doing everything similar to the woman that I shared about previously. Cutting out sugar, gluten, dairy, skipping meals to just reset, quote unquote, trying every supplement that tick talk recommended for gut health. And instead of feeling better, she was exhausted, bloated, overwhelmed.

And after really looking at what she was doing, what I told her was, Actually, instead of cutting more things out, we need to focus on what you can add in starting with a balanced plate. The problem that we see with so many women that we work with is that because they’re on this train of just cutting, their meals become extremely imbalanced and actually start impacting their blood sugar, which makes the fatigue and overwhelm and just frazzled feeling even worse. So as we work on building a balanced plate, you will actually feel better. So three weeks after this woman started what we call PFFC, so protein, fat, fiber, color, her energy was up, her bloating was down.

And she told me, I feel like myself again. When we start weed whacking foods out of our diet, it will make a lot of different things worse. So let’s talk about first the foundation of a balanced plate. Like I said, PFFC stands for protein, fat, fiber, color. So protein, things like eggs, salmon, tofu chicken, et cetera.

We need protein because it balances our blood sugar. It supports tissue repair. It helps build neurotransmitters like serotonin, key for Mood and feeling calm. We need fats. These help regulate hormones. You can’t make hormones without fats. So I’m talking about avocado, olive oil, nuts, seeds. These actually slow digestion for sustained energy and they support nervous system health.

We need carbohydrates. We need carbohydrates because most of them have fiber. And so you could say fiber rich carbohydrates for the other. F and PFFC, so protein, fat, fiber rich carbs, and color. Fiber feeds beneficial gut bacteria. It supports healthy digestion. It balances blood sugar. I’m talking about things like sweet potatoes, brown rice, oats, even fruit, etc.

And then last thing is color. That’s pretty obvious. Any kind of non starchy colorful fruit or vegetable are really vegetables. Vegetables are packed with antioxidants, minerals, vitamins, prebiotic fiber. They help with hormone detoxification, et cetera. And so if you just have this mental checklist, every time you are making a meal, it helps because this Combination of food PFFC when you eat, carbohydrates are broken down into glucose or sugar and absorbed into your bloodstream, but without protein, fiber and fats, carbs can cause a rapid spike in blood sugar caused by a crash, and this leads to fatigue, cravings, irritability, This is why you might feel more cravings and more irritable at the holiday time when you are eating more sweets and sugar and simple carbohydrates.

Again, not a bad thing but that might also be contributing to some of this overstimulation that maybe you feel going into the new year at the end of the holiday season. So just some ideas perhaps Baked sweet potatoes with broccoli or some kind of non starchy vegetable use olive oil as your fat add some grilled salmon etc.

It does not have to be complex. You don’t have to follow Super complicated recipes you do not have to spend hours in the kitchen I know personally as a mom of three I do not have time to spend hours in the kitchen It needs to be 20 30 minutes or less usually less and bulk prepping and having things ready in advance is something that has been super, super helpful for me.

But we need all of these foods for protein and hormone synthesis. We need them for hormone production. We also need them for hormone detoxification. So if you’re struggling at all with any kind of hormone issue, eating in the PFFC method will help with making and producing hormones like insulin, cortisol, thyroid hormones.

It will also help to make hormones like estrogen and progesterone. And then fiber, sometimes the most often missing piece of the standard American diet fiber binds to excess estrogen to help You to have healthy estrogen levels and prevent estrogen from being reabsorbed in your bloodstream, contributing to symptoms like PMS, heavy periods, breast tenderness, etc.

It’s. It’s super easy. Maybe you just make a little checklist in your mind, or you could do it on paper, protein, fat, fiber, color, and build out maybe just a couple examples of some easy meals that you could make. So that’s the first thing is. Starting with a foundation of nutrition, starting with a foundation of supporting your blood sugar.

Before I move to the next tip, I want to talk a little bit about why this works for supporting your nervous system. One thing that you may have heard from providers prior is that you need to just Relax, or you need to stress less, or you need to just do some deep breathing. But one of the best ways that you can actually support your nervous system.

