Latest / Love Your Gut / Ep. 76: How to make your gut not "SIBO friendly" & add foods back in without symptoms [SIBO mini series part 3]

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Ep. 76: How to make your gut not "SIBO friendly" & add foods back in without symptoms [SIBO mini series part 3] · Love Your Gut

• 0:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: Welcome to the Love Your Gut Podcast.
• 0:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm your host, Dr.
• 0:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: Heather Finley, registered dietitian and gut health specialist.
• 0:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: 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.
• 0:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: I've dedicated my life to understanding and solving my own gut issues.
• 0:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: And now I'm here to guide you.
• 0:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: On this podcast, I'll help you identify the true root causes of your discomfort.
• 0:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you can finally ditch your symptoms for good.
• 0:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: 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.
• 0:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if you're ready to learn a lot, gain a deeper understanding of your gut and find lasting relief.
• 0:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: You are in the right place.
• 0:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: Welcome to the love your gut podcast.
• 0:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: Welcome back to the next episode of the Love Your Gut podcast.
• 0:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: We are diving into part three of our SIBO and miniseries, and if you've made it this far, thank you.
• 1:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: I hope you're already seeing how much more there is to SIBO than just bad bacteria in the wrong place.
• 1:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: So just to quickly recap, if you haven't listened to episode one or two in this series, so that would be episode 74 and 75.
• 1:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: In episode one of this series, we talked about what SIBO actually is, and more importantly, what it actually isn't.
• 1:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's not just random overgrowth, it is symptoms of a deeper imbalance.
• 1:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then in episode two, we unpacked SIBO testing the good, the bad, what breath test can miss.
• 1:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: We also talked about how tools like the GI MAP and HTMA can offer much more of a complete picture when it comes to your gut terrain.
• 1:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: Especially when your symptoms don't line up with your test results.
• 1:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if you haven't listened to those, I would highly recommend pausing this, going back, listening to those two episodes, because today we're diving into really probably the most important piece of a plan, which is often the most missed.
• 2:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm actually recording this episode for a second time.
• 2:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: I recorded it a couple days ago, and to be honest, I just.
• 2:15
  Dr. Heather Finley: Maybe it's the perfectionist in me, but I just, I couldn't stop thinking about it for like three days.
• 2:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm like, oh, I wanted to talk about that.
• 2:22
  Dr. Heather Finley: Oh, I should have said that.
• 2:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: So I just decided to scrap it and start over.
• 2:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: So I hope you love today's episode.
• 2:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: Hopefully this is just take two, outta two.
• 2:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: But that's what we're gonna talk about today is what do you do once the SIBO protocol is actually done?
• 2:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: Because.
• 2:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: If you've been handed antimicrobial herbs, maybe you're on Candibactin, Biocidin, oregano oil.
• 2:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: Nano scrub, et cetera, There's so many or antibiotics.
• 2:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: Maybe you took Xifaxan Flagyl.
• 2:53
  Dr. Heather Finley: So many choices there as well.
• 2:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: Maybe you also followed a super strict diet, but you might still feel bloated, you might still feel really restricted, and you might still feel most importantly, really frustrated.
• 3:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: So that's what I want to dig into today.
• 3:09
  Dr. Heather Finley: Because maybe you're terrified to add foods back in.
• 3:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: Maybe you finished your last protocol and thought, wait, why do I still feel this way?
• 3:19
  Dr. Heather Finley: Or maybe you've been told that your SIBO is gone.
• 3:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: Maybe you did a repeat test and it was gone, but your gut still hasn't caught up yet.
• 3:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: I have been there.
• 3:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: I remember years ago when I saw my first more functional doctor.
• 3:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: I did a GI map or I think I was actually a GI FX, I did a GI FX with her.
• 3:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: I was doing the protocols that she was recommending.
• 3:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: I honestly was really unfamiliar with the process and I actually, the other day was cleaning out some files and I found all my old lab work from like 20 14, 20 15, and it was so interesting looking at it from the lens that I have now.
• 4:00
  Dr. Heather Finley: And of course I had the mindset of oh, I wish I would've known this, or I wish I would've known that.
• 4:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: But it was honestly so interesting to me because we get so many clients and I just see so much of myself in them, and then I'm looking at my test results going, oh, that's why, that client reminds me of me because our tests actually had some similar things, or this piece reminds me of that.
• 4:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: So anyways, that's a tangent, but.
• 4:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: I remember years ago she had put me on this protocol.
• 4:29
  Dr. Heather Finley: It was pretty rough.
• 4:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: I had a lot of die off.
• 4:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: I was so focused on killing this overgrowth.
• 4:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: At one point I was also taking antifungals.
• 4:37
  Dr. Heather Finley: I was doing like back-to-back protocols.
• 4:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: I did herbals, like I said, antifungals, you name it.
• 4:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: And I thought that if I just kept doing that or if I hit it harder, it would finally go away.
• 4:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: And to be honest, she kind of instilled that in me as well.
