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In this episode of the Fitness Simplified Podcast, Brooke Davis discusses gut health and menopause. She provides actionable steps to support gut health, reduce bloating, and improve digestion during menopause. 

Brooke explains the importance of the gut microbiome and how hormonal changes during menopause can impact gut health. She introduces the 5Rs approach (remove, restore, reinoculate, repair, and rebalance) to support gut health.

Brooke also highlights common disruptors of digestion and offers tips for maintaining a healthy gut, including proper nutrition, hydration, and stress management.

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Transcript:

Welcome to the Fitness Simplified podcast. I’m Brooke Davis, women’s functional nutritionist and fitness specialist with Elysian Women’s Wellness, and I’m here to simplify your fitness. Today, we are going to talk about gut health and menopause, some of the changes you can make to reduce bloating and improve your digestion, along with long-term strategies to help reduce belly fat and manage gut health if you’re experiencing some more problematic symptoms.

Here we go. Menopause is a really wild transition for most women who are lucky enough to make it to that age, so remember that. Some people might not consider themselves lucky as they go through it, but luckily for them, we are learning more and more about menopause, how to best support your body during it, and how to navigate it with a little more grace.

Gut health is one of those things that is really so widely overlooked in our general society, but especially in menopause. The hard part about menopause is that as your hormones are creating all of this chaos, you’re also reaching a point where your body is simply wearing down and really unable to adequately compensate for all the things you put it through over the last 40 to 50 years. Thus, it feels like everything really compounds all at once.

It’s not always necessarily that your body is simply breaking down right now. It’s that it’s finally reflecting the way that you’ve treated it over the last half of your life, which can also be a tough pill to swallow. That being said, I want to give you some actionable steps and hopefully some relief when it comes to supporting your gut through menopause, which plays a role in so many other vital systems in the body.

So first, let’s give some definitions so we’re on the same page of perimenopause, menopause, and post-menopause. Menopause is technically defined as the complete stopping of your menstrual cycles for 12 months. At that 12-month mark, that day, you have hit menopause.

Everything after that day, you are postmenopausal. About 10 years prior to that time, you are in perimenopause. This is the time when sex hormone production from the ovaries starts to decline, and this is about when women start to experience the symptoms of these irregularities like the hot flashes, brain fog, muscle, joint aches, low libido.

The list is endless as far as possible symptoms go. I’ll be totally honest, some are unavoidable. Again, with that hormonal fluctuation, some things just are.

The reality of it is that while your ovaries are slowing down, other parts of your body recognize this and are then upregulating in order to push more production. This leads to some serious rollercoastering and things like FSH and estrogen, which just can’t be stopped. But there’s still a ton you can do to support your body through the gut, which is what we’re here to get into.

So, diving into gut health. Bloating and abdominal weight gain [are] among the most common complaints in menopause, and for good reason. The gut helps to regulate so many various functions within the body, and it’s also the actual gateway to providing the body with nutrients.

Our gut microbiome is made up of trillions of bacteria that help break down and absorb the food we eat, then send it out to the rest of the body in order for it to function. It also acts as a barrier to the things we don’t want in our body. Things like environmental toxins that come in our food, household and cosmetic products in the air we breathe and the water we drink, heavy metals, pathogens, and parasites.

When this system is disrupted, whether that be through an overload of the things above, poor diet and lifestyle choices, our chronic stress response, antibiotic use, other prescription medications, and even prolonged use of NSAIDs, the gut is then vulnerable to more disruption as is the rest of the body when it’s having to compensate for the work that’s not being done by the gut. As more toxins get through the mucosal barrier, we see the detoxification pathways from the kidneys and liver becoming more burdened, which can then further result in more hormonal disruption. The gut is more vulnerable to parasitic and pathogenic infections, inflammation increases, and the vicious cycle continues.

We know that the hormonal fluctuations of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone are the main driving factors behind most of the symptoms and menopause. What most people don’t know is the role that they play in the gut. Estrogen actually influences your gut’s muscle contractions, which help move food through your digestive tract.