And I would argue that you will not be able to have a regulated nervous system without is balanced blood sugar. Because skipping meals or eating unbalanced meals keeps your body in a stress response state. So this fight or flight state. which increases cortisol levels. You probably see tons of information about cortisol all over the internet and elevated cortisol will impair your digestion.

It slows down gut motility. It reduces stomach acid. And so when you eat in a balanced manner, this actually takes your body out of a stressed state, which is a good thing. We’ve all heard the term hangry before. This is exactly what’s happening, and maybe it’s not happening to this extent every single day.

Maybe your body’s kind of adapted to less regulated or less balanced meals, and so you might not feel hangry, but maybe you feel tired. Maybe you feel dysregulated. Maybe you feel like you’re having trouble concentrating. Sometimes the key here is a balanced meal and balanced nutrition or balance on your plate.

And this can have a ripple effect when you’re, when you balance your plate, you’re not just improving one area. You’re creating just a ripple effect that benefits your hormones, your digestion, your mental clarity, your fertility. All these things that maybe might be a part of your broader health goals.

So just some simple tips for this first tip. Number one is start simple. Maybe think about what you’re already eating and ask what’s missing. So maybe you’re missing protein in the morning. Just focus on that. Add protein to your breakfast or maybe you’re missing fiber. Add that pre make some components.

Like I said earlier, this is something that is huge for me. We like to bulk prep. protein and veggies and things to just have on hand for easy balanced meals that are not complicated. So roast a pan of veggies, grill some chicken, make a pot of rice, whatever it is so that you can enjoy balanced meals all week

.

The third and most important tip for this Specific tip of starting with foundations is don’t skip breakfast. I know the mornings can be crazy My mornings right now are so unpredictable with a six week old baby But skipping breakfast really throws off your blood sugar and it makes it harder for you to stay regulated and focused throughout the day So start with something simple greek yogurt berries almond butter Maybe make egg cups in advance, have stuff ready for smoothies, chia pudding, whatever it is, but don’t skip breakfast and then keep it flexible.

Balanced doesn’t have to mean boring or rigid. If you’re eating out, think about ways to balance your plate, add a side salad order salmon to add protein, whatever it is to make your plate more balanced and keep this mindset of. What can I add? So when you build a balanced plate, you’re not just feeling your body.

You are setting yourself up for success. Instead of focusing on what to take out, ask yourself, what can you add to support your energy, your hormones, your gut health, small changes really do lead to big results. Which leads me to my next tip. Strategy number two is to support your gut brain connection.

Now it’s, you probably know this by now, but your gut and brain are connected and what goes on in your gut impacts your brain. What goes on in your brain impacts your gut. Imagine maybe, and maybe this is you’ve been dealing with bloating for weeks. Maybe you’re so self conscious that you feel uncomfortable.

It’s all you can think about. Then maybe out of nowhere, You get a really stressful email from your boss or friend asking you for to meet some last minute deadline. You feel your panic rising, your chest tightens, your stomach twists, and then your bloating gets even worse. We’ve maybe all been in a similar situation.

This is the gut brain connection and action. When your mind is stressed, your gut feels it too. And when your gut isn’t functioning well, it sends signals back to your brain, amplifying these feelings of overwhelm, anxiety, burnout, et cetera. So this connection is a two way street, which means that supporting your mind supports your gut and vice versa.

Let’s talk about how you can support this connection and feel better from the inside out. Number one the important key tip here to remember is that the gut is the second brain. So your gut has its own nervous system, which is called the enteric nervous system. This communicates directly with your brain.

Brain through the vagus nerve. And when your gut is inflamed or imbalanced, it will make it, it will contribute more to feelings of mood swings, anxiety, and brain fog. So one of the ways to help you manage and support your gut brain connection is actually to fix your gut. Stress also affects your gut.

Like I mentioned, it slows digestion. It can reduce stomach acid. It can increase intestinal permeability or. Otherwise known as leaky gut. So working on your stress will help to not impact your gut microbiome. It will help to make sure that you have a wide variety of bacteria in your gut, but you can’t do that with also addressing it really from both ends.

