We’re going to dig into 5 research-backed strategies to help you improve your gut health. This article is the text version of my gut health podcast, so check out the audio version below if you would rather listen to this episode.

It was inspired by a great gut health article from Precision Nutrition (written by Alex Picot and reviewed by Gabriel Fundaro). I’ve talked about this before with dr Amy Shaw. There are some other pieces I put together just talking about gut health, probiotics, fiber how much you should take per day, what works for your body, etc. I’m going to go down the rabbit hole here, I’ll do it as quickly as I can to try to give you guys actionable steps that you can take as soon as you’re done reading this.

If you go to the grocery store or go into your cupboards or just kind of audit and assess what you’re doing in your life to feel better because that’s the thing at the end of the day.

So with that said, we’re going to talk about how to improve your gut health in five ways. I’m not gonna share the whole backstory here. I was sick for a good amount of time, partially genetics and the dumb fucking shit I was doing in college. Like, you know, drinking 10 beers and then eating a frozen pizza and having some cake and thinking like that was a good day. Oh, and by the way, chewing half a can of tobacco and then wondering like why I feel like shit later on.

And so I had to learn the hard way, like a dumbass and again there’s no education around this or at least I didn’t have it even in the basic nutrition courses that we would take the world’s way advanced now. So I’m a little bit older. So I’m sure it might be there if you’re looking for that information. 

And even that is just a basic outline of macronutrients, micronutrients, vitamins, and minerals Really, we weren’t talking about the specifics of the gut and I think things are going in a better direction but I didn’t know anything. I don’t know how much fiber I should be taking. I didn’t know anything about probiotics and probiotics. I didn’t know, you know to audit your food.

Long story short, I didn’t feel good for a long period of time. It was a super dark place for me personally I really felt hopeless, to be honest with you guys long for a long stretch in my early to mid-twenties, and then it’s been inter minute obviously in between there and it was a rough dude and I went to multiple physicians. I did numerous things, some of them, you know not super pleasant.

And I just shared the story here many times. I end up at the Mayo clinic and finally, after walking me through everything, they came to the conclusion to take me through an elimination diet because they couldn’t really figure out what the deal was.

And I think that the hard part about nutrition is that each one of us is individually different. That’s the difficult part, the beauty is that something that might work for you might not work for your mom or dad. What works for you is not what works for your friend and vice versa.

You have to really do your due diligence and a lot of times we get so busy in life, we spend time on these what I consider low return activities and I’m not saying don’t have escapism and watch soccer and football and binge out on Netflix, that’s fine, but if you never learn anything about your gut health or your body, how it operates and what foods do agree and don’t with you at least on a weekly basis, I think you’re doing your body a huge disservice.

There’s no education around this, I had to basically fuck myself up and build my body back up from ground zero to get to where I’m at today. So I have this level of body awareness and honestly like digestive awareness, and I know what foods I can eat and can’t eat and I’ve you know, change the environment in my gut and that’s what I hope you guys get from this.

And obviously, if you’re a person who’s you know got gas at a level that’s not normal, like I think you’re supposed to fart like 14 times a day. It sounds like a lot, but If you’re awake for 16 hours a day and you know you have like before you go to the bathroom Maybe after you eat and you fart a couple of times.

I think there’s an issue there. And again, we’ve never had a conversation about this. The only, this is straight up honest truth the only thing I remember hearing about this as a kid was through the book “Everybody Poops”. It’s still a bestseller to this day. I’m sure if you go on Amazon you can check it out. 

Otherwise, we’d still be, you know shitting ourselves and peeing in our pants, but I don’t remember them saying hey Jeremy, you should get this much fiber per day, these fermented foods in your body. I learned a lot of other things and I’m not saying the other things I learned weren’t important but this is an anchor of how you feel you’re gonna understand this by the time I’m done rambling today.