• 4:53
  Dr. Heather Finley: And now looking back, I realize that.
• 4:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: Where I went wrong because when I ran another test, another stool test, I don't even know what the timeline is here, like a couple months later, maybe a year later, I found that my beneficial bacteria were completely wiped out.
• 5:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: In case this is maybe new information, you have two to five pounds of bacteria in your gut, which is pretty wild and trillions of them.
• 5:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: And not all of them are bad.
• 5:23
  Dr. Heather Finley: Bacteria are a normal part of our body.
• 5:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: You have more bacteria than you do have human cells, so we could say that you're more bacteria than you are human episode for another time.
• 5:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: But what I found was that I had no bifidobacteria.
• 5:37
  Dr. Heather Finley: My lactobacillus was low.
• 5:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: My akkermansia, which is a keystone strain of bacteria, was low.
• 5:42
  Dr. Heather Finley: My per nzi was low.
• 5:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: And that's what we commonly see in our clients that have done repeated SIBO protocols is.
• 5:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: Their beneficial flora is really depleted.
• 5:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: So I had basically just bombed my entire garden.
• 5:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like nothing in my garden was blooming.
• 5:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: I hadn't just killed the weeds, I had killed the flowers as well.
• 6:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: So no wonder I was reacting to foods.
• 6:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: I was still constipated.
• 6:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: I was still bloated.
• 6:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: I was still more exhausted than before.
• 6:09
  Dr. Heather Finley: So that was the wake up call for me, that killing SIBO is not just the first step or killing SIBO is the first step.
• 6:17
  Dr. Heather Finley: What really matters is actually how you rebuild your gut after, so that the overgrowth doesn't come back and your body actually feels safe again.
• 6:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: So that's what this episode is all about is phase two of recovery, how to rebuild a gut that is resilient.
• 6:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: How to eat more than five foods again, and how to stop feeling like you're always just one bite away from another flare.
• 6:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you did the thing, you finished the SIBO protocol, you took the herbs, the antibiotics, the antimicrobials, whatever.
• 6:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: You cut out all the FODMAPs.
• 6:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: Maybe you even went full elemental.
• 6:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: We get our handful of clients that have done multiple rounds of elemental as well, and maybe are still bloated or worse.
• 6:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: Now you're reacting to foods you never reacted to before.
• 6:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: We see this a lot as well.
• 7:00
  Dr. Heather Finley: This is the part that no one warns you about is killing overgrowth doesn't automatically restore function to your gut.
• 7:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: In fact, many SIBO treatments, especially when they're paired with restrictive diets, can actually leave their own damage behind.
• 7:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: If you think about it, anti antimicrobials are like broad spectrum weed spray.
• 7:22
  Dr. Heather Finley: They don't just knock out the bad bugs.
• 7:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: They hit everything, especially if you do it for too long.
• 7:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: So a long-term low FODMAP diet, it starves the good guys like bifidobacteria and akkermansia.
• 7:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: These are keystone strains of bacteria for the mucus layer of your gut and for the overall health of your gut.
• 7:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: These bacteria specifically.
• 7:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: Thrive on prebiotic fibers.
• 7:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: So now you've cleared some overgrowth, but your beneficial microbes are depleted.
• 7:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: Your gut lining is thin and irritated, and your motility is still sluggish.
• 7:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you might feel less bad, but you don't feel well, and that's because your gut is still healing from everything that it's been through, and you might even feel worse in some cases.
• 8:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: And we tend to get clients like that where they're like, okay, I've treated SIBO six times, three times, whatever, with my doctor.
• 8:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: This feels like a merry-go-round that I can't get off.
• 8:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: So let's talk about what's left behind.
• 8:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: Number one is a leaky gut lining.
• 8:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: You've probably heard the term leaky gut.
• 8:22
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's all over the internet.
• 8:23
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm actually in this Facebook group for dieticians and someone the other day posted about do we actually believe that leaky gut is a thing?
• 8:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: And I'm like, I can't believe we're still here.
• 8:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: The clinical term for this is intestinal permeability.
• 8:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: You wanna think of your intestinal lining, like a coffee filter.
• 8:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's supposed to let nutrients through and keep everything else out, right?
• 8:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like you don't want a bunch of chunky grounds in your coffee.
• 8:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: Same thing with your gut lining.
• 8:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: Inflammation, food restriction, stress, lack of sunlight, poor mineral status, and even bacterial imbalances in your gut can punch holes in that filter.
• 8:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: You can also use the analogy of like a cheese cloth.
• 9:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: So when that happens.
• 9:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: Things like LPS lipopolysaccharides, which are a bacterial toxin, leak through into your bloodstream and trigger immune reactions.
• 9:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you may not see that on a test, but you'll feel it.
• 9:15
  Dr. Heather Finley: More bloating, brain fog, fatigue, sensitivity to foods.
• 9:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: And so yes, leaky gut is real if you wanna have the clinical term for it.