Another thing to keep in mind is that your gut helps with serotonin production. About 90 percent of your serotonin, a neurotransmitter that regulates mood, is produced in your gut. So if your gut health is compromised, your serotonin levels might be too, which will impact your mood and overall resilience to stress.

Lastly, if there’s chronic inflammation in the gut and this is triggering systemic inflammation, this is going to impact your brain function and mental health. So how do we actually support this connection if you do have GI issues going on? Number one is tying it back to the balanced plate. When you eat balanced meals that have protein, fat, fiber, And color, you are supporting stable blood sugar, which impacts your brain.

Blood sugar crashes. A lot of times can feel like anxiety, shakiness, irritability, brain fog. When you eat balanced meals, you stabilize your blood sugar and that will actually calm your nervous system. So make sure that you are going back to that strategy. If you feel anxious, if you’re having trouble focusing, brain fog, et cetera.

Another tip is to eat in a relaxed state. When we eat in a stressed state, our body doesn’t know the difference between being chased by a tiger or eating a meal if we’re stressed about it. So trying to get into a quote unquote rest and digest state, sit down and eat without rushing to your food. Take some deep breaths so you can digest and absorb your food better.

And when you’re absorbing and digesting your food better, This will send calming signals to your brain. We also need lots of vitamins and minerals for healthy mood. And so it’s a simple shift that can really have a profound effect. Deep breathing is one of the ways that you can get into more of a mindful state.

And it doesn’t have to be complicated. We usually teach something called box breathing to our clients. It’s really simple. You breathe in for four, And then you hold the breath for four seconds, then you breathe out for four and you hold again for four seconds. If you just do three cycles of that, you are instantly going to lower your stress, whether you are in the middle of a meeting.

You are about to eat a meal. You’re sitting in traffic, whatever it might be. And lastly is when you heal your gut, you will also reduce your anxiety. So whether that means that you are removing things that you know, trigger GI issues like alcohol or whatever it might be. If you know that there’s something that irritates your gut, you, if you remove it or you find a substitute for it, you will feel a lot better.

And this matters a lot because As a female which I think is like 99 percent of the people that listen to this podcast. And I know many of the people that listen to this podcast are busy moms. They are working. They have a career. You’re likely juggling a lot of stressors. If you are If you have a lot going on, your career, your family, your social life, maybe even health challenges like your GI issues, you might feel overwhelmed.

And this overwhelm is going to impact your gut issues. And when your gut is off, it actually only adds to your stress and stress doesn’t just affect your digestion. It will impact your hormones as well. Supporting your gut brain connection can regulate your nervous system, which is indirectly going to support your hormones too.

And then this is going to help you build resilience so that your body can actually manage stress and handle stress better. Here are just some Easy things that you can do to just check in on your stress each day. Maybe set an alarm on your phone as just a daily nervous system check in have an alarm go off.

And maybe when you see that alarm, you do a couple of cycles of box breathing, or you take a walk outside or just do something that takes two minutes or less. To help regulate your nervous system adding in more minerals is going to help that support your mineral or that support that supports your nervous system.

So things like magnesium, potassium, omega threes. all these foods are going to help with supporting your nervous system and just trying to eat in peace if possible, like I mentioned shifting into that rest and digest mode. I know I have had many conversations about this with clients, a lot of clients that start our program and we talk to them about We talk to them about meal hygiene, we talk to them about resting and digesting, making sure that they’re setting up space for their meals, making sure that they’re not, eating at their desk or in traffic or whatever it might be.

They roll their eyes and say yeah, give me the good stuff. When they actually apply this, they find that it’s way more helpful than they realize. One specific client really started working on this and she realized that. Her stress was a huge impact on her GI issues. Of course, that wasn’t the only thing, but taking her lunch away from her desk, doing a couple cycles of box breathing made such a difference that she was no longer feeling so stressed.

So significantly bloated after her lunch, where the rest of the workday felt a lot more manageable. And obviously we added in other strategies and things to help her related to what we saw in testing, et cetera. But just the simple shift of taking time to eat a meal really made a difference, in her day to day life, especially when it came to work and productivity.

And I don’t know any employer that’s, Measuring that. But can you imagine, how much that would help if we actually did focus on the gut brain connection, focus on resting and digesting when we had meals. Okay. Next strategy is balanced nutrition over restriction. It’s so common that we work with clients that are like the ones that I’ve described.