So again, digestive symptoms like if it’s gas and bloating and indigestion and toilet troubles, if they’re coming in your life and they’re happening all the time, they can be super disruptive, it can hinder what you wanna do socially. And if you’re plagued with them, you feel like a sense of like you’re hopeless because you’re probably trying multiple things or maybe you’re just so busy in your life, you just kind of have accepted it and you manage your life around and I don’t think that’s a healthy thing to do now. I’ll share a personal story here.

I met my wife Heather when I was 25 and she was like 23. I was the young guy who wants to be big, you know, shredded and big at the same time. I was like everybody, every dude you’ve ever met. I ate a lot of protein, like a ridiculous amount, way more than a gram per pound of my body weight. My body was not used to it, so I started having a lot of digestive discomforts.

I made all the mistakes. I’m not preaching that I’m better than you. I remember just being over at her condo, you know, watching a movie, messing around, doing what young kids in love are doing.

If you guys are familiar with the Phoenix Scottsdale area, she lived by the Biltmore, and I would drive down the 51 and drive back up to my place, and literally, I’m not kidding you guys, I would hold a fart in for like three hours because I was trying to impress this girl who eventually becomes my wife, and I want to hook up with her. I’m a young dude, you know my testosterone is running high. I want to do my thing, but I know if I fart here, it’s not gonna work.

I remember getting in my car and just like farting for like 15 minutes straight, just in the most vicious air, just blowing up my ass straight, but a lot of it just smelled like something died in my body because I have all this protein just sitting there like an absorbent amount in my body. I share that story because hopefully, you’ve all been there, and then when you get married, you guys fart in front of each other and it’s disgusting.

But during that time I was so fixated on trying to do this, I was ignoring these Q’s going on in my body that was saying, you know, hey man, we don’t feel good, you’re going to the bathroom irregularly. you’re having these digestive problems, you’re not feeling good, something’s wrong here, that’s your body telling you something you have to have an intuition or just enough awareness to be like, hey, listen to your, because they’re communicating your gut and your brain do communicate.

You know, most of your immune system is in the gut, I think it’s like 80 percent. Somebody can fact check me on that I go, but how the brain and gut communicate in terms of not only satiety and satiation but also how much of your body’s health is wrapped up in this environment and I was ignoring it and I don’t want you guys to ignore it.

So if you’re going through your day and things aren’t feeling right. Hopefully, some of these things help. You wanna talk about stress exercise and the factors that affect your gut health and microbiome We’re gonna talk about restoring gut health after taking antibiotics which is also a thing we’ll talk about you know if you can benefit from more fiber if fermented foods are for you and which ones are and then supplements that might help things like heartburn and constipation all the other things that can kind of go on in your life.

And again I’ll share this original article, precision nutrition just does good stuff shout out to John Berardi who’s had been on the podcast before. just great work and there are evidence-based, cost-effective things you guys can do to help your gut and your overall health.

You are probably like what the fuck are you talking about when I say microbiome. Essentially think of it as an atmosphere, an environment, or a community of microorganisms, bacteria, fungi, and basic genetic material that lives in your skin, in your mouth and your lungs, and throughout your digestive tract. And if you look at the research you find it’s anywhere between like 10 to 100 trillion microorganisms live in your G.I tract alone. This means your body is basically like a human pile of bacteria and obviously, your microbiome is as unique as your fingerprint.

The number of proportions and how it’s diversified the bacteria and fungi will change throughout your life depending on the influences and the things you have going on. So if you think about it like the gut microbiome, this is the environment you have essentially in your body of how we take everything in and how everything operates and the things that can affect it are all the things that you think about how you exercise, the diet, quality, your food choices the medications you take has a huge role in it, especially antibiotics, your body composition, your overall metabolic health.

Obviously genetics, your age. If you’re in a place where it’s super dusty obviously all the other bacteria parasites, viral infections, and then how your sanitizing in your hygiene basically is also a huge part of it. And then if you’re like a female and hormones in terms of if you’re having a baby if you are breastfeeding all those things obviously also play a huge role in it.