When those estrogen levels decline, this leads to slower processing of the foods in the digestive tract, which can often cause symptoms like bloating and constipation. Progesterone, on the other hand, can have a relaxing effect on the gut muscles, slowing your transit time and then causing digestive issues in that regard. These hormonal changes can cause what’s called dysbiosis, or simply a disruption in the balance of your gut microbiome, leading to a decrease in beneficial bacteria and an increase in harmful bacteria.

This imbalance then creates more issues impacting the functions that we talked about earlier like nutrient absorption, your immune system, and then further hormonal fluctuations. And we’re back to the vicious cycle. So what can you actually do about this? The good news is that there’s actually a lot you can do to support your gut health and reduce bloating, ideally during all walks of life, but it especially becomes important during perimenopause and menopause.

We have a system called the five Rs, which stands for remove, restore, re-inoculate, repair, and rebalance, which I’ll dive into in a second. But I want to go over a few things that you might be doing that are disrupting your digestion that are super easy to adjust and may actually make a huge difference in some of your symptoms. The first one that can be really disruptive to digestion is gum.

Chewing gum might seem harmless, but it can actually contribute to digestive issues. When you chew gum, your body thinks that food is coming and it starts producing digestive enzymes. However, since there’s no actual food to digest, this can lead to an imbalance in those digestive juices, potentially causing bloating and discomfort.

Number two is carbonated or sparkling drinks, sodas, sparkling water, alcohol, right? Beer. These introduce gas into your digestive system, and this excess gas then leads to bloating and discomfort. Also, the acidity in some of these carbonated beverages could actually contribute to acid reflux and indigestion.

Number three is artificial sweeteners, consuming artificial sweeteners. Many artificial sweeteners like aspartame, sucralose, they’re not fully absorbed by the digestive system. The undigested sweeteners can reach the colon and might be fermented by bacteria, which then leads to gas, bloating, and other digestive issues.

And then number four is eating fast or on the go. So when you eat quickly or on the go, you’re more likely to swallow air along with your food. This can lead to increased gas and bloating.

In addition to this, hurried eating can result in not chewing your food well enough, which then makes it harder for your stomach to break down that food properly. Number five, and probably the second, well, common or second most to number four, is feeling stressed while eating. So stress activates your body’s fight or flight response, which diverts blood away from the digestive system.

This can slow down your digestion, leads to issues like constipation, bloating, discomfort, right? So while you’re eating, try and take a few breaths beforehand. Practicing mindful eating, minimizing stress during meals, sitting down, this can all help promote better digestion. And number six is lack of exercise or movement throughout the day.

So regular exercise, as you probably heard me talk a lot about, promotes healthy digestion by helping the movement of food through the digestive tract. Being sedentary, on the other hand, can lead to sluggish digestion and constipation. So making sure you are going for at least daily walks, exercising, you know, two to five times a week can really help your digestive system in functioning optimally.

So if you’re already doing these kind of simple things to promote better digestion, avoiding the things that might be hindering it, you may need a deeper approach. So now we’ll dive into the five Rs. Step number one is remove.

So we want to remove the common gut irritants. This is going to look a little different for everyone depending on how bad your symptoms are. But some of the major offenders in terms of food are alcohol, coffee, sugar, and processed foods, being followed up by gluten, dairy, soy, eggs, or another one.

So keeping a food journal can really help you pinpoint some of these things. And you can try eliminating one for a week or two to see if it improves and then go on to the next etc. Or you could do something a little more extreme like an AIP autoimmune paleo protocol that eliminates them all for at least three to four weeks up to three months and then you would reintroduce them one at a time to see how the body responds.

Other things like yeast overgrowth, SIBO, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or parasites can also largely disrupt digestion. So you can test for these things from the beginning or you can go through the process and see what improvements you can make without it. And then if you are not seeing the changes you want or the relief that you want, then you could dive a little bit deeper.

Medications like NSAIDs, as I mentioned, are known to damage the gut lining. So if you’re taking these regularly, that might be something to address. And then antibiotics and steroids can also alter the gut microbiome.

They kill off the good bacteria, leaving you with dysbiosis or overgrowth of the bad bacteria. So really avoiding these as much as possible is huge for gut health. And if you do have to take them, because obviously sometimes it’s unavoidable, then actually going through some of these next steps can be really beneficial.