A mid thirties mom working full time has multiple kids juggling work deadlines, school pickups, trying to squeeze in me time, constantly overwhelmed, also struggling with bloating, irregular digestion, fatigue and have this narrative of if I eat this, then I have symptoms or if I eat dairy, I’m bloated.

If I eat bread, I’m gassy. If I eat sugar, my energy crashes. My body’s punishing me. I’m scared of food. And there’s so much pressure. So they immediately do what I described before of the way to fix it is to be more restrictive. Okay. I’m only going to eat clean. I’m only going to eat, X, Y, and Z foods.

I will not eat this. And the problem is that when you have an all or nothing mindset, you get into this restriction rebellion cycle. So you tell yourself you can’t have something, whether it’s bread, sugar, whatever your favorite pasta dish, and that’s all you can think about, right? If you tell a kid don’t eat the cookies on the counter, what are they going to think about?

The cookies on the counter. So restriction creates obsession, and eventually you’re likely to quote unquote give in and eat a lot more than you normally would, which leads to guilt, self blame, the self fulfilling prophecy. So you’re stressed about food. You’re working against your digestion because your body is just in this fight or flight state and it’s a double edged sword.

Stress over food is going to impact your digestion and hyper focusing on it isn’t going to make anything better. And also your body is not your enemy. If you are treating your body like It’s the problem and blaming it for not digesting well for, this symptom or that symptom. It can put you in this cycle of just shame, blame, guilt.

So I want you to shift from subtracting to adding. So instead of obsessing of what you need to cut out, what can you add to your plate to support your gut? So if you’re craving something, what can you do to make it a balanced meal? What can you do to make yourself feel satisfied and nourished without restriction, giving yourself permission to eat even if it is a trigger food, I bet you that if if X, Y, Z food causes symptoms, if you eat it.

With self compassion and giving yourself permission to eat it, your reaction is going to be a lot less than if you go, I know this is going to make me bloated, I can’t believe I’m doing this, I hate myself for doing this, whatever it might be. You have to give yourself permission and it’s also okay to say, I know that this food doesn’t work for me, so I’m going to choose something else.

And that’s practicing gentle nutrition. So making choices that you know are around nourishing yourself making choices that, help you to make sure you are getting balance. If you’re wanting to add to your plate. Maybe you haven’t had something green all day. So you think, okay, a way to practice balanced nutrition is to add in some color to this meal that I’m having but not placing blame on yourself otherwise.

And then lastly, just understand that food is just one part of the puzzle. So I’m not going to tell you that food does not affect your digestion because that’s not true. Food does affect your digestion. But it affects your digestion a lot less when you approach it from a place of not judging yourself and not stressing about it.

And then lastly, just understand that food is just one part of the puzzle. So I’m not going to tell you that food does not affect your digestion because that’s not true. Food does affect your digestion. But it affects your digestion a lot less when you approach it from a place of not judging yourself and not stressing about it.

Gut health is not just about what you eat. It’s also about how you eat, when you eat, your stress about eating, and the underlying root causes that are affecting how you are reacting to food. So when you fix the underlying root causes of how you’re reacting to food, then food becomes a much smaller piece of the puzzle and you can have a lot more flexibility there.

I also think that this kind of leads me into the next strategy, which is consistency over perfection. So we’ve all been in a situation where maybe, you’ve sworn off sugar for 30 days or whatever extreme it is. But then maybe you end up at an event, maybe you’re at a dinner party with your friends and whatever you’ve sworn off is there instead of enjoying yourself.

You’re calculating what you should or shouldn’t eat. And maybe you decide, okay, I won’t have it. But then on the way home, you stop and get something else because you didn’t satisfy your craving. Or maybe you go overboard the next time because you have this all or nothing mindset. When we do this to ourselves, it leads again to shame, blame, guilt, et cetera.

And so it’s helpful to have this mindset of consistency, not perfection. There’s no such thing as perfect eating. There’s no such thing as perfection when it comes to nutrition. But when you have this all or nothing mindset about nutrition and food, it actually hurts your gut more because it’s creating psychological stress, which translates to physical stress.