All of the bacteria and fungi that make up your microbiome think of them as barnacles that like attached to your boat. Or if you’ve seen a whale and the whale has barnacles like attached to it. Okay and they kind of hitch a ride along at no cost and you’re just you’re picking them up just over and over and over again and a lot of them can be beneficial helping your skin, helping your gums helping your GI tract these are friendly gut bacteria and I’ll talk quickly talk about inflammation in a second. but if you think about it if you have good healthy bacteria there’s a difference right like good cholesterol and bad cholesterol.

If you have good bacteria you’re gonna produce nutrients like vitamin B, Vitamin K, fermented fiber, and resistant starch which creates these kinds of short-chain fatty acids that help regulate your immune system your appetite, and your stress response which is super important. And obviously, if you have legit gut bacteria if you can keep your system moving, pooping regularly obviously by bulking up your stool increasing the gut motility, and obviously you know you regulate inflammation and your immune system just like inflammation.

You know chronic inflammation is bad but if you have no inflammation in your body I believe you would just drop dead because some of it is gonna be fighting off stuff along the way. So when people say bacteria just don’t get confused and think like well all bacteria is just trash.

Obviously, there’s still a ton of research people are doing on the microbiome. So some of this is maybe it works. Maybe it doesn’t work. That’s why again you have to audit yourself and see what makes you feel best. But the one thing I can guarantee you guys that gut bacteria do play a major role in your health and your overall well being So if we’re talking about the nuts and bolts of it how do we support gut health?

If your gut health sucks you’re going to have problems whether you do already you will shortly or down the line it’s going to happen if you can improve the environment. That’s why I keep saying that like when you don’t want to say repopulate your gut per se. But if you can have a healthy environment and improve the bacteria and the diversity inside your gut I think you’re gonna have better digestion and for a lot of you, better immunity, and you’re gonna be less likely to have the risk of getting whether it’s infections and diseases come your way.

I just don’t see how having better gut health is negative to anything in your life. It’s like can you be too fit, too rich, too attractive, or have too much sex? I don’t think that’s a thing. Some people may disagree with me but with gut health, I think the more good bacteria, the better off you’re gonna be. 

1 – Slow down when you eat 

This is really simple. Just slow down when you eat and properly chew your food. And we’ve talked about this in the podcast before, but just break your meal down into smaller, slower, you know, more digestible bits. The smaller pieces are going to increase the amount of surface area, your digestive enzymes have to work and this is going to aid in the chemical digestion on the other hand. If you guys ever watch my Instagram stories, you’ll see how my dog eats. I give her expensive grass-fed steak and she only takes one or two bites and swallows it.

And I always wonder if she even tastes it. So if you eat super quick, swallow big chunks of food and likely lots of air with it, like my dog, that’s gonna lead to indigestion and bloating for a lot of people. The enzymes are gonna have to work a lot harder to break down these bigger chunks of food in your body. So if possible, give yourself a little extra time at meals. Pay attention to your food, pause to breathe every once in a while put your teeth to work.

That’s why God gave them to you. You know, it’s why, you know, if you’re vegan or vegetarian respect, I respect your decisions, but I do think that that’s why I got teeth man. I meant to eat steak. Dude, that’s just how I roll. But I think chewing your food slower and taking your time and thinking of your food, having the texture of like apple sauce before you swallow. It is probably a good tipping point.

I remember when David Jack was on the podcast, we talked about how many times you chew your food, It was something crazy like 38 times. I’m not telling you, you gotta take 38 bites of your steak before you chew it. But probably more than you’re doing now if you’re noticing you’re swallowing these huge, massive chunks of food because think of it this way you’re putting these solid things into your body and I’m not saying like your poop doesn’t come out solid but doesn’t come out like a T bone out of your ass, right?