Lastly, and like I said above, the one that people struggle with the most is stress, which comes in a lot of different forms. And this is something that a lot of people don’t recognize. So of course there’s mental emotional stress, which increases your cortisol, causes gut inflammation, as well as a decrease in stomach acid.

And this leaves you with poor digestion and then even more vulnerable to those parasites and pathogens. Then there’s additional stressors like environmental toxins, like I said, found in the air, water, personal care products. These can impact the gut along with things like mold exposure.

These are all things to be aware of and work to reduce, especially if you’re having gut problems, but really for everybody. So going on to step two, we’re at restore. So here we want to replace things that are missing for optimal digestive function, which again is individual.

But some of the most common deficiencies we see are things like digestive enzymes. The inability to properly digest the food means you’re not absorbing nutrients like you should be either. So similarly, a lot of people are low in hydrochloric acid or stomach acid, which helps the breakdown of food, allowing the body to absorb the nutrients.

This in and of itself can also lead to bacterial overgrowth and dysbiosis. Most people who are on proton pump inhibitors get heartburn and reflux are actually low in stomach acid and could benefit from using something as simple as one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar and eight ounces of water before meals, or even an HCL supplement. Lastly, another common one is bile support, which helps your body digest fats and then deliver toxins out of the liver.

This is an example of the vicious cycle when the detoxification pathways become overloaded and how it impacts digestion. Herbs like dandelion, milk thistle, and turmeric will all help support bile production along with artichokes, ginger, lemons, and limes. If you are missing a gallbladder, you need to be taking an ox bile supplement.

That is non-negotiable because you literally do not create that anymore. Step number three is re-inoculate. So now that we are clearing the way, giving some digestive support, we want to introduce and then create an environment where these good bacteria can thrive.

This is where probiotics and prebiotics come in. My first suggestion is to eat foods that contain live cultures of beneficial microbes, which are things like probiotic yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir, miso, lacto-fermented vegetables, pickles are like the most common ones, but you can really do it to any of them, and then small amounts of kombucha. Really one to two servings or one to two tablespoons a day is going to be more than enough to give you that support.

And then you could also take a probiotic for extra support, either in conjunction with or on the days that you don’t get those fermented foods. Testing is really the best way to go about this, just to make sure that you’re not getting, again, too much of a good thing cannot be a good thing also. So to make sure that you’re getting that balance of the ones that you actually need, something like a GI map can be really beneficial.

Prebiotics are a type of fiber found in food that your good gut bacteria eat. These are found in foods like chicory root, dandelion greens, Jerusalem artichokes, bananas, oats, leeks, onions, garlic, asparagus, flaxseed, and apples. Step number four is repair.

Now we want to repair the mucosal barrier or the gut lining. So if you’ve heard of the term leaky gut, that is just damage to the mucosal barrier that lines your intestines, and specifically the small intestine, which is where most of your nutrient absorption occurs. So things like collagen supplements or bone broth, making sure that it’s good and jellowy when it’s cold, have the amino acids proline, gycine, and glutamine, which are super beneficial to the gut lining.

Some herbs and supplements that have benefits for the mucosal barrier are going to be L-glutamine, aloe vera, slippery elm, marshmallow root, and deglycyrrhizinated licorice root. Some vitamins that play a really big role in digestion are going to be vitamins A, C, D, and B. Ideally, testing for those and supplementing with the ones that you are low in are going to be your best bet. You could also conservatively supplement with them without testing, but always recommend especially A and D because they are fat soluble, so they don’t come out of your body quite as quickly, proceeding with caution on those.

Lastly is omega-3s. And the proper ratios of omega-3s to 6s can help reduce inflammation in the gut, in the entire body. You can eat fish three times a week, or you can supplement or a combination of both.

And then step number five is rebalance. So I call these the foundational health habits. These are arguably the most important to make sure that you can maintain your improved digestion, but are also things you should really just be doing all along your journey, not only for gut health, but for overall health and wellness.

