Full Episode Transcript

No Digestive Symptoms Doesn't Mean Your Gut Is Fine00:02

Liz Roman: Welcome back to The Health Revival Show. We're talking all things healthy guts today. And just a reminder — if you don't have digestive symptoms, that doesn't mean your gut is perfect. Your gut impacts so many things in your body: your lungs, your bones, your thyroid, your hormones, your liver, your brain, your skin, all of it. So when we look at symptoms, we're always coming back to the gut.

Liz Roman: Hippocrates said, "All disease begins in the gut, but it doesn't stay in the gut." So we're going to dive in today on five habits you can do in your daily routine, your weekly routine, to support having an optimal gut. That doesn't mean you'll be perfect every day. It means you can be mindful of this and incorporate more of the good.

Liz Roman: I just did a product test for a company, and after two trials I realized — because it was the very last ingredient on the packet — it had sucralose in it. I said, I'm sorry, I can't support this. There's a lot of evidence that sucralose is not great for the gut, and it made me bloated. Shame on me, I should have done my due diligence and read the fine print.

Liz Roman: Supplements are bio-individual. Work with somebody if you're really struggling with severe gut issues. Those are signs. Your symptoms are signals you want to listen to. You're tired of being told everything is normal, and you're going to realize today that maybe there's a lot of opportunity for you.

Why Long-Term Keto and Carnivore Backfire on Gut Diversity02:45

Becca Chilczenkowski: You're going to understand after this podcast why carnivore long-term and keto long-term are not healthy for the gut, and can actually cause a lot of issues in terms of your ability to maintain diversity — which is one of the keystones of longevity when it comes to research. Gut diversity is one of the main things that contributes to better longevity as a whole.

Becca Chilczenkowski: The other piece is genetics, and we're going to talk about that with this first habit, because genetics can predispose you to have to work a little harder to keep a healthy gut microbiome.

Habit 1: Feed the Bacteria You Already Have03:26

Becca Chilczenkowski: The first one is feeding your gut bacteria daily, because a lot of people think, "Well, I take a probiotic every day." We've done many podcasts on why you should not take the same probiotic every day for the rest of your life. You're going to create monocolonization. You'll create the same strains of bacteria in your gut, which is not what we want. That doesn't equal diversity.

Becca Chilczenkowski: Probiotics are kind of temporary visitors. What actually creates a healthy microbiome is feeding the bacteria that already live there. Probiotics are a piece of it — that's basically implanting bacteria into the gut. But those bacteria need food. They need substance. And so: fiber from fruits and vegetables, resistant starches, prebiotics like onions and asparagus and artichokes and green bananas, diverse plant foods.

The FUT2 Gene: Why Some Women Work Harder for Diversity04:08

Becca Chilczenkowski: The FUT2 gene is one of the main ones here that we talk about a lot, because FUT2 variants often have lower levels of beneficial bacteria like Bifidobacteria — which should be one of the dominant bacterial strains, especially when you're a child.

Becca Chilczenkowski: A lot of times when you do not have this healthy mutation, you need to work harder to keep diversity, and keep infiltrating the gut with prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics to maintain a healthy, diverse microbiome. With FUT2 you struggle to keep diversity — your gut on its own struggles to maintain that. There's another one we'll see sometimes with NOS2. NOS2 under high amounts of stress really struggles to keep adequate stomach acid levels, which can predispose us to infections, pathogens, and bacterial imbalances.

Becca Chilczenkowski: But FUT2 is the big one here, because it really does impact diversity of the gut. When you don't have good diversity, the quote-unquote bad bacteria — the dysbiotic bacteria — can be a little more plentiful and kind of take over, create inflammation, create imbalances.

What Fiber Actually Does: Butyrate, Bile, and Hormones05:15

Becca Chilczenkowski: Fiber does a lot more than bulk up stool and help it move through the digestive tract. Different types of fiber feed different populations of bacteria. Soluble fibers are fermented into more beneficial compounds like butyrate — short-chain fatty acids. They support the gut lining, they support inflammation in the gut. Insoluble fibers add bulk, which helps weigh down the stool passing through.