• 9:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's intestinal permeability, and it's incredibly common in the post SIBO healing phase, especially if your digestion higher up.
• 9:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: So your stomach acid, your bile, your enzymes, all the things we've talked about on the previous episodes were never addressed.
• 9:37
  Dr. Heather Finley: The second thing that is left behind often is stalled motility.
• 9:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: So the mal, the migrating motor complex doesn't just switch back on after you take antibiotics.
• 9:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: This whole system has to be turned back online and you're migrating.
• 9:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: Motor complex is kind of like your intestinal cleanup crew.
• 9:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: They come in after office hours, they sweep the floors, they take out the trash.
• 10:00
  Dr. Heather Finley: That's what happens in between meals.
• 10:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: If your minerals are depleted, your vagus nerve is underactive, you're under a lot of stress.
• 10:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: Your motility will stay slow and slow.
• 10:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: Motility is Sibos best friend.
• 10:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: The last thing that I'll mention here, and there's many more, but these are the top three that I wanted to mention here on this episode, is a depleted microbiome, which I've talked about a little bit.
• 10:23
  Dr. Heather Finley: But after multiple rounds of killing, it's like you drained the swamp.
• 10:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: You did not build back the ecosystem.
• 10:29
  Dr. Heather Finley: You don't have diverse amounts of bacteria.
• 10:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: You don't have short chain fatty acid production, which is what happens when your beneficial bacteria eat prebiotic fibers.
• 10:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: They produce short chain fatty acids, which are anti-inflammatory to the gut, to the brain.
• 10:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: Therefore, your gut has no resilience.
• 10:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: So when your next stressor hits, maybe you eat something new, you try to add a food back in, God forbid you get exposed to some kind of pathogen.
• 10:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: You go, you're traveling, your life gets really stressful, whatever, your gut just isn't ready.
• 11:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if you're still bloated after treatment, it doesn't mean your SIBO always came back.
• 11:07
  Dr. Heather Finley: It could have, it might just mean that your healing was never finished.
• 11:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: So your gut was cleared, but it wasn't rebuilt, and rebuilding is exactly what you have to do.
• 11:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: So that you're no longer leaky, fragile, and reactive.
• 11:22
  Dr. Heather Finley: So once the overgrowth is gone, the gut lining is like a house that just went through a storm.
• 11:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: The roof can be patched, but the drywall's soaked, the wiring's off.
• 11:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: The floorboards are squeaky.
• 11:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: You need more than just no leaks.
• 11:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: You need to fully rebuild, and that's what this phase is all about, is restoring the structure.
• 11:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: And the function of your gut lining so you can actually absorb nutrients.
• 11:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: I think we often forget that we think of our gut as like how we have a bowel movement, but it's also where absorption happens.
• 11:52
  Dr. Heather Finley: So of course if you have GI issues, you, you might have fatigue or skin issues or thyroid issues or other autoimmune conditions because it affects your immune system and you're overreacting to every bite of food.
• 12:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: So let's dig into leaky gut a little bit more.
• 12:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like I mentioned, it's kind of like a coffee filter, a fine, my strainer.
• 12:15
  Dr. Heather Finley: A cheesecloth, whatever you want to, whatever is gonna be helpful.
• 12:19
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's supposed to let digested nutrients through while keeping bacteria, toxins, food particles out of your bloodstream when your gut is inflamed.
• 12:29
  Dr. Heather Finley: Maybe from stress, food sensitivities, medications, even like birth control can actually create a leaky gut.
• 12:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: There's lots of other ones or antibiotics that mesh starts to tear the holes, get bigger, junk gets through.
• 12:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: Your immune system is then saying what is going on here?
• 12:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: And sounds the alarm.
• 12:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: And this is what leads to food reactions, which is why you think that food is actually the problem.
• 12:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: But food is just another symptom of the problem.
• 12:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: But it's not just annoying, right?
• 13:00
  Dr. Heather Finley: It truly keeps you from healing because you're scared to eat and it becomes a really vicious cycle.
• 13:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: So here are a couple tools that you wanna consider to rebuild your gut lining, and this is going to be very individual.
• 13:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'm just gonna list off a couple things that we use.
• 13:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's not a completely comprehensive list, so please don't use this to create your own treatment plan and hope for the best.
• 13:23
  Dr. Heather Finley: I would really encourage you to work with someone so that you can actually figure out what's gonna be best for you.
• 13:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: Okay.
• 13:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: But number one thing that we want to do is obviously repair the damage.
• 13:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: So different amino acids and nutrients can feed gut cells.
• 13:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: L-Glutamine is a really popular one.
• 13:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: This can be really helpful for your gut lining.
• 13:42
  Dr. Heather Finley: It can help patch up these holes.
• 13:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: Collagen, it's full of glycine and proline.
• 13:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: You can even get collagen through foods.
• 13:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: It doesn't always mean taking another supplement butyrate.
