Ep. 66: Taking Magnesium but still constipated? Here’s why

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SPEAKER: Dr. Heather Finley

Dr. Heather Finley: [00:00:00] 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…………..

Audio Only – All Participants: Welcome back to the next episode of the Love Your Gut podcast. I am so glad that you’re here [00:01:00] and really excited today to talk to you about minerals for constipation, and even just share some personal stories with you that hopefully help you to feel a little more seen and heard on your own journey. So we’re gonna get real about something that so many women deal with, but nobody wants to talk about, which is constipation.

If you have ever been. So bloated and constipated that you’ve considered asking your barista for a to-go coffee and a laxative. This one is for you. I’m also gonna share one of my most embarrassing stories involving a restaurant, my dad, and a Dr. Pepper, and what all those things have to do with each other.

Why traditional constipation advice often fails. And what finally helped me and so many of my clients find relief, which is minerals. So let’s take it back to teenage me. We were on a family vacation and I had been so constipated. If you travel and you struggle with constipation, you know the struggle [00:02:00] and.

Stomach aches, jeans won’t fit. Why won’t my body work? Kind of constipation, just so miserable. We sat down, we were in San Francisco and exploring the city and you know, walking around and I remember we sat down at this. Kind of nice restaurant and the waiter came over and asked me what I wanted to eat, and I just burst into tears at the table in public.

My dad was mortified. My mom bless her, took me outside and said, let’s go get you a Dr. Pepper. Apparently that was kind of the go-to constipation remedy of the time. Spoiler alert, Dr. Pepper was not it. It was funny in hindsight and we still joke about it now. But in the moment, I just remember feeling so frustrated and helpless.

I was so miserable. I felt like my GI issues controlled every moment of my day. Not only even just my day, my family’s day, I was on, I. Vacation [00:03:00] with my entire family. I have a brother and a sister, and it ruined the trip because I was so miserable. It ruined this nice dinner that we were out to. And then I remember we were going to see our grandparents the next day and kind of same thing, like we sat down to eat dinner and I was just like, how am I supposed to eat more food?

I haven’t gone to the bathroom in. Days. So fast forward, I basically made a career out of busting the Dr. Pepper myth and helping women understand what their gut is actually trying to say. And I’m really excited to share with you a little bit about constipation today and why constipation advice often fails.

So you’ve probably heard the basics. Drink more water, eat more fiber, try a probiotic. I remember in college, one of my roommates, her mom was a dietician. And I was still struggling with constipation even in college. And her mom said, oh, I heard the newest thing is eat Activia yogurt. And I think still Activia is kind of the, [00:04:00] the thing that a lot of pediatricians and doctors will recommend.

And it’s not that any of those things are wrong advice, they’re just really incomplete. So you might be drinking water till you’re sloshing around, you know, eating kale with every meal, taking all these probiotics, and you probably still feel stuck, like literally. And the reason is because constipation is not just about fiber or water, although those things can be helpful, it’s often about.

Minerals. It’s often about digestion, it’s about gut motility, it’s about nervous system. So I wanna give you a visual. Today we’re gonna hone in specifically on minerals and why this is typically the first step that we take with all of our clients because minerals control so many things in the body. So.

I want you to think of your gut like a long pipe. Fiber is like the leaves going through the pipe and water is like flushing the pipe with [00:05:00] liquid. So if the pipe is too dry or the muscles around it aren’t squeezing properly, the fiber is just gonna sit there. So you’re gonna have leaves in your pipe that are just stuck, you know, causing a backup.

So it’s like throwing dry leaves into a clogged pipe and expecting it to clear itself when you are eating more fiber, taking a probiotic, whatever. So that’s why people say, I eat all the right things, but I still don’t go to the bathroom. The part that nobody tells you is that, that the pipe isn’t just mechanical, it’s electrical as well, and that’s where minerals come in.

Minerals help to electrify this system. And there’s a unique trio that really powers digestion, and it can be more complex than this. But I wanna talk about the three minerals that really fire up digestion, especially if you are constipated. So number one is sodium. This helps to keep the gut hydrated.

