How to actually support your gut health: 7 Simple Habits that Help

Mar 18

Gut health is forever a hot topic in the nutrition space, with buzz coming and going in a seemingly cyclical manner. Recent book publications, chart-topping podcast guest interviews, celebrity endorsements, and social media influencer affiliations will have consumers intrigued by the promise of a cure-all du jour for vaguely-named but widely-relatable symptoms like bloating, fatigue, and weight loss resistance.

The goal is to leave you wondering:

“Will this celery juice diet ‘reset’ my digestion?”

“Maybe this probiotic powder will flatten my stomach like this influencer says.”

“If I don’t buy this program, what if I’m doomed to deal with these issues forever?”

The gut health basics most people skip

However, what if I, someone with a diagnosed digestion-related autoimmune disease, told you that improving your gut health could be so much more simple than mainstream chatter has led you to believe? That you could save your money (and sanity!) while seeing positive changes?

Most people don’t need a complicated “gut reset.” They need a few behavior shifts done consistently. With some pointed personal investigative work, you can become your own gut health guru and confidently clear off your bookshelf and clean out your supplement cabinet for good.

Quick take: The gut health basics I’d start with

If you want the short version, start here:

Find your fiber “sweet spot,” then increase intake slowly
Pair fiber with steady hydration (this matters more than people think)
Slow meals down: chew more, rush less
Eat in a calmer state whenever you can
Try spacing meals so your gut gets actual breaks
If symptoms persist or feel intense, skip the internet and talk to a specialist

1 - Find the “Goldilocks” of fiber intake (for you)

The Academy of Nutrition Dietetics’s current recommendations for daily fiber intake are 25 grams for women and 38 grams for men, with a more calorie intake-specific recommendation of 14 grams for every 1000 calories eaten for individuals between the ages of 2 and 50. It’s estimated that the average American only consumes 16 grams a day though: a far cry from the ideal that our digestive tract needs to function most efficiently!

How to increase fiber intake gently

That being said though, everyone is individual in just how much fiber they do (or will do) best with. How to figure out your “sweet spot” amount? Start with a dietary audit.

Tracking your current food intake to glean how much you’re currently getting and from what sources you’re getting it will help you see where you can realistically edit, whether you’re part of the majority that isn’t meeting recommended requirements or, less commonly, getting more than what’s recommended (which can definitely lead to unfavorable gut symptoms too!)

Try this:

Track your usual intake for 3 days, just to get a baseline idea of your general fiber intake
If you’re low, add about 3–5 grams of fiber per day for a week (not 15 grams overnight!).
If bloating ramps up, hold steady for a few days before increasing again.

Want to hear a bit more about this topic? Listen to Kate and her cohost, Michael, chat about it in a recent episode of the How To: Fitness Podcast - What is Fibermaxxing and Should You Try It?

2 - Hydrate your organ sack

We can’t talk about fiber, let alone gut health on the whole, without talking about water intake. With water making up more than half of the body’s weighted mass, it’s tough to argue against its importance in any bodily process.

As it relates to the GI tract specifically though, water helps with the formation of adequate saliva and stomach acid, breaking down of nutrients to pass into the bloodstream, transportation of food mass through the GI tract, and shaping and softening of stool.

Dehydration can pose challenges to any and all of these processes and, in turn, create both acute and chronic issues in digestion and gut health.

One simple rule of thumb: if fiber is going up, water usually needs to go up too. Otherwise, you’re basically setting your gut up to feel worse.

3 - Chewing Thoroughly is the simplest digestion upgrade

Speaking of saliva, did you know that the digestion process starts the moment we place food in our mouths and start chewing? Key digestive enzymes–amylase, which breaks down starches into sugars, and lingual lipase, which breaks down dietary fats–alongside the general moistening effects of saliva help prepare our food for an efficient journey through the GI tract.

When we’re scarfing our meals down quickly, we can’t properly capitalize on that priming part of the process. Different foods will require different levels of mastication, but keeping in mind with the goal of getting the food in your bite mushy is a widely recommended guideline.

A practical goal: slow your first 5 bites. Chew until the texture is soft, and notice if your stomach feels calmer by the end of the meal.

As a bonus: the more thoroughly we chew our food, the more likely we are to register satiety as we reach it (versus blowing past it into overly full territory), which can have bigger picture benefits when it comes to both healthy digestion and body composition goals.

4 - Eat in a relaxed state (and relax in general)

There are additional reasons why rushing the eating process, which is often an indicator of heightened stress levels, can bottleneck your efforts to improve your gut health. Whenever we’re experiencing stress, our body’s sympathetic nervous system is activated. You may know this to be our “fight or flight” state, where our bodies are at the ready to either face or run from immediate danger.

Our biological “hardware” hasn’t upgraded all that much from our ancestors’ times, despite modern day stressors evolving to look much different (and registering much more frequently!) All this to say, whenever our sympathetic nervous system is activated, digestion is deprioritized, with blood flow being diverted to our ready-to-square-up-or-sprint limbs and contractions of the digestive tract becoming slower or more erratic.

Ways that we can enter a more calm, or parasympathetic, state to support better digestion:

Remain seated while eating
Take several deep, slow breaths before starting a meal and in between bites
Put utensils down between bites
Eat without distractions (especially screens!)

Add in a 30-second pre-meal downshift

Try this 30-second “downshift” before meals:

Exhale slowly for 6–8 seconds, twice
Drop your shoulders
Put your phone face down

5 - Reconsider your daily meal timing and spacing

Don’t get me wrong: we are VERY pro snacks at KLN, but taking a nibbing-throughout-the-day approach to your nutrition may be creating more challenges than it’s solving (even if smaller portions feel intuitively helpful!)