It will impact your digestion. It also undermines consistency. So if you just went ahead and had the food at the dinner party that you wanted to have, you could easily just move on the next meal and continue with your plan versus then going overboard and Feeling like you have to quote unquote, start over.

So any kind of single quote unquote off plan moment can really spiral you into feelings of failure which will lead you to just completely abandon your healthy habits or your plan entirely. So we don’t want to hold ourselves to impossible standards. One misstep does not have to feel like the end of the world because it is about consistency and not perfection.

You can think about this with anything. Let’s take exercise. For example, it would be so much better to exercise for 15 minutes most days of the week than for one hour one day a week. We want the consistency. We don’t need perfection. So sometimes we have to make more realistic goals that are attainable and something that’s going to allow us to actually be consistent depending on maybe.

What life stage you’re in or what’s going on in your life at that moment. So going back to that dinner party analogy, what if instead focusing on, instead of focusing on what you couldn’t have, you focused on what felt good, maybe choose a little bit of everything. everything that you know is going to make you feel good and also something that you just really enjoy so that you’re not having all of this guilt or feeling like you just threw in the towel you have to start over etc.

It’s hard sometimes to make that shift especially if you’ve been living in this all or nothing mindset mentality for a long period of time. So when you let go of perfection, you will support your gut. Your hormones, your energy in a way that extreme approaches never can. Eating a variety of foods helps to feed your microbiome.

It regulates your blood sugar. It keeps your stress levels in check. And when your stress goes down, your digestion improves and it’s all connected. So this mindset also supports back to strategy. Number one eating a balanced plate. When you’re not obsessing over what to avoid. It’s much easier to focus on building a balanced plate.

It also ties into strategy number two, because managing stress isn’t just about meditating more, it’s about taking the pressure off of yourself when it comes to food and giving yourself grace. So the goal is not to eat perfectly. Like I said, there’s no such thing as perfect when it comes to food. It’s to eat in a way that nourishes your body, feels good in your life.

Some days that might mean having, green smoothie for breakfast. Other days it might mean enjoying pancakes with your kids. Both can really fit when you approach them with the right mindset. So as you set your gut health goals for 2025, remember, it’s not about perfection. It’s about creating a relationship with food and your body that is sustainable and stress free.

That’s truly how you are going to heal. Okay. The next strategy, a little less mindset, a little more practical is to address That’s the root cause, not your symptoms. Your symptoms aren’t failures. They are just clues that something is off. So when you’re dealing with bloating, unpredictable digestion, frustrating hormonal symptoms, it can be easy to feel like your body is failing you or letting you down.

But let me tell you that something I remind myself, or I remind my clients of all the time is your symptoms are just clues that your body is giving you to explore more. They’re your body’s way of communicating. Your body has no other way of communicating. Just like a baby, babies can’t talk. So what do they do when they need something?

They cry. And with the right tools, we can uncover what’s going on. That’s what we do with our clients through. gut testing or stool testing, we use the GI map to look at things beyond the surface. So gut infections like H. pylori or parasites, imbalances of beneficial bacteria, signs of inflammation, how you’re digesting your food, detoxification issues.

With this information, we can build a plan that works for someone’s symptoms and not just Some one size fits all candida cleanse. That’s not actually going to work. So we’re digging deeper into some of the root causes. We do this through mineral testing as well. We can uncover mineral imbalances that point us to the root cause of stubborn symptoms like fatigue, poor digestion, thyroid issues, detox issues.

Minerals are the building blocks of health and addressing them is often a missing piece. Supporting your minerals can also support your stress resilience and nervous system. So it’s really all connected. So getting to the root cause of your symptoms is also going to help you live a more full and connected life because you won’t be feeling like you’re playing health whack a mole if you have been juggling work, family everything in between, the last thing you need is more guesswork.

You might already be feeling the strain of your GI symptoms. Maybe you feel like you’re tired all the time. You’re having hormonal acne or heavy periods. You deserve answers. And so getting to the root cause of your symptoms is going to give you that. It’s going to give you that roadmap to understand what’s actually happening in your body and what to do about it.