Without enough sodium, your stool gets hard and [00:06:00] dry. So it’s trying to, it’s like trying to squeeze Play-Doh through a straw. Sorry for all these analogies, but I think it’s helpful to understand like, what we’re dealing with here. You can’t do that if it’s not hydrated. Which is why, you could even take all the magnesium in the world and nothing’s gonna shift for you.

The next one is potassium. This is essential for muscle contraction, including, remember, your gut is a muscle, the muscles that move waist through your colon, so no potassium, your muscles are like, nah, I’m on strike. I’m not doing anything. And the number one mineral that we see clients deficient in our programs.

The testing that we do is potassium. There are studies that show that like 90, 97% of Americans do not get enough potassium in their diet. So over time we’re just dealing with these huge deficiencies, which is why constipation is not getting better. I. Then we have magnesium. You’ve probably tried this, right, like you’ve taken [00:07:00] magnesium citrate, magnesium glyconate, magnesium oxide, whatever it might be, and it may help a little bit.

But magnesium alone is typically not the full picture. Magnesium will help your intestines relax, so peristalsis or this muscle contraction, these wavelike contractions can actually work. Most people know about magnesium. But like I said, magnesium alone doesn’t work if potassium and sodium are out of balance.

And that’s what we often see on HTMA testing is the clients in a magnesium loss. So they’re utilizing tons of magnesium because magnesium is used for so many different metabolic processes in the body, but the magnesium isn’t being utilized effectively because. We need sodium to help with absorption. We need potassium to help with contraction.

We need things like boron as well to help with magnesium. And we see all of these off on testing. So I remember thinking that I had cracked the [00:08:00] code when I discovered magnesium. I was like, yes. You know, maybe this is what’s gonna help fix my constipation. And it did. But after a few weeks, kind of same story, bloating, fatigue, still stuck, tired, not having daily bowel movements because I was burning through potassium, barely getting any sodium.

This was in like the two thousands when sodium was like very much. People were scared to eat salt and so. I never salted my food. I never consumed sodium because I thought it was quote unquote bad, and the reality is I actually needed quite a bit more sodium. And that’s a big mindset shift that a lot of our clients have to get over is like, wait, I thought I wasn’t supposed to eat.

So. Salt. But the reality is, especially if you’re eating a really whole Foods diet, you do need sodium. Obviously there’s a balance. I’m not saying go and like load up on tons of extra excess sodium, especially if you have high blood pressure, but you do need. [00:09:00] Sodium to help with all of these processes in the body.

And so getting none is not helping you. So when I started diving deeper into functional testing, specifically HTMA and hair tissue mineral analysis, it totally blew my mind because although my normal blood work was fine, my HT MA was showing that I was so, so, so depleted. And that’s what we see with so many of our clients.

So. Here’s the deal. You can be doing all the right things. You can be taking all the magnesium, you can be eating all the fiber, drinking all the water, but if you have these underlying mineral deficiencies that are contributing to your constipation, you have to address. That. And so we wanna take a deeper look into, you know, how do we balance these things out?

How do we make sure that you’re getting enough potassium in your diet? How do we make sure you’re getting enough sodium in your diet, the right type of magnesium, et [00:10:00] cetera. So if you’re doing all the right things, still not going to the bathroom, it’s maybe time to zoom out a little bit and look at what’s going on under the surface.

I highly recommend getting an HTMA test. This is one of the most basic but. Powerful functional test that you can do, especially if all of your other lab work has been quote unquote normal. HTMA gives us a snapshot into what’s going on inside of your cells, which is gonna tell us a lot about why you’re constipated, why you’re tired, why you have hypothyroidism symptoms, why you’re having acne, why your hormones are out of whack.

All of that. It’s not just a snapshot, it’s a true story of what’s going on in your body. It shows us if you’re depleted, burned out, if your gut is sluggish from low potassium or sodium, it can tell us a lot about why maybe your iron levels are low. So I’ll put the link for the HTMA, in the show notes if you [00:11:00] wanna get started.

That is the. Best way really to get started if you’re looking to start your journey on kind of this functional approach and root cause. This is the first test that we do with all of our VIP clients because we can’t make progress from a gut perspective, especially if you have like. Parasites or h pylori or an overgrowth of unwanted bacteria.