When we take minimal breaks between feedings, our digestive systems are essentially in constant overdrive, with the migrating motor complex (MMC) getting less opportunities to perform the “clean up” of bacteria and residual food particles through the GI tract. This “backup” of sorts can mean slower gut motility and, in turn, bloating.

Additionally, while meal timing does not matter for body composition goals, there can be a strong vote for keeping food volume lighter as we near bedtime. Both gravity and activity assist in gut motility, so lying horizontally and staying nearly motionless for a number of hours can bring about undesirable symptoms like acid reflux and indigestion.

A “3–4 meals” experimenT

The alternative? Consider taking the time to focus on 3-4 appropriately satiating, well-rounded meals spaced 3+ hours apart, with the final one being consumed 2-3 hours before turning in for the night (though if you are hungry right before bed, don’t hesitate to eat a little something that’s easy to digest to take the edge off!)

Try this as a 7-day “experiment:”

Aim for 3–4 satisfying meals most days
Leave about 3 hours between most eating
If reflux/indigestion is an issue for you, try keeping the last bigger meal 2–3 hours before bed when possible

6 - Tune into what foods digest well for you (and which ones don’t)

This might seem like an obvious one, but if we’re regularly rushing through meals or just generally feeling disconnected in our relationship to food and/or our bodies, it could very well be a blind spot for us in practice!

Or, who among us hasn’t had the experience of noticing that eating a certain food leaves us feeling less than ideal…yet we’ve proceeded to keep it in the rotation? In either scenario, we are bypassing the proverbial low hanging fruit on the supporting gut health tree.

Try A low-stress food/symptom log

How can we impactfully go about the process of tuning in (and listening)?

Track our nutrition, whether it be in an app, a note on our phones, or on paper. Awareness is the first step in making adjustments, so knowing what exactly we are consuming and when gives us the launching point we need.
Note how we feel after each meal. Are we experiencing any negative symptoms (e.g. indigestion, bloating, gas)? Keep tabs to draw potential correlations.
Pay attention to our poop. I know, I know, but hear me out: our bowel movements are arguably the greatest tell of how well we are (or aren’t) digesting the foods that we eat! The Bristol Stool Scale is a commonly used medical chart used to compare bowel movements to in order to assess digestion status. Additionally, frequency of bowel movements can clue us in on what foods may or may not be jiving well for us.
Find more digestion-friendly alternatives to the foods we regularly eat and enjoy. Turns out ice cream is a no-go for you (and the thought of not having a serving a few times a week deeply bums you out)? A dairy free brand is ready and waiting for you in your local grocery store’s freezer! Can’t imagine a burrito without black beans? Refried could be a more agreeable texture for your GI tract. It may take some trial and error, but the food landscape is wide and the effort is worth making if it means improving how we feel!

7 - Consider pre- and probiotics (not in supplement form)

Out of all of the sub-topics on gut health, prebiotics and probiotics may take the prize for the buzziest. Prebiotics are components of foods that cannot be digested and can be a catalyst for the growth of healthy gut bacteria. To focus on prebiotics, simply eat a fiber rich diet! Probiotics are living microorganisms (bacteria or yeast) that support in the digestion of food and easing of symptoms of some illnesses, with numerous strains (over 500!) being known to exist.

In plain English:

Prebiotics = fibers that feed beneficial gut bacteria
Probiotics = live microorganisms found in fermented foods (and some supplements) that may support gut function for some people

Research is ever-evolving on how both impact the gut microbiome, with current findings showing promising, positive influence. However, even though supplement versions of both exist, none are regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (no supplements are), so a more conscientious choice would be to regularly incorporate foods that contain them.

To focus on prebiotics, simply eat a fiber rich diet! To focus on probiotics, include foods that are fermented, such as:

Yogurt
Saurkraut
Kimchi
Kefir
Kombucha
Miso
Tempeh

For a deeper reading, Mayo Clinic and The National Institute of Health both have solid overviews.

When to see a GI doc (and what to ask)

Employing all of the aforementioned behaviors and still experiencing digestive woes? Establishing support with a gastroenterologist to investigate potential deeper-seated issues by way of specific testing should be your next course of action.

Anyone can call themselves a gut health expert, but gastroenterologists are the specialists who truly have the education, experience, and expertise to diagnose and treat those struggling with gut issues.

Just like every other corner of the multi-billion dollar wellness industry, gut health remains a pain point that is capitalized on (and downright preyed upon) rampantly.

My hope is that this blog post leaves you feeling inspired and empowered to take this aspect of your health into your own hands, with action steps that feel realistic to implement.

Gut health FAQ

Q: Why does fiber make me bloated?
A: Usually it’s not that fiber is “bad.” It’s that your gut needs time to adapt. Increase slowly, and pair it with enough fluids.

Q: Do probiotics help with bloating?
A: Sometimes, depending on the person and the strain. Most people do best starting with food-first options (fermented foods + fiber) before buying a pricey powder.

Q: Do I need a “gut reset” or cleanse?
A: In most cases, no. If symptoms are persistent, the next step is real evaluation with a GI do, not another restrictive protocol.

Q: When should I see a gastroenterologist?
A: If symptoms are ongoing or worsening, or you have red flags like blood in stool, unexplained weight loss, severe pain, vomiting, anemia, or symptoms that wake you at night.

Trying to feel better in your gut health while also working on performance or body composition goals? If you want help figuring out what’s actually worth focusing on (and what’s just gut-health noise), apply for 1:1 nutrition coaching. We’ll help you fuel in a way that supports digestion and your goals.

Jilda Lamb

Business owner, dog mom, and certified menopause coach, helping overwhelmed professionals and busy athletes simplify their nutrition and feel their best, both physically and mentally.

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