First is sleep. Women especially going through perimenopause and menopause should be aiming for seven to nine hours of quality sleep, which I have a whole podcast on if you want to hear more about how to get your best sleep. Go check that out.

And then exercise. At least two to three days of strength training, two to three days of cardiovascular training is great for improving digestion through providing that motility or movement of food and everything else through the intestines, along with circulation. And research actually shows that it can increase your microbiome diversity.

Prioritizing getting enough nutrient-dense foods with a balanced macronutrient ratio of protein, fats, and carbs. One of the biggest issues I see with women during this time is that they’re so focused on dieting and losing body fat that they’re literally starving their body, not only of energy, but of nutrients. They’re on 800 to 1,000 calorie diets.

They’re bloated and exhausted and still not seeing the changes they want, but they’re afraid to eat more. The reality of it is that you have to eat enough food in order to provide your body with enough nutrients. And this varies for everyone, but the average intake for a 145 pound woman in order to simply maintain her weight should be about 2,000 calories.

This means that if you weigh 145 pounds or more, you should be eating at least 2,000 calories in order to give your body the sustenance that it needs. Now, that being said, if you have spent a long time eating less than 1,200 to 1,500 calories, your body has likely adapted to that. And it will take time and strategy to increase, but know that in the long run, your body will thank you for eating more.

So if you are down there, slowly start to increase your intake with protein, vegetables, fruits, which brings me to my next point. The gut needs 25 to 35 grams of fiber each day, which is very difficult to do when you’re eating less than a thousand calories. So this is another problem with the low carb, low calorie diets.

They literally don’t allow you to eat enough food to get the fiber that you need. This fiber not only helps feed the good bacteria in the gut to keep you in a healthy balance, but it also helps with that motility and clearing out the digestive tract, promoting healthy bowel movements, which means you’re clearing out and supporting your detoxification pathways as well. Fiber comes from fruits, vegetables, along with whole complex carbohydrates like brown rice, quinoa, oats, legumes, lentils.

And getting fiber is beneficial, but you also want to stay hydrated to help utilize all of that fiber because the fiber will soak up the water and flush out of the body. So purified or filtered water, ideally not tap water. Similar to fiber, water is not only important for gut health, but because it helps make a thriving environment for that good bacteria.

It helps keep things running smoothly with digestion, helps dissolve the soluble fiber from all that goodness that you’re eating, which makes it easier to absorb nutrients, and it combines with that insoluble fiber to make easy, healthy poops. Also, it helps keep the mucosal barrier of the intestines lubricated, which prevents irritation and inflammation. Lastly, working to eliminate stress in the body on all aspects.

Create a daily routine of gratitude lists, journaling, meditation, breathwork, stretching, dancing, even just a few minutes a day of any of those things goes a long way. That’s it. That’s all you have to do.

Kidding. I realize we just covered a complete overhaul of your life, potentially, but know that improving your gut health is extremely multifaceted and it won’t happen overnight, especially in menopause. There’s too many variables, but some of these things can help you make great improvements in even a short amount of time, beginning with the six initial things we talked about and then going through the five R’s if you feel like you need more support with this.

I have this entire process written out for you in an easy to follow guide that I will link in the show notes for you. So as always, I hope this was helpful. If you have any questions, suggestions for future topics, or just want to chat, feel free to reach out to us on Instagram at Brooke underscore Elysian and Facebook linked in the show notes or via our website, Elysianwomenswellness.com. And if you enjoyed what you heard today, we’d be thrilled if you could take a half second to leave us a five star review.

Not only will you be helping others find our show, but you’ll also be entered into our monthly $100 giveaway for no reviews. New episodes drop every Monday, so make sure to hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more. Thanks for listening.

See you soon.

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Coach Brooke Davis Links:

Website: bdavistraining.com 

LinkedIn: Brooke Davis – Owner – Davis Fitness

Facebook: Brooke Davis, CPT 

Instagram: Brooke Davis  (@brooke_elysian)

Free Community: Women’s Fitness Simplified: Lean down, tone up, build confidence!

5 Rs to Improve Gut Health: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1II5VFOYdviBULWQl5BXqEwl8U4gqScJd/view?usp=sharing