Becca Chilczenkowski: Fiber also plays a major role in detoxification, because fiber is one of the main things that binds to bile, and hormones, and waste products in the gut so they can be eliminated rather than reabsorbed. The more variety of fibers you consume, the more diverse and resilient your microbiome tends to become.

Becca Chilczenkowski: And again — when you eat keto, when you eat carnivore, you're basically completely void of those things. If you're true keto you're not able to take in much vegetables, because you're hitting your carb goals already. This is why when we utilize keto for clients we typically bring in a fiber powder, because we know the importance of it, while also using a specific diet for a period of time to expedite the healing process.

Liz Roman: The average American gets somewhere in the ballpark of 10 to 12 grams of fiber a day. And if you really look at the foods you put on rotation, it's less than 20. I read a stat one time that 14 to 17 foods is really what the average person eats — because you just know what you like and you rotate that.

Habit 2: Prioritize Diversity — 10 to 15 Plant Foods a Week06:55

Liz Roman: The second thing here is prioritize diversity, and that goes hand in hand with feeding the gut bacteria. Different fruits and vegetables, different fermented foods — so don't always get the same yogurt. Different yogurts have different types of probiotics. I really love a2 yogurt, it's a lot easier to digest. Look for a good quality organic a2 yogurt, low sugar, and then change up what you're putting in there.

Liz Roman: I've been doing honey in mine, which gives us more antioxidants and different polyphenols. You can add different types of berries, different seeds — chia, hemp, flax, basil. Basil seeds, if you have IBS or chronic constipation, are a little more gentle and help with constipation a bit more than chia seeds.

Liz Roman: We want to think 10 to 15 different plant foods each week. The way I say this is: shop in season. Look for what's on sale. If your kids really like something, don't shy away from having that in the home for them, but put another fun food on rotation. "Hey, let's try this goji berry. Let's try this clementine." Because each plant compound has a different unique profile, and that supports different bacterial species.

Liz Roman: You can also do resistant starches — green bananas, as green as you can get them, cut in thirds, in a bag in the freezer. If you make smoothies you can blend it. You're not even going to tell the peel is on. You can cook and cool potatoes or rice for more resistant starch.

How Many Colors Are on Your Plate?09:16

Liz Roman: How many colors do you have on your plate? There's a complete difference between my dinner and what my child ate last night. He had mac and cheese, and we had this beautiful salad. We finally got our grill going and I was really proud of that dinner. But then I'm like, oh, shoot — I need to make sure he's getting some of these other things. So he had some yogurt, we had some berries, got some of the good fibers in.

Liz Roman: The point is: often people are eating a lot of those yellow, whitish-color foods — simple carbohydrates. We want deep, dark colors. Think deep purples, deep reds, greens. And your oils and fats too. Rotate your ghee, your tallow, olive oil rich in polyphenols, the types of fish you eat, the types of proteins you're consuming. Try something new.

Habit 3: Poop Every Day — And What Normal Actually Looks Like10:25

Liz Roman: Number three — poop every day. One to three times a day, pain-free, but most importantly that you feel fully eliminated. Not that you have this small poop you don't feel satisfied from. You want a nice evacuation. Your bowel movements should be number four, sausage shape, easy to pass. You shouldn't be sitting there straining.

Liz Roman: This is pelvic floor therapy. This is pooping hygiene. I did a carousel not long ago about how to teach your kid proper poop hygiene, because we were taught to brush our teeth twice a day, floss, rinse — but we don't talk about proper toilet positioning, relaxing, not rushing, breathing. Those things can go a long way to help a child's nervous system calm down if they're struggling to poop.

Liz Roman: And if your child is dealing with behavioral issues, eczema, skin rashes — we have to go back and look at the gut. We have to understand what is driving this dysfunction, because I promise you, those symptoms you might think are normal have an underlying root cause.

What Happens When Waste Sits in the Colon12:07

Liz Roman: When we have waste sitting in the colon, not only does it become uncomfortable and things start to ferment and maybe you get bloated and some gas — you also have toxins that start to get reabsorbed. You have a gut lining that gets broken down. It becomes harder to pass that stool because it dries out. Estrogen can recirculate here too, putting more of a burden on the liver.