Like you have to that food has to get broken down some of it like liquefied and absorbed into your body for nutrients to build muscle and obviously what you’re not gonna keep in store. So whether you use it or store it, your body is going to expel it and that has to come out the other side and that’s a lot of work dude.

I have done multiple podcasts on my nutrition and training, you can listen here. Eating every couple of hours caused so much digestive stress and I felt like my body was always working to get rid of the food and break it down and then maybe that’s just in my head.

But I felt that way, if I’m eating eggs and you know, chicken and banana and have oatmeal and peanut butter at 8:00 am if it’s 11:00 and I am steak and asparagus and potatoes and like there’s no way all that food, I just put my mouth has been broken down, liquefied and like pushed to an area where I need to have room for this food.

Some people are much different but it was just a lot and when I started having bigger gaps in between my meals and slowing down the eating process, I  started to appreciate the food so much more. It didn’t feel like a chore, it was something I looked forward to. I’ve been a lot better over the years, not just wolfing it down like crazy.

2- Eat real foods

Include many different types of minimally processed plant-based foods, fruits, and vegetables like legit whole grains which will dig into if it’s the starchy tubers, if it’s beans and other minimally processed plant-based foods, those things are going to help your gut number one they feed the gut bacteria when bacteria chows down on fiber, it multiplies and contributes to those short chain fatty acids that we talked about.

It aids in that production as well as a more diverse bacterial environment. And the second thing they do, they provide the bacteria with helpful photo chemicals. If I’m saying that right? Like kind of like polyphenols, if you will that can be transformed into an accident and anti-inflammatory compounds.

So if you eat highly processed foods, you know the cookies, the chips, pizza all the time or just crappy stuff that you know is not real. There is not a fucking Oreo tree you guys get where I’m going here. So if you’re always eating the highly processed stuff, the diversity in the activity of your microbiome is going to be reduced.

And now there is a study here that they listed, it’s a rat study and it’s shown to skew the overall environment toward bacteria that may increase inflammation and disease risk, hunger and appetite, and vulnerability to the effects of stress, like mood and hormone imbalances If you’re eating.

Again, foods that are highly processed if you listen to any of our staff, you’re watching things we put out, I’m always talking just real food is the base you guys, I’m not saying you can’t go out and have french fries and eat cookies and you know have a diet coke and eat some Cheetos like you can do all that shit, you just can’t do it all the time.

The base of what you do has to be real food If you want to eat an oreo cookie every day awesome dude, I’m just saying, you can’t eat 40 oreo cookies all day every day and think you’re gonna have this amazing gut health and on top of that, obviously how you look and movement feel will be different. So again, I’m not saying cut out all processed foods, that’s not what I’m doing.

I’m not one of these fear-mongering people that say you can’t ever drink diet coke or have a beer or whiskey or eat some Doritos, like if you feel good doing that and it’s calling your name then sometimes you just gotta do it, bro. Like it’s just part of the game. However, in the context of like a healthy, well-balanced diet, indulging way too much is not going to be good for you.

Still, having some of those things in your life I think is okay, it’s always a volume game, you know, like if you ever you go to the all or nothing stuff I’m not a fan of if you look at politics, the extreme right stuff, the extreme left stuff. Most of the people on extremes on both ends are fucking crazy. Sorry, anybody. I’m not trying to offend you and I’m an idiot, I don’t know anything about politics, but the extremes of anything I’ve never been a fan of.

You know, if you’re an extreme Vikings fan that’s super cool, you can’t be like Aaron Rodgers sucks. Well he doesn’t suck, he’s fucking awesome, he just happens to play for, you know, the worst team in the NFL, but like I still respect the greatness of it, even if I’m a fan, you know what I’m saying, well, I’m a fitness guy, I’m never gonna drink diet soda, never gonna drink booze, never gonna have a pizza, never gonna have french fries, or eat cookies. That’s ridiculous. There’s a balance there for all of us now.