Those things, of course, are contributing to your symptoms, but we can’t push your body to get rid of any of those things if you don’t have minerals on board. So regardless of what you’re struggling with, minerals are the best place to start. It’s super easy. Once you purchase the HTMA, we mail it to you.

You send in your hair sample, I promise it’s not a lot of hair. We’ll help you understand why your body is stuck so we can help you move forward. You’ll meet with our team one-on-one to go over your plan, and you’ll start feeling better. Literally. So quick. Minerals are. Probably my favorite test because we [00:12:00] see results so quick for people, especially from an energy standpoint.

So I wanna tell you about a case or a client that we worked with. We’ll call her Sarah. She was doing everything right, green smoothies, yoga, taking magnesium, still constipated. Her HTMA came back and showed super low potassium, a burned out sodium level. What we call a slow oxidation pattern. Basically, her whole system was moving in slow-mo, and this is what we see on 80% of the tests that we get back.

We added food-based potassium sources into her diet, so she was really. Focused on getting potassium and what she was eating every day, and this is something that you can do today. Coconut water, potatoes, yes. Eat potatoes. They’re super high in potassium. Adrenal cocktails. Uh, cream of tartar, bananas, avocados.

Adding those foods into her diet was super helpful. We boosted her sodium intake. She was eating a primarily whole foods diet, so we wanted to make sure she was getting a mineral [00:13:00] rich salt like Celtic salt, Redmond salt, et cetera. And we continued magnesium in the right form. And within two weeks she was having regular easy bowel movements.

Her bloating was improving. She wasn’t desperate anymore. And I, this is not a one-off story. This is a, this is something we see all the time. The best part is that she actually was able to decrease the amount of magnesium that she was taking. Because her body was actually absorbing the magnesium a lot better with sodium and potassium on board.

So here’s what you can do today. If this episode is hitting home with you, you’ve tried all the things, you feel really tired, you feel burnout, you know, no matter how much you sleep, you’re still struggling. No matter how, how much magnesium you take, you’re still constipated. You can start paying attention to your mineral intake and not just fiber, um, and not just water.

You need minerals to help your cells to be [00:14:00] hydrated. I often use the analogy going from raisins to grapes. We don’t want shriveled up cells. We want really plump hydrated cells and minerals help you do that. You can add in potassium rich foods like I mentioned. So potatoes, bananas, coconut water. You can add cream of tartar to your mineral mocktail.

You can salt your food. Don’t be afraid of sodium, especially if you’re constipated and you have low energy. You can continue magnesium, but pair it with potassium and sodium for the best results. And then if you want real answers, get the HTMA. It’s truly one of the most eyeopening tools that we use. So if you’ve ever.

Cried at a restaurant like me, because your gut wouldn’t cooperate, or, you know, you feel like your gut has ruined your travel plans or anything like that. You’ve tried every supplement. I really think that minerals is the best place to start. And this trio of potassium, sodium, and magnesium is really helpful for getting the bowels to move.

Then you can [00:15:00] move on to other root causes that could be at play, contributing to some of the other symptoms that you might be. If you haven’t already, you can download my free mineral guide. The link will be in the show notes as well. And this will be a great place to get started as far as you know, adding more minerals into your diet, adding mineral mocktails into your diet to help with thyroid energy, constipation.

I literally have it broken down in the guide. On, like if you experience this, make these drinks, or add these ingredients and have like all the links, recipes to make it super easy. The best part about minerals is that it’s something that you can easily incorporate regardless of how busy you are, because it takes no time at all.

And you notice the immediate benefits from it. So I know this was a shorter episode, but I hope it’s helpful to help you understand perhaps why you’re so constipated, why magnesium isn’t working for your [00:16:00] constipation, and perhaps a different lens that you can look at for this. So I’d love to hear your thoughts.

If you have any questions, feel free to DM me on Instagram. That’s where I hang out the most. Would love to hear your questions and your thoughts, and I’ll see you on the next episode of the Love Your Gut podcast.

Dr. Heather Finley: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the Love Your Gut podcast. If this episode made you laugh, nod, or say OMG, same. Send it to a friend who needs to hear it too. And hey, drop a five star rating and review while you’re at it. Your gut and mine will. Thank you. I’ll see you on the next episode of the Love Your Gut podcast.