Liz Roman: We start to feel this go out from the gut to the blood-brain barrier, so now we have neurological issues. Gut on fire, brain on fire. Your joint pain — that all is going to come from a leaky gut if things are getting out into the bloodstream and agitating the immune system, and then there's an autoimmune attack on a certain organ system. Because most of your immune system resides in the gut.

Liz Roman: So habits one and two feed straight into your ability to have well-formed stools that are easy to pass, if you have those diverse fibers and you're getting adequate hydration. You can add in magnesium, belly massages, walks after your meals, supporting liver and gallbladder, bitter foods. I always talk about that morning olive oil shot with lemon, or you can just do lemon water with a pinch of sea salt.

Read Your Poop Before You Flush13:27

Liz Roman: The last thing I'll say — look at your poop before you flush. It can give you a lot of indication as to what's going on. It's your daily report card. Is it broken down into pieces? Is there undigested food in your stool? Of course, with things like beets or corn or sesame seeds you might see that color or those fragments. Everything else, including your greens, should be broken down.

Liz Roman: You should have a brown color stool, sausage shape, easy to pass. You're not having to sit there for hours or strain and push and become so red you're hunkering down. You should get that signal. It should be easy to pass. It should feel satisfying.

Habit 4: Hydration Is a Mineral Problem, Not a Water Problem14:10

Becca Chilczenkowski: Number four is hydration, because your digestive tract depends on water. Hydration keeps the stool moving, helps it not dry out and become harder to pass, supports the mucosal layer that protects the gut lining, supports stomach acid production and bile flow. Bile is 95% water, and bile is a huge piece — if it becomes sluggish, so do your stools.

Becca Chilczenkowski: Many people focus on volume of water but ignore minerals. We're thinking electrolytes like sodium and potassium and magnesium, which help get water actually into cells and tissues where it's needed. A lot of people over-hydrate without the minerals. Some people take in 120, 140 ounces of water but only one electrolyte packet a day. You're likely diluting electrolytes at that point, and you're going to end up more dehydrated, because your body is going to flush out the additional electrolytes it needed to keep.

Becca Chilczenkowski: Unless you're severely salting your food, most people who eat healthy don't get in enough sodium anyway. I don't intentionally salt my food — I'm usually more focused on garlic powder and paprika and cumin. So I typically need to get more salt from electrolytes, especially if you tend to run low blood pressure, or if you tend to be more adrenally stressed and taxed. Your adrenals will burn through those electrolytes a lot more and you need more sodium.

Habit 5: Your Nervous System Decides Whether You Digest16:11

Becca Chilczenkowski: The last one is your nervous system, which is probably the biggest one that gets overlooked — because you can have the perfect diet, you can have hydration, you can even have supplementation. But if you are stuck in a chronic stress state, digestion will not happen, because digestion is a rest-and-digest parasympathetic process.

Becca Chilczenkowski: When you are in fight or flight, guess what? Stomach acid decreases. Enzyme output decreases. Motility slows down. Gut permeability increases. Microbiome diversity declines.

The Salivation Test16:39

Becca Chilczenkowski: A really cool trigger quote I heard at a conference the other weekend was: if you are not salivating before you eat, you should not be eating. Because salivation indicates there are enzymes being called upon — it indicates the body is ready and preparing itself for digestion. If you're dry-mouthed going into your meal, that's a pretty clear sign your body is in this fight-or-flight state, and you're probably not going to digest that food very well.

Becca Chilczenkowski: Some simple ways in: walking after meals can help with digestion. Deep breathing before a meal — four in, hold four, the box breathing cycle — for two or three cycles before starting your meal. Humming, singing, gargling all stimulate that vagal tone. Spending time outdoors, grounding, eating without distractions, like in the car or standing up or in the middle of meetings shoveling food in your mouth, which I am totally guilty of sometimes.

Becca Chilczenkowski: The state your body is in when it's going to try and digest something is probably something you should focus on almost more than anything. That's the beginning of your digestion. And it's a piece that often gets ignored, because it's not as measurable. It's not "I'm taking this supplement, I'm drinking this amount of water." It's "Am I in a stress state or not?" That's sometimes hard to answer.

Eating Hygiene: The Unsexy Fix Nobody Wants18:09

Liz Roman: A lot of people just think it's not sexy, and so it's not something they continuously focus on. What we see is that some people can notice significant symptom relief just by focusing on their eating hygiene — because digestion starts in your brain.