• 13:53
  Dr. Heather Finley: Sometimes you may need a posto.
• 13:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: Sometimes we will use this to kind of bypass that process that happens if you truly can't tolerate a lot of fibers and you're never getting any short chain fatty acid production, Allah, butyrate, we might need to supplement with that or use butyrate rich foods like grass fed butter and gh.
• 14:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: This is a short chain fatty acid that nourishes the colon, supports the tight junctions.
• 14:17
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's also great for post antibiotic damage.
• 14:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: Another one that's really popular, which I have an entire episode on, actually maybe two episodes on, is immunoglobulins.
• 14:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: These bind to leftover bacterial toxins like LPS, so your immune system doesn't go crazy.
• 14:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: So it's, it not only helps repair your gut lining, but it also is like a gentle binder to help remove things that don't belong.
• 14:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: Spore based probiotics can be great.
• 14:42
  Dr. Heather Finley: They support microbial diversity without overwhelming your gut.
• 14:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: You may be pretty reactive to these, so you might have to go slow.
• 14:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: Sometimes when we've used spores with people, we have literally had them open the capsules and like lick a tiny piece, not even get to a half a capsule.
• 14:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: As we're slowly introducing these Omega-3 fatty acids are great.
• 15:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: They reduce inflammation, they can calm the immune response, and then brush broer enzymes.
• 15:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: Think of these as like your gut finishing tools.
• 15:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: They live on the microvilli.
• 15:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: Of your gut and they help break down the last bits of food.
• 15:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if your small intestine is damaged you get fermentation, you get poor absorption, you get bloating, poor nutrient absorption.
• 15:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you can imagine your gut lining as like tiny carpet fibers.
• 15:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: Those are the microvilli that help absorb nutrients.
• 15:37
  Dr. Heather Finley: So when it's inflamed, it's like someone just took off the top of the carpet.
• 15:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: Ran a lawnmower over it and everything is just completely flattened.
• 15:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: So brush border enzymes help kind of re fluff and restore those so you can absorb what you eat.
• 15:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: That's where also reducing inflammation is really helpful.
• 15:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: Just to mention a couple minerals that matter here, minerals in general always are gonna matter, but you probably see a lot of chitchat about zinc carnasine.
• 16:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: This is a specific form of zinc that is shown to protect the gut lining and support healing.
• 16:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: My personal experience and opinion with this is that zinc carnasine can be really helpful, but it's not necessarily something that you wanna take forever because zinc does impact copper.
• 16:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: Many of our clients have low zinc on HTMA after chronic stress, or just years of digestive dysfunction, and so that can be a big player there.
• 16:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: Interrupting this episode really quick to tell you about the training that I am doing in mid-August.
• 16:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: If you are a health practitioner or a registered dietician, I would absolutely love to have you at my two day training, the gut fix that sticks.
• 16:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: This is a two hour training for two days in a row where we are gonna be diving even more into this process of.
• 16:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: How to actually heal and fix people's digestive symptoms.
• 16:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: So we are still in early bird pricing until August 1st.
• 17:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you can save 20 bucks.
• 17:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: And if you are a registered dietician, I am also submitting it to count for CEUs.
• 17:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: So be sure to check out the link in the show notes and save your spot and look forward to seeing you there.
• 17:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then the last piece of course, and probably the most important is nourishing and gentle foods.
• 17:23
  Dr. Heather Finley: So bone broth, aloe vera, slippery mt.
• 17:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: Steamed zucchini, steamed squash.
• 17:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: Things are gonna be really soothing and easy for your gut to digest.
• 17:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: These are your gut's, comfort foods.
• 17:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: We want anti-inflammatory, soothing, easy to digest, start low, go slow.
• 17:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: Your gut is rebuilding, so you have to treat it that way.
• 17:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: It doesn't mean that you need to start adding in all these foods.
• 17:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: On the first day, you can do this really systematically.
• 17:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: So when your gut lining is restored, you will absorb your nutrients better, you'll react less to food, you will feel less bloated and foggy.
• 18:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: You will have the foundation to bring back more foods without fear.
• 18:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: So speaking of food, next I wanna talk about how to actually reintroduce foods without sending yourself into a flare.
• 18:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: Let's try to not just continue on these restrictive diets that are only making things worse and no one prepares you for this part.
• 18:23
  Dr. Heather Finley: Is eating again, actually bringing food back in.
• 18:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: Isn't that the whole point?
• 18:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: So that you're not on a restrictive diet for the rest of your life, so that you're not the person that's like, oh, I can't eat that, or always the person that they're having to make accommodations for.
• 18:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: I spent way too many years having people always ask me.
• 18:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: Oh, can Heather eat that?
• 18:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: And I'm so glad that I don't have to be that person anymore.
• 18:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: So here's the truth.
• 18:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: Long term food restriction may help symptoms in the short term, but it causes more issues in the long term from a nutrient perspective, from a bacterial diversity perspective, and even from a mental health perspective.