Mine might skew way more towards real food and not drinking as much alcohol and not eating as much processed stuff as, say, the average person. But there’s a balance there for me.

I think the all-or-nothing mentality is probably the fastest way to set yourself up for failure. Now, alcohol is a different thing. If you have an issue with it or something, that’s a clinical diagnosis, that’s not for me to decide. But all intensive purposes. If I’m generalizing here, having a balance is good. But that balance in my opinion should always be skewed towards mostly real food.

If it runs, it swims, it flies, it grows from the earth you’re drinking water as the base of the fluid you take in per day. I think you’ll be okay. And if in between you intermix the process, stuff that you like as a kid or just those comfort foods That’s fine too. Whether your split is 95/5, or 90/10, good shit. That’s on you to decide. As long as the base is skewed towards real food?

You guys are doing okay again, If we talk about fermented foods are they good for your gut things like kombucha, sauerkraut kimchi Yogurt, all the things that are fermented, I’m gonna break down here. The research. They have a full disclaimer. I’m a fan of fermented foods and this is my, and this is anecdotal me, it’s my experience that I feel better when I throw them in my life. So when I’m eating a lot of life, you know, probiotics, probiotics I feel my gut is better.

I feel my digestive system is better. I go to the bathroom, better, I have better energy, and I’m less susceptible to getting sick. It works for me now, I’ll go through the research here. You make the call for yourself. I’m going to share this on my Instagram and I’m going to share all the food not all the foods a good number of the foods that I incorporate into my life either daily or weekly in terms of gut health. 

So about a decade ago food and beverage products with live bacterial cultures claim to improve digestion and that obviously exploded into the market. And of course, a lot of these foods have existed for centuries and they’ve been staples in a lot of cultures. As many of eastern European people will tell you, it’s old news. But do they work and so I personally think the ones I take work per the research here, the fermented dairy products, especially Kefir are supported by high-quality evidence.

The benefits seem to apply more to cardio, metabolic health, and just digestive health. But there is research that does show that obviously, you know if you can’t do dairy products, there are alternatives which we’ll talk about in a second, but there has to be more research to kind of show if the ferments themselves really do help you or it’s just that you’re not eating minimally processed shit. Either way, a lot of these foods are they taste great they’re healthy for you, and they’re not going to hurt you.

And if nothing else they take the place of other shitty foods. Now there are a lot of people who are like fermented is gonna help your digestion and improve elimination and be much better for you. It’s more nutrient dense. Again if depending on what research you look at, some say the Kefir is gonna guarantee to do that. Some say these things are somewhere in between.

I’m telling you personally from me, it helps me feel better personally I feel that even if it’s a placebo boom, it works too. I’m not eating other bullshit and that’s the key at the end of the day for me, if I feel better and it’s working for me, I’m gonna keep doing it. That’s all I’m gonna say. The things I take in terms of fermented foods one, GT’s coconut yogurt, the vanilla flavor is my favorite. There are literally billions of probiotics in there. I do like the GTS. I think they’re the best out there. They make the best kombucha. In my opinion.

I do take TSC every single day. The omegas are great, the amount of fiber and just like two tablespoons, it’s gonna be amazing if you’re not taking them, you can literally dump in your mouth, Swig water and you’ve got 10 g of fiber right there. they’re gelatinous in the gut they’re great to add to your day. Flax seed is another great one. And then obviously like to psyllium husk if you guys are familiar to, it’s like a bulking agent and obviously, there’s fiber in there and it kind of help keep things moving.

3- Consider adding a fiber supplement

Not every person is gonna benefit from more fiber. I’m always gonna say this, you got to audit what works for you and what’s best for your life. For a lot of people, I think fiber is going to help. I was talking to a doctor recently and I’ll keep this anonymous you know who you are if you’re listening to this/reading. I was going over this doctor’s food log and I was like, dude, is this really what you eat every day?