Liz Roman: One thing we're trying to implement, because after-school activities get so busy, is sitting down at the dinner table. A lot of times I find myself eating while I'm standing or cooking the kids' food and taking bites of things, or I'm rushing, and I'm literally saying to myself, "You know this is not good for you. You need to go sit your ass down." And you deserve to take that time to sit down and have 10 minutes at least with your meals.

Liz Roman: So I would track that. Take a simple three-day food journal. Write down what you ate. Did you deep breathe before? Did you sit and chew your food well? Did you look at your food? Were you grateful for it? Did you pray over it? Or were you just eating in the car because you were rushed out the door again and you didn't even ever taste your food — and now you're bloated and gassy and you wonder why you're craving things later on?

Liz Roman: There is a connection between sitting and enjoying that meal, fully tasting all those flavors, and not having sugar cravings later in the day. Compared to eating in a rush and never making that connection. A lot of us think we eat less than we do, and we think we move more than we do.

Foundations Before Shortcuts20:30

Becca Chilczenkowski: Very easy and simple, but not often executed. If you're someone who has very up-and-down digestion, who has struggled chronically with constipation or bloating, these are foundational. This is what we have to focus on before doing anything more advanced, extreme, or intense. Don't go taking peptides when you're not drinking enough water or eating a diverse diet.

Becca Chilczenkowski: At the end of the day, food and water are your two biggest inputs outside of air. Those are the ones we should focus on more than anything else. Even though there's a lot of sexy things out there that can help, it doesn't help as much if the foundation is not there.

Liz Roman: I agree, because how many times do we have intake forms where the person is complaining of constipation and bloating, and then you're looking and seeing they're not even drinking 30 ounces of water a day?

Liz Roman: Get yourself some good electrolytes. And make sure, if you're drinking coffee all day long — because Becca and I are coffee lovers — you have the other actual hydrating beverages in your day. Otherwise you're not really hydrating. You're just drinking coffee.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why doesn't taking a probiotic every day fix my gut?

Probiotics are temporary visitors, not permanent residents. FitMom practitioner Becca Chilczenkowski warns that taking the same strains daily for years drives monocolonization — the same few species over and over, which is the opposite of diversity. What actually builds a resilient microbiome is feeding the bacteria already living there with fiber, resistant starch, and prebiotic foods like onions, asparagus, artichokes, and green bananas.

How much fiber do I actually need, and how much am I getting?

Most American adults eat about 15 to 16 grams of fiber a day, while women under 50 need roughly 25 grams — and around 95 percent of adults fall short. FitMom's practitioners stress variety over volume: soluble fiber ferments into butyrate, insoluble fiber adds bulk, and different fibers feed different bacterial populations, so rotating your sources matters as much as hitting a number.

Do keto and carnivore diets damage gut health long term?

Long term, they can. Becca Chilczenkowski explains that true keto and carnivore diets leave you nearly void of the plant fiber your bacteria eat, and microbiome diversity is one of the strongest markers linked to longevity. FitMom still uses keto with some clients for short healing windows, but adds a fiber powder alongside it specifically because the diet cannot supply enough on its own.

What is the FUT2 gene and why does it make gut health harder?

FUT2 determines secretor status. Research shows non-secretors — roughly one in five people — carry about half the bifidobacterial diversity and richness of secretors, and Bifidobacteria should be a dominant strain. FitMom's practitioners flag FUT2 variants because those women have to work harder, cycling prebiotics, probiotics, and postbiotics deliberately, to hold diversity that other guts maintain on their own.

How often should I poop, and what should it look like?

One to three times a day, pain-free, with a feeling of complete evacuation — not a small, unsatisfying stool. Liz Roman describes the target as a brown, sausage-shaped stool that passes easily without straining. Undigested food beyond obvious cases like corn, beets, or sesame seeds signals a breakdown problem. Liz calls looking before you flush your daily report card.

What happens when waste sits in my colon too long?

It ferments, which produces gas and bloating, and the stool dries out and gets harder to pass. Liz Roman explains that toxins start getting reabsorbed, the gut lining breaks down, and estrogen can recirculate and burden the liver. Because most of your immune system lives in the gut, that inflammation travels — often showing up as joint pain or brain fog.