• 19:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: When you avoid foods for too long, you're not just starving your beneficial microbes.
• 19:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: You are also creating more stress with potentially what you think you can and can't eat.
• 19:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: And without those beneficial bacteria, your gut terrain becomes weak and more reactive and fragile.
• 19:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: So here's where to start.
• 19:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: If the food reintroduction process is confusing, obviously this is gonna be different for everybody.
• 19:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: This is why food logging and symptom tracking is such a huge part of our VIP program because so many of our clients.
• 19:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: Need help actually adding foods back in.
• 19:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: We don't calorie count, we don't any of that.
• 19:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: Our clients have the ability to give us an idea of what they're eating, and every week we give them feedback on, here's what you should add, here's how you can do it.
• 19:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: Hey, I'm noticing this.
• 19:52
  Dr. Heather Finley: Let's make this little change.
• 19:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: And so they never have to wonder, and they know that we're working on adding those things back in because ultimately we know that the greatest predictor of a healthy gut.
• 20:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: Is the variety of food that you can eat.
• 20:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's not a probiotic, it's not anything else.
• 20:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's the variety of food that you can eat.
• 20:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: So here's where to start.
• 20:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: Number one is begin with low fermentable training wheels, if you will.
• 20:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: So cooked foods.
• 20:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: Don't be eating a ton of raw salads if you can't tolerate them.
• 20:22
  Dr. Heather Finley: Cooked zucchini, cooked carrots, cooked spinach, kiwi is great.
• 20:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's also really helpful for motility.
• 20:29
  Dr. Heather Finley: There's studies that show that two kiwis a day help with constipation.
• 20:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: You can do sprouted oats, sprouted flowers, things that are easy to digest, and they're gonna be less likely to trigger a flare.
• 20:42
  Dr. Heather Finley: Then you can progress to maybe moderate fermentors or polyphenol rich foods, blueberries, pomegranate seeds, cocoa powder, olives, small amounts of cooked onions, asparagus tips.
• 20:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: sprouted grains like sourdough if tolerated, those can help refeed the beneficial strains like bifidobacteria or a akkermansia that got wiped out or that weren't even there.
• 21:07
  Dr. Heather Finley: We have done kind of our own internal research, so this is not a clinically like validated research study, but we have done this or seen this on testing for many of our clients.
• 21:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: So Akkermansia is one of the.
• 21:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: Keystone strains of bacteria that I mentioned that we often see low.
• 21:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: And what we started to notice is you've probably seen that there is an AKKERMANSIA probiotic on the market, and I have nothing against that probiotic, but we had several clients that came to us having taken Akkermansia, the probiotic, and then we would do a GI map on them and it was not even detectable.
• 21:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: And they're like, how is that possible?
• 21:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: I've been taking this for 30, 60, 90 days.
• 21:53
  Dr. Heather Finley: How is it not even detectable?
• 21:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: So what we did is we really pushed polyphenol rich foods with those clients.
• 22:00
  Dr. Heather Finley: So really deep, dark purple, like I said, blueberries, pomegranate seeds, green tea, cocoa powder, and retested.
• 22:07
  Dr. Heather Finley: And guess what?
• 22:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: The Akkerman Sea was there, which shows that food is just such an important piece.
• 22:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: You can take Akkermansia, but if it doesn't have its fuel source, of course it's not gonna take up residence in your gut.
• 22:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: The next.
• 22:22
  Dr. Heather Finley: Thing that you wanna think about is adding in resistant starch when you're ready.
• 22:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: So this can be cooked in cooled potatoes, cooked in cooled rice, lentils, in small amounts.
• 22:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: These will build butyrate levels.
• 22:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: They that will soothe inflammation.
• 22:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: It will tighten the gut lining.
• 22:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: Typically, resistant starch is pretty well tolerated, especially if you're like, I cannot tolerate a lot of fiber.
• 22:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: Try a cooked and cooled potato, even if you reheat it.
• 22:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: It still remains, it still maintains its resistant starch properties, so they are not prebiotic, but they act like one, so that can be a great thing.
• 22:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: The most important thing to keep in mind when introducing foods is the 48 hour roll.
• 23:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: You can introduce a new food every 48 hours, keep everything else consistent.
• 23:09
  Dr. Heather Finley: Definitely don't introduce foods on a day that you have like a huge work deadline or other stress in your life.
• 23:15
  Dr. Heather Finley: Mild gas or mild bloating is not a failure.
• 23:19
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's like muscle soreness after a new workout, it means your microbiome is adapting.
• 23:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if you feel pressure, a little rumble, an increase in bloating, that's actually normal and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
• 23:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: So having support as you walk through some of those changes can be really helpful.
• 23:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: If it's painful, it lasts more than 24 hours.
• 23:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: It impacts your bowels drastically.
• 23:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: Then it can be worth slowing down.
• 23:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: But some symptoms are not always a bad thing.
• 23:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: It might just mean that you're really depleted and your gut needs to get used to tolerating these things again.