And they’re like, yeah, this is what I eat every day. And I’m like, there’s no additional fiber you’re eating at all. And they’re like, no. I then ask them if they ever go to the bathroom? And they’re like yeah like once a week now I’m not a doctor, I’m just a knucklehead in a warehouse that teaches bear crawls for a living.

But I don’t think taking a shit once a week is probably the healthiest, most pleasant way to go through life. And if you’re eating five grams of fiber per day and you’re only pooping once a week I think you could benefit from eating some of these things I’m gonna mention here just throwing that out there again, I’m not a doctor, this is not medical advice. 

According to the Mayo Clinic, women should eat on average 21-25 g of fiber per day while men should aim for 30-38 g of fiber per day. That’s a lot. I know there are a lot of dudes I work with who are not eating anywhere near 30 g of fiber and a lot of females that aren’t eating 20g of fiber on the low ends.

You may be wondering what foods are high in fiber, artichoke hearts, pears, berries, lentils, split peas, chickpeas, and barley whole grains. Again, as I said, chia seeds, flax seeds, and all those things are, are awesome to throw into your life. But a lot of people aren’t meeting the minimum. So if you’re somebody who’s already eating a legit amount of foods with fiber in them and you’re going to the bathroom on a regular schedule, you’re probably okay.

If you’re somebody who is eating no fiber or like minimal and you go to add 20 g tomorrow you’re probably gonna have some legit gas and bloating and possibly even some loose stool because you’re introducing something so fast. So what I would say is gradually add in the fiber. So if you’re somebody who doesn’t eat any and you’re having some issues, maybe like just a tablespoon or two of chia seeds to start maybe adding in some more veggies or high fiber fruits, just slowly get your way there.

Again, the number to aim for a lot of again, everybody’s different You gotta gauge how you feel per the mayo clinic women bout 21-25 g of fiber per day, men, about 30 to 38 grams of fiber per day is kind of where they set again, all the things you guys think plants and vegetables and like legit whole greens. I listed off just a bunch of basics, but brussels sprouts are great baked potatoes are great, like with the skin on quinoa, oat, bran muffins, legit oatmeal, brown rice, and again, all the things black beans, almonds, pistachios, all great options for you to throw into your life.

So if you are somebody who struggles consider, you know supplementing with a mix of soluble and insoluble fiber. And again experiment the foods like fruits and vegetables and see overall what’s best for you in your body.

So really fast here crash course and soluble versus insoluble fiber if you want to change your fiber intake. Maybe because you think it’s gonna help your digestive issues. It’s really helpful to know the difference between the two types of fiber and most people don’t, again we don’t talk about this a lot. Number one, soluble fiber absorbs water. It creates a gel that softens stool and soluble fiber and also feeds beneficial gut bacteria. Foods like whole grains and beans lagoons facility are rich in soluble fiber. Insoluble fiber does not dissolve in water, it adds bulk or weight to your stool.

So you know when you have diarrhea, there’s no bulk in that stool, It’s like a soft thinner banana coming out of your butt. Hopefully. there’s bulk to that. There’s weight to it, making it easier for you to pass and often faster. It helps improve the regularity in your bathroom, insoluble fiber reduces the risk of gi symptoms and bowel diseases.

Many nonstarchy vegetables like wheat brands are good sources of insoluble fiber. No, again, I’m gonna come back to this if you’re currently eating a really low fiber diet and you start incorporating more fiber through foods and supplements, there is an adjustment period for a couple of weeks.

You might notice you have maybe some gurgling in your gut, maybe some more gas, maybe some more bloating. There might be a change in your bowel activity. If it becomes super uncomfortable, scale back and then reintroduce things moderately when you’re ready. Eventually, most people’s bodies are gonna adjust to their appetite, digestion, and overall health and you’re gonna benefit from it from having this kind of regular fiber intake. So the side note is, if you’ve got a Tinder or Bumble date on Friday night and you’re eating five grams of fiber a day.