Why am I still dehydrated when I drink a lot of water?

Because you are likely diluting your minerals. Becca Chilczenkowski points out that drinking 120 to 140 ounces of water with only one electrolyte packet flushes out sodium, potassium, and magnesium your body needed to keep. Those minerals are what actually pull water into your cells and tissue. Women who eat mostly home-cooked food often under-salt and need more sodium, not more water.

Can stress alone stop me from digesting my food?

Yes. Digestion is a parasympathetic, rest-and-digest process. Becca Chilczenkowski explains that in fight-or-flight, stomach acid drops, enzyme output drops, motility slows, gut permeability rises, and microbiome diversity declines — even on a perfect diet. FitMom's simplest check: if you are not salivating before a meal, your body is not ready to digest it.

What does it mean if I'm not salivating before I eat?

Salivation signals that enzymes are being called up and the body is preparing to digest. Becca Chilczenkowski's rule: if you are not salivating before you eat, you should not be eating yet. A dry mouth going into a meal points to a fight-or-flight state, which means that food is unlikely to be broken down well no matter how clean it is.

How many different plant foods should I eat each week?

Ten to fifteen, minimum. Liz Roman recommends counting distinct plant foods weekly rather than repeating the same rotation, because most people cycle only 14 to 17 foods total. Each plant compound carries a unique profile that feeds different bacterial species. The practical version: shop seasonal, buy what is on sale, and check how many deep colors are on your plate.

Key Terms From This Episode

Monocolonization

What happens when you take the same probiotic strains every day for years — the same few species dominate instead of a diverse population.

Prebiotic

Food for the bacteria already living in your gut. Onions, asparagus, artichokes, and green bananas are common examples.

Postbiotic

The beneficial compounds bacteria produce after they ferment fiber — butyrate is the best-known one.

Resistant starch

Starch that resists digestion in the small intestine and ferments in the colon instead. Green bananas, and cooked-then-cooled potatoes or rice.

Butyrate

A short-chain fatty acid produced when gut bacteria ferment soluble fiber. Fuels the cells lining the colon and helps regulate gut inflammation.

Soluble vs. insoluble fiber

Soluble fiber ferments into short-chain fatty acids that feed the gut lining. Insoluble fiber adds bulk and helps move stool through.

FUT2 gene

Determines secretor status. Non-secretors carry markedly less bifidobacterial diversity and richness, so they have to work harder to maintain a diverse microbiome.

Bifidobacteria

A beneficial bacterial genus that should be dominant in a healthy gut, especially in childhood.

NOS2

A gene variant that, under high stress, is associated with difficulty maintaining adequate stomach acid — raising susceptibility to infections and bacterial imbalance.

Dysbiosis

An imbalanced gut microbiome where opportunistic or harmful bacteria outnumber beneficial ones.

Bile

A digestive fluid roughly 95% water. It emulsifies fat and carries waste and hormones out. When it becomes sluggish, so do your stools.

Estrogen recirculation

When estrogen bound for elimination gets reabsorbed from the colon instead of leaving the body, adding load back onto the liver.

Gut permeability

How easily particles cross the gut lining into the bloodstream. Increased permeability is commonly called "leaky gut."

Bristol type 4

The stool form target: smooth, sausage-shaped, easy to pass.

Parasympathetic state

The "rest-and-digest" branch of the nervous system. Stomach acid, enzyme output, and motility all depend on being in it.

Vagal tone

The activity level of the vagus nerve, which drives parasympathetic function. Humming, singing, and gargling stimulate it.

Electrolytes

Sodium, potassium, and magnesium — the minerals that move water into cells and tissue. Water without them can leave you more dehydrated, not less.

a2 dairy

Dairy from cows producing only the A2 beta-casein protein, which many people find easier to digest than conventional A1 dairy.

Sources & References

• American Society for Nutrition — Most Americans are not getting enough fiber (NHANES 2013–2018)
• USDA / NHANES — Fiber intake of the U.S. population (FSRG Dietary Data Brief)
• PLOS ONE — Secretor genotype (FUT2) is strongly associated with the composition of Bifidobacteria in the human intestine
• Nutrients — Gut microbiome composition and metabolic capacity differ by FUT2 secretor status