• 23:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: And that is a super important mindset shift that we have to work on with almost all of our clients is not all symptoms are necessarily bad.
• 24:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: So that's where a nervous system regulation can play a big role.
• 24:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: Eat in a relaxed state, do a couple 4, 7, 8 breaths before meals.
• 24:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: Hum or gargle hum.
• 24:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: Happy birthday twice.
• 24:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: That's my favorite tool to give people because it will make you laugh.
• 24:17
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's really easy to remember, and if you have kids, they'll love it too.
• 24:21
  Dr. Heather Finley: Go on a 10 minute walk post meal to help stimulate motility.
• 24:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: But the calmer your body is, the less reactive your gut will be because digestion starts before your first bite.
• 24:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: So some optional tools that you could consider while reintroducing.
• 24:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: Again, not medical advice.
• 24:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: Always work with a practitioner.
• 24:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: Digestive enzymes.
• 24:42
  Dr. Heather Finley: They can be helpful for harder to break down foods like legumes or proteins.
• 24:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: You can, there's so many enzymes you can work with someone to help you figure out what would work.
• 24:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: Bitters, or even just a little apple cider vinegar before meals if you don't have histamine issues to stimulate the stomach acid and bile flow binders or immunoglobulins if there's lingering reactivity.
• 25:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: I love taking immunoglobulins, especially during cold and flu season.
• 25:07
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's just a great kind of.
• 25:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: I don't know, insurance policy, a little bit against just stuff that you're exposed to.
• 25:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: So the bottom line is reintroduction is a phase, not a single day.
• 25:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's a practice in patience, curiosity, communication with your body.
• 25:23
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you have to give patience and give yourself grace and work with the process and know that not all symptoms are necessarily bad.
• 25:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: If you've been here for a while, you've probably heard me say this.
• 25:37
  Dr. Heather Finley: That digestion happens north to south.
• 25:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: So from your brain to your stomach, to your bile and enzymes all the way to your colon, it is a chain reaction.
• 25:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: And if one part of that chain breaks, everything suffers.
• 25:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: So this is especially important after SIBO protocol because most people finish the kill phase and go straight back to habits that stall digestion.
• 25:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: And that's where creating sustainable lifestyle habits to support your gut long term are really helpful.
• 26:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: Maybe you go back to eating too fast, grazing all day, skipping protein, working through lunch.
• 26:09
  Dr. Heather Finley: Suddenly your symptoms come back, not because your SIBO relapsed, but because digestion never really got rebooted from the top down.
• 26:17
  Dr. Heather Finley: So let's walk through just a quick refresher on what optimal digestion looks like and where support is often missing post-treatment.
• 26:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: So step one is brain and anticipation, right?
• 26:29
  Dr. Heather Finley: Your digestive system starts before you even eat.
• 26:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: You sit down, you smell your food, you breathe for a moment.
• 26:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: This signals your body to switch from stress mode to digest mode.
• 26:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: Next is stomach acid.
• 26:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: So stomach acid is going to sterilize your food.
• 26:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's going to break down protein, trigger bile and enzyme release.
• 26:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: Post antimicrobial protocols, acid is often low, especially if you are stressed low in zinc, not eating enough protein.
• 26:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you can use bitters, you can chew thoroughly.
• 26:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: Support your minerals whatever you need to do there.
• 27:00
  Dr. Heather Finley: Next is bile flow.
• 27:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: So bile is your natural antimicrobial and fat digester.
• 27:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: On the last episode, you heard me talk about my daughter calling your gallbladder a water gun.
• 27:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: And it's such a good analogy because it's true.
• 27:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: Every time you eat a meal, especially one with fat, your gallbladder shoots bile out.
• 27:19
  Dr. Heather Finley: And even if you don't have a gallbladder, you still have vial flow.
• 27:23
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's even more important.
• 27:25
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if your bile is sluggish, food will sit, it will ferment.
• 27:29
  Dr. Heather Finley: It will feed these upper gut bugs as well as the small intestinal issues that you might have.
• 27:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: So again, support tools, bitters, touring, phosphatidylcholine, oxil.
• 27:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: In some cases you don't wanna skip fats entirely.
• 27:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: You can just space them out, make sure you're chewing them well et cetera.
• 27:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: Step four is enzyme output.
• 27:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: So your pancreas releases enzymes to break down proteins, carbs, fats, but it relies on all the previous steps to get the signal.
• 27:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: So no acid, no bile, no bile, no enzymes, no enzymes.
• 28:03
  Dr. Heather Finley: Hello, bloating and undigested food.
• 28:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: All of these things go together, so make sure you're eating enough protein.
• 28:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: Ginger can be really helpful.
• 28:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: Digestive enzymes, especially in the temporary, especially if you are testing shows that you have lower elastase.
• 28:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then step five.
• 28:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: Really the last piece is motility.
• 28:22
  Dr. Heather Finley: So when food is broken down, well, it easily moves through the gut.