Maybe on Friday don’t eat 30 g of fiber before you go out because you might not be going on a second date is what I’m saying. Or if you have a sexy night plan with your wife, do these or your husband or your partner do these things gradually to avoid the backlash. I would say adding 5 to 10 grams extra per day, is probably a good place to start for a lot of you. 

4- Add back some good bacteria back in (if you take antibiotics)

If you’re somebody who’s taken antibiotics, you gotta add some good bacteria back in again. I’m a fan of antibiotics. I know some people you know to go back and forth on this. I’ve had science infections throughout my life and they suck dude I rarely get sick but when I do it usually hits me like a ton of bricks. However, antibiotics are associated with less microbial diversity in your gut. So it can also increase the bad bacteria. So in healthy people, and that’s the key here, gut bacteria levels recover pretty well but not perfectly after taking antibiotics.

In one study people recovered close to pre-antibiotic baselines within six months but were still missing several strands of bacteria that had been present before the antibiotics. In some cases, probiotic supplementing can help especially in cases where you’re associated with things like diarrhea. Now just bear in mind that everyone responds to specific probiotics in the same way again I’ll come back to this. You have to audit and do what’s best for you.

The individual response depends on the bacteria you already have in your gut. Plus whether the supplements take up residence in your gi track or they just pass through and that’s why I’m a fan of diversifying everything now. When Dr. Amy Shaw talked about gut health on the podcast, she said she doesn’t supplement with probiotics. She just eats them all.

Note again I’m just a gorilla talking to you guys from the gym I built. I’m a fan of doing it all and that’s me. So when I do antibiotics I typically take like there’s a garden of life. It’s a five-day like critical care probiotic I think it’s like It’s like 35 strands and 200 billion as a culture account I’ll take that for the five days.

after two reintroduced a lot of strands of bacteria into my gut and also you know probably eat you know more coconut yogurt, I’ll do a synergy every day I’ll throw in the fermented foods as well, and obviously, I’m taking athletic greens too but I’ll do add that critical care, and I might switch up one of the kombuchas, just to kind of mix and match.

So I do think that can help. So if you’re somebody who is taking antibiotics or you recently had to or you just got off them I think introducing multiple strands of probiotics through both food and supplement can be a good way to introduce that awesome bacteria back into your gut to repopulate it essentially and create an environment where your body is gonna be running on all cylinders, so keep that in mind.

5- Stay active

This is real simple movement medicine. It just is you want better gut health. You gotta get off your pass and move. I can’t say this enough. Not just you know physically but mentally man just you know trained through it and obviously, I’m not saying to train through it if you have a broken leg. You can still do stuff for the upper body obviously but for me even when I have days where I am overwhelmed or stressed or I got just shit going on, whether it’s friends family, business, the economy, people, you name it like and some days it all just kind of hits at once.

And the last thing I want to do is move around, it’s gonna like you know, turn my brain off and just like lay down and watch tv and try to like forget about it. At this point I figured out I always feel better if I just train, I just move around mentally It’s this release that I feel. And even if the workout sucked if I stuck to it and did the entire workout as prescribed, I just felt better afterward. Physically felt better, and had more confidence. 

I had more energy and power and felt alive for me. I need to move daily because I feel I digest food much better. I feel my regularity is much better. My digestive track tends to be in a better place If I move if I don’t move as much and get as much activity as I wanted to. I don’t feel as good I think most of you are the same physical activity and cardiovascular fitness is associated with more micro biodiversity and more short chain fatty acids.

And again, those short chain fatty acids do a lot of good things for your body, better immunity and honestly just better tolerance to stress in general. So when you engage in mild to moderate exercise, you stimulate that kind of parasympathetic rest and digest the nervous system. Not only does this have an overall relaxing effect on the body in the mind, but also encourages movement in the digestive tract, aiding in both digestion and elimination.