And your symptoms aren’t something that you need to be ashamed of. They are opportunities to look for what your body needs to heal. And we can do that in our programs. 

Take Gut Tested, for example. I’ll give you an example of our client, Sarah. She came to us. Years and years of symptoms, bloating after every meal, unpredictable periods, tired all the time, definitely felt that 2 p.m. energy crash. She really thought her body was broken. She just thought everybody else is normal. Everybody else can eat what they want. I can’t. But through all of that, A GI map, a stool test, we uncovered that she had a ton of overgrowth or imbalances in her gut bacteria. She also wasn’t digesting her food, therefore not extracting the nutrients from her food.

And then we also saw on her mineral test that she had major magnesium and potassium deficiencies, making her feel more stressed, more anxious, more dysregulated, having more blood sugar. sugar fluctuations. So this is goes back to what I was talking about a lot earlier is that it’s not just about changing your mindset or stressing less or anything.

We can address it from both the physiological standpoint and the psychological standpoint. So yes, we can change our mindset. We can get out of an all or nothing mindset thinking with food. We can give ourselves grace. But if we do have underlying issues, such as. Parasites, or bacterial imbalances, mineral losses, whatever it might be, fixing those is also going to help you feel better.

And so we really want to address it both ways. So back to Sarah, when we addressed these things in just a few months, she went from feeling really defeated, bloated all the time, exhausted all the time to getting her confidence back. She said she didn’t feel like her symptoms were in control of her anymore.

And that transformation is possible for you too. So maybe 2025 is the year that you finally get help for your GI issues. Maybe you’ve been listening to this podcast for a long time, or you’ve been following on Instagram or whatever it is. Now can be the time that you really address your GI issues. the root causes of your issues with one on one support.

So I will put the link to got tested in the show notes below. I invite you to join us to explore your symptoms so that you can feel better. You will get personalized support. This is not a group project. program. This is a one on one program to get you the answers that you need about the symptoms that you’re having.

So just a reminder, your symptoms aren’t failures, they’re clues. And with the right tools and accountability, you can feel better. Not just temporary, but for the long haul. So this is your opportunity to take the first step. We can guide you through it, which really leads me to strategy number six, which is community and accountability.

You do not have to do this alone. We often set New Year’s resolutions, goals, intentions, whatever it might be, But don’t ever tell anybody about them. So we have no accountability. You don’t have to figure out everything on your own, whether that comes to, comes down to your gut health issues or anything in your life.

You might be scrolling through tons of blogs, downloading every free guide. There is trying to find a solution. And while those things can be helpful, it can also be exhausting. So have someone walk alongside you. Maybe you are trying to work on building a balanced plate and that’s your goal. Tell your husband, tell your roommate, tell whoever that your goal is to eat a balanced breakfast before you run out the door in the morning because they can hold you accountable and they might even be able to help you.

Support is integral in your healing journey, whether that is from a friend, spouse, partner, whoever, or from a health professional. Sometimes we need health professionals to help us along the way, Even if you are one and I say that just because we work with so many health professionals in our program other registered dietitians, other nurses, other healthcare providers, because you don’t necessarily need to be your own healthcare provider.

So accountability leads to progress because you’ll have someone checking in on you. Celebrating your wins, troubleshooting your challenges. It’s so much easier to stay on track. Clarity also comes and eliminate clarity, eliminates confusion. I’ll word that a little bit better. Your gut health and hormones might feel overwhelming.

There’s tons of information out there. All the information that you need is probably out there, but just because it’s out there doesn’t mean that it applies to you. So you need to figure out what is relevant to your unique situation, which is where testing and you. Getting clarity can eliminate some of that confusion.

Then another thing that I’ll mention is emotional resilience. Let’s be honest. Healing is not always a straight line. There’s always ups and downs. It’s really easy to feel discouraged, but when you have somebody supporting you, friends, healthcare providers, whoever it might be, they can remind you of this when you feel like throwing in the towel, or when you think, This isn’t working or I just took two steps back.

And then lastly is you can get personalized support when you have accountability, whoever you’re getting accountability from. Someone gets to know you, they know what’s going to make you throw in the towel. They know how to maybe encourage you not to give up. They know what your goals are and they’re going to support you there.