• 28:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: When it's not, it sits, it ferments, it starts this whole cycle again.
• 28:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you can use pro kinetics.
• 28:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: Ginger's a easy cheap one.
• 28:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: There's lots of other medications and supplements that support motility that you can work with your provider on.
• 28:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: But.
• 28:42
  Dr. Heather Finley: Just a quick analogy to kind of tie all of this together.
• 28:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: Digestion is like a luggage check at the airport, right?
• 28:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: If you don't tag your bag at the counter, it won't make it to the plane, it won't get unloaded, and it ends up spinning around lost and fermenting and baggage claim, right?
• 28:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: So your bag at the counters, your brain and your stomach, your plane is your bile.
• 29:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: It won't get unloaded.
• 29:06
  Dr. Heather Finley: Your enzymes, and then it's spinning around.
• 29:08
  Dr. Heather Finley: That's your bloating and your symptoms that you're having.
• 29:10
  Dr. Heather Finley: The takeaway here is supporting digestion from the top down because all the SIBO killing in the world will not matter if your digestive chain is still broken.
• 29:20
  Dr. Heather Finley: So the next step, I wanna just chat through a couple lifestyle shifts that will actually help your gut to stay strong, because it's not just about taking supplements.
• 29:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: Food is a big piece as you heard, and lifestyle is a big piece as well.
• 29:34
  Dr. Heather Finley: Let's chat through something that surprises people is your daily habits, your light exposure, your sleep, your rhythms, your breath.
• 29:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: Number one is morning light.
• 29:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: This is like a metabolic reset if you get outside within 30 minutes of waking even for five to 10 minutes.
• 29:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: This will help set your circadian rhythm.
• 29:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: It supports your thyroid health.
• 29:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if you have thyroid issues, this is a non-negotiable.
• 29:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: It regulates your hormones and cortisol.
• 30:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: If you struggle with sleep, go outside in the morning.
• 30:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: I promise you it will help.
• 30:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: It will also improve your gut motility by sinking your body clock.
• 30:09
  Dr. Heather Finley: This sounds so elementary, but sometimes the tools we have at our disposal like sunlight are very, very undervalued.
• 30:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if you're someone who wakes up constipated, you can't sleep, you're always cold.
• 30:22
  Dr. Heather Finley: This is one habit that you don't wanna skip.
• 30:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: Take your coffee outside, whatever you wanna do.
• 30:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: Try to get outside.
• 30:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: Okay, next step is walking after meals.
• 30:30
  Dr. Heather Finley: This is like built-in digestive support, a short walk.
• 30:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: It does not have to be a power walk.
• 30:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: It could literally be a leisurely stroll can activate the vagus nerve.
• 30:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: I saw this trend like, oh, I don't know, a while ago it was on TikTok.
• 30:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: I think people were calling'em like fart walks, which is like kind of funny and crazy.
• 30:48
  Dr. Heather Finley: But it's true.
• 30:50
  Dr. Heather Finley: Like people will go walk after meals to help with digestion.
• 30:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if you wanna go do that, great.
• 30:56
  Dr. Heather Finley: It activates your vagus nerve, it stimulates bile flow.
• 30:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: It'll help support your migrating motor complex, and it'll just give you some fresh air, which is great.
• 31:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: So bonus points if you can do it without some headphones.
• 31:09
  Dr. Heather Finley: The next thing is nervous system tone.
• 31:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: This is the ultimate digestive trigger and the one where people often shut down.
• 31:15
  Dr. Heather Finley: So please don't turn this episode off right now.
• 31:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: If your body doesn't feel safe, you won't digest.
• 31:22
  Dr. Heather Finley: You cannot digest if you're stuck in fight or flight.
• 31:26
  Dr. Heather Finley: So some simple, simple tools.
• 31:28
  Dr. Heather Finley: Humming, gargling, singing 4, 7, 8, breathing.
• 31:32
  Dr. Heather Finley: Joyful movement.
• 31:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: Have a dance party with your kids.
• 31:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: My kids love dancing to Shania Twain.
• 31:38
  Dr. Heather Finley: I know.
• 31:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: So funny.
• 31:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: But they love it, so we do it.
• 31:41
  Dr. Heather Finley: Celine Dion, also a fan favorite at my house.
• 31:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: So whatever you like, turn it on.
• 31:47
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then connection, whether that's with a friend, a pet, your journal, whoever your spouse, have connection.
• 31:54
  Dr. Heather Finley: You don't need a 90 minute meditation, you just need a moment of calm or a laugh or something joyful built into your day.
• 32:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then lastly, blood sugar, balance and sleep.
• 32:05
  Dr. Heather Finley: These are silent game changers.
• 32:07
  Dr. Heather Finley: Poor sleep and blood sugar crashes are huge drivers of inflammation and gut dysfunction.
• 32:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: So.
• 32:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: Eat protein when you wake up, try to get 20 to 30 grams to anchor in your blood sugar for the day.