So in case, you’re curious, pooping well-formed, easy-to-pass stool anywhere from three times a day to every day is a sign of good elimination. Pretty crazy, right? I just think I’m not saying you gotta come in here and do a Sunday met con every day that would be dumb, however mild to moderate exercise Getting your steps in jogging for a minute, walking For a minute, for 20 minutes, doing mobility, doing 10 minutes on a just a bike trainer, doing 100 bodyweight squats and 100 pushups, doing a weight circuit, doing a hit class, doing fucking yoga, whatever your thing is that mild to moderate exercise.

And again, when I say HIIT class, like people like that’s the high intensity you know how most people go through hit they bullshit most of it. Anyway. My point is that if you can do some form of activity that’s going to stimulate the nervous system to help with digestion and elimination is not only how we break down food, but also how it comes out of her butt, and that I don’t want this to get lost here.

Obviously, I shared my story of talking to a doctor who only pooped once a week. I know everybody’s different, but I know that’s not right. I’m not a doctor, I’m an idiot. And I know that’s not normal. In this study and this research here that I have in front of me, easy-to-pass stool that’s well-formed comes out of your body anywhere from three times a day, two every day, or every other day is a sign of good elimination.

Personally, I poop every day. If I’m not pooping during the day, something is wrong with me. maybe you’re a three times a day person, maybe you’re twice a day, maybe your once a day, maybe you poop, Monday, Wednesday Friday, and Sunday, I don’t know. And you skip a day. I guess that can be considered healthy too, depending obviously on how much you eat and what’s going on. But pooping once a week or twice a week is not a good look.

Again for most people and again, you know how you feel. You know, if it’s right, wrong, or at least have an idea now. Your poop should come out, you know, not like rabbit pellets and shouldn’t come out like a fucking chunk of wood It should come out like a soft like the consistency of like a toothpaste kind of all together most times whether it’s in like I don’t want to get gross here, but I’m like this we all poop dude, so grow up. Whether it’s like one strip, like multiple logs that are just soft and you didn’t have to kill yourself to get it out three times a day, two times a day.

Supplements might be like an extra kick to help get your digestion and elimination back on track real quick here, these are just the basics again, talk to your doctor, go to your physician, and if your physician doesn’t know anything because they’re an idiot, I don’t mean that negatively. But sometimes a general practitioner just has no training in this and no education and they eat like shit and don’t even poop. Right? So if that’s the case, get a new one or have them refer you to a legit G. I. Specialist that knows what they’re doing. 

Anyways, If you guys go to the nutrition tab on the Jeremy Scott Fitness app there’s a video on gut health in there among many other things.

If you have a question on anything I listed, please just reach out and ask me. I’m happy to help. I’ve lived through this, no pun intended the shit I’ve had to deal with in terms of just intestinal, you know, ulcers and gut health. I’m only sharing like 20% of all this and maybe one day I’ll share the whole gamut of everything if that’s something people really want to read or listen to on my podcast.

But, I know how miserable it can be and a lot of it, this is my belief and sometimes these things are unavoidable, genetics happens and bad luck strikes you. But most things that we deal with in life I believe with our physical body can be fixed, cured, or reduced by how we eat, what we drink, how we sleep, how we train, and how we live our lives. I really do and could be a different person if I wasn’t lucky enough to just be relentless in my pursuit to find out what was wrong and live in this era of time where we have these resources and amazing people who are doing work to help us all.

If you guys want a free sample of athletic greens hit me up, and I’ll send you one. Thank you guys as always, I appreciate you. Thanks for the support. we wouldn’t be doing this if you guys didn’t keep listening to my podcast, sharing them, and buying all our stuff. So it means a lot to me. It really does. Have a great rest of your day and until next time eat well, train hard, be nice to people, and please you guys keep doing what you love with people you enjoy because your life is too short not to talk to you soon, peace.