Versus you just trying to do it on your own. So getting help, whether that’s from a friend, a partner, or a healthcare provider, I would highly recommend it. Make 2025 the year that you don’t try to figure everything out on your own. I did that for years and that’s why accountability. And Support are such huge parts of all of our programs, but especially got tested.

And then our one on one six month program is because it is not a linear journey. It’s easy to take three steps forward, two steps back. And our team wants to be there along the way for you. Okay. Last tip is committing to growth, not perfection. So as we wrap up this episode, I just want to leave you with something that’s been a game changer for me and so many of our clients is that healing isn’t about perfection.

It’s about growth. So it’s really tempting to think that if you just follow the perfect plan, you’ll feel better immediately. But nothing works that way. And neither does healing. Instead of aiming for this like perfect linear journey, what if you just focused on progress? And that progress isn’t always symptom relief.

Maybe that progress is just that you were consistent with something, for longer than you ever have been. Consistent on learning more about what works for your body, building habits that feel sustainable, and then giving yourself grace when things don’t go as planned. Growth matters because number one, perfection leads to burnout.

If you’re trying to do everything perfectly, this is going to lead to tons of frustration and burnout. Especially when life throws you a curve ball, when you focus on growth, you will create space for flexibility and resilience. I think that postpartum, like the season that I’m in, is a perfect example of that.

There’s no day that is Ultra predictable. Some days go much better than others. And honestly, getting to sit down and record this podcast took longer than you might think, because I have a newborn baby that takes way more priority than anything else. And if I had this mindset of everything has to go as planned, everything has to be perfect.

I probably would have just never sat down and record this podcast, but I decided, you know what, This podcast is not going to be released on the day that I wanted it to be, but done is better than perfect. And it’s going to get out there when it needs to get out there. I also believe that growth builds confidence.

Every time you choose a habit, every time you choose to show up for yourself, prioritize, rest, listen to your body. This confidence builds over time and it makes it so much easier to stay consistent. And then lastly, we have to commit to growth, not perfection, because healing isn’t linear. There will be days when you feel amazing, and days when you don’t.

I wish I could tell you that every day would be better than the next but not having a linear journey is not a sign of failure. It’s just part of the process. So growth is about learning to navigate those ups and downs and not give up on yourself. And you will have more confidence in yourself when you don’t give up on yourself.

So everything that we talked about today, focusing on what you can add to your plate, supporting your nervous system, listening to your body’s cue. cute clues seeking support, getting to the root cause. All of this ties into the idea of growth. Each strategy is a tool to help you move forward. And I want you to remember that your health journey does not have to be perfect to be powerful.

The most important thing is that you keep showing up for yourself because every step. Adds meaning to the process. So if you are somebody who’s listening to this, feeling overwhelmed by your GI issues, frustrated with your hormones, defeated by all your past attempts, that quote unquote, didn’t work. Know this.

You are not failing. Your symptoms aren’t failures. They are clues. And growth isn’t having all the answers right now. It’s about being curious and maybe deciding to take action. Maybe deciding, okay. I haven’t had total clarity on what’s causing my symptoms. And this is the year that I get that. So as you set your goals, intentions, whatever you want to call them for 2025, let growth, not perfection, be your guiding light.

And I guarantee you that you’ll get to the end of it.

And you will be in a much different place than you are now if you focus on growth, not perfection, focus on what you can add versus takeaway, focus on how you can support your nervous system and potentially focus on how you can get clarity with the symptoms that you’re having. So once again, if you want to get support.

Along this journey, you want to have a proven plan that works. You want to have somebody walk side by side with you. I would encourage you to take the leap into gut tested. This is our one on one program that includes stool testing, one on one support, the option to add on the mineral test, which I know so many people are so interested in, but you’ve got this.

We are here to support you every step of the way. So here’s to a year of growth, healing, and finally feeling good in your body. Thanks for tuning into this episode. If you found it helpful, I’d love to hear from you. Send me a message on Instagram, tag me, show me what you’re doing while you are listening to this episode and I will catch you next time.