• 32:19
  Dr. Heather Finley: This is honestly, if I'm being fully transparent, this is one of the habits that's the hardest for me as a mom, is actually prioritizing this within a decent amount of time of waking up.
• 32:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: And so I've had to get creative, especially with a baby that I'm still nursing.
• 32:36
  Dr. Heather Finley: Don't skip meals.
• 32:37
  Dr. Heather Finley: Your gut needs fuel to heal.
• 32:39
  Dr. Heather Finley: And then create a simple wind down routine at night.
• 32:42
  Dr. Heather Finley: Also, something I struggle with is turning screens off.
• 32:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: I recently found a red light that clips to my bed.
• 32:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: I love it.
• 32:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: I'll link it in the show notes in case you're interested.
• 32:53
  Dr. Heather Finley: Bon charge is the brand, but it just like plugs in and is a little red light.
• 32:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if I wanna read at night that is a great option without having the lights on.
• 33:02
  Dr. Heather Finley: Magnesium bath, a calm body digests way better than any supplement ever can.
• 33:07
  Dr. Heather Finley: So.
• 33:07
  Dr. Heather Finley: If you are obsessing about what supplements to take, try to zoom out and ask yourself, am I resting?
• 33:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: Am I nourishing?
• 33:14
  Dr. Heather Finley: Am I letting my body feel safe?
• 33:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: That's really what creates lasting gut resilience.
• 33:19
  Dr. Heather Finley: So let's wrap it up just with some closing thoughts and just next steps.
• 33:24
  Dr. Heather Finley: If you have made it through multiple SIBO protocols, but you still feel bloated, reactive, stuck eating the same five foods, please hear this.
• 33:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: It doesn't mean your treatment failed.
• 33:35
  Dr. Heather Finley: It means your healing isn't done or it wasn't complete because what comes after the killing phase is just as important, if not more.
• 33:44
  Dr. Heather Finley: So let's recap what we covered.
• 33:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: Number one, your gut lining needs to be repaired.
• 33:49
  Dr. Heather Finley: Your food reintroductions have to happen.
• 33:52
  Dr. Heather Finley: They are necessary.
• 33:53
  Dr. Heather Finley: If we want to build diversity, you have to support digestion from north to south and then your lifestyle.
• 33:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: This is not fluff.
• 34:01
  Dr. Heather Finley: Things like rest, walking, breath work.
• 34:04
  Dr. Heather Finley: These are a way to make your gut a very unwelcoming place for overgrowth, which is what we want.
• 34:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: So you drain the swamp.
• 34:13
  Dr. Heather Finley: Now we need to rebuild the ecosystem.
• 34:16
  Dr. Heather Finley: In part four of this series, I'm gonna be sharing a couple case studies, especially some interesting ones about clients that had been told they had sibo, didn't actually have sibo, as well as people who had treated it multiple times.
• 34:29
  Dr. Heather Finley: So stay tuned for that.
• 34:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: It is one of the most inspiring episodes, I think, especially if you are in a situation where even if you don't have sibo, if you just have recurrent bloating and constipation and other GI issues.
• 34:43
  Dr. Heather Finley: So make sure that you are subscribed to the show.
• 34:46
  Dr. Heather Finley: If you are not subscribed, you won't get notified about episodes.
• 34:51
  Dr. Heather Finley: But also being subscribed to the show also helps other people to find the show.
• 34:55
  Dr. Heather Finley: Same thing with a rating or review.
• 34:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: So.
• 34:59
  Dr. Heather Finley: I am going to bump up the, inspiration for a rating and review because my podcast, to be honest, is probably the favorite, my favorite thing that I do, we have tons of free resources.
• 35:11
  Dr. Heather Finley: We have blogs, we have Instagram posts, we have email newsletters, we have TikTok.
• 35:18
  Dr. Heather Finley: Sometimes we have all the things, but I absolutely love doing this podcast, and so if you would help me out and leave a rating and review.
• 35:27
  Dr. Heather Finley: That is a great way for Apple Podcasts to see, oh, other people like the show.
• 35:31
  Dr. Heather Finley: So I'm gonna share it with more people.
• 35:33
  Dr. Heather Finley: So if you leave a rating and review and you screenshot it, you can email it to our support email, which I'll put in the show notes.
• 35:40
  Dr. Heather Finley: It's just Happy gut@drheatherfinley.co not com Co.
• 35:45
  Dr. Heather Finley: And put in the subject line podcast rating You will be entered to win a free HTMA package.
• 35:52
  Dr. Heather Finley: You have lots of chances to win, but go ahead and do that, and I will be picking a winner.
• 35:58
  Dr. Heather Finley: So that will include you getting your own HTMA test as well as a one-on-one consult with our team to review the results and action steps and what you can do.
• 36:07
  Dr. Heather Finley: So thank you so much for being here and learning something new today.
• 36:12
  Dr. Heather Finley: I will see you back next week on part four of this series.