How to Fix Metabolism: 5 Gut Health Strategies

Author's Bio: Marcie Vaske, MS, LN, CNS

Today's episode is all about metabolism. But more specifically how the gut plays a role in keeping our metabolism running smoothly.

So if you have ever struggled with weight plateaus, fatigue or energy slumps, even digestive discomfort, your metabolism might be running slowly due to your gut health.

But there's good news, there are natural ways to turn this all around. So today I'm going to be talking about five strategies to help support your metabolism.

But before we dig into those five different strategies on how to fix your metabolism, my name is Marcie Vaske, I'm a functional licensed nutritionist with Oswald Digestive Clinic. And at Oswald Digestive Clinic, we see tons of clients who struggle obviously with a lot of gut health issues and sometimes slowed metabolism. I'm going to link our website here where you can easily make an initial appointment. And as well, I'm going to link our free guide, which is Five Ways to Improve Your Gut Health.

[Video Transcript Below Video - it is the same information]

Balance Your Microbiome

So let's dig back into all about metabolism and how to fix it. So using strategy number one is a bit of a no-brainer, which is balance your microbiome. Our gut is home to trillions of different bacteria that help support us in a variety of different ways. And if our gut in microbiome is imbalanced, we can oftentimes have this metabolism that is slowing and sluggish. If we have too many harmful bacteria in our gut or our gut microbiome, it can actually slow calorie burning and even increase fat storage versus on the other hand, if we have a healthy gut microbiome, we're going to have plenty of energy and we're going to have balanced blood sugar.

So of course, if you've listened to our channel before, you know all what we're going to say on how to improve your gut health, but I'll give you a reminder of eating some fermented foods, making sure you're eating whole real foods. Also just diversity such as plenty of green leafy vegetables, fruits, proteins, and even healthy fats. While on the other hand, you want to get rid of those processed and packaged foods that are full of toxins and can only really irritate and kill off our good bacteria.

Eat Plenty of Fiber

So strategy number two is eat plenty of fiber, but what does that really mean? We think about fiber for just digestive issues like making sure we're having bowel movements every day or if we have a lot of diarrhea that it can help maybe control it. But fiber also is extremely important for feeding our bacteria and our gut microbiome. So when the fiber actually ferments by the bacteria in our gut, it creates something called short chain fatty acids and short chain fatty acids do a multitude of things, but when we're talking about our metabolism, it actually helps to make us more glucose sensitive. It actually lowers inflammation and it even helps us burn fat more efficiently.

So we want to make sure we're getting enough fiber in our diet, enough of the soluble fibers that you're going to find in oats, apples, beans, and then of course in insoluble fibers, which you'll find in any kind of green leafy vegetable or broccoli or cauliflower. By eating a diversity of these foods, we'll help our gut microbiome remain healthier and our metabolism kicking.

Get Chronic Inflammation Under Control

Now, strategy number three is one that we often gets a little bit overlooked, but is extremely impactful, which is get your chronic inflammation under control. Chronic low grade inflammation really impacts the way that our metabolism works.

So if you're wondering what chronic low grade inflammation can be caused from, it can be caused from food sensitivities that you continue to eat or that you don't know about. I know some people giving up dairy even though they know their gut doesn't really like it and they continue to eat it, you're causing some of that low grade inflammation on a daily basis. If you're consuming excess alcohol, this is also going to be an issue where inflammation just sticks around, especially if you're having a drink every day. You might think, well, it's only one drink, but one drink is really impactful and it creates that low grade inflammation that over time catches up.

And of course, processed foods, like I said a few minutes ago, taking out package processed foods is really going to help our gut microbiome, but also it's going to reduce that inflammation in our body.

If you want to get rid of inflammation in the body, obviously working on some of the things I just talked about and then implementing some healthy fats such as even omega threes, which is a great anti-inflammatory, and you can add those in by eating fatty fish is one simple way. Berries, fruits, green tea is even another way to reduce inflammation. And overall, if you just focus on eating a whole foods diet, you're going to bring down a lot of inflammation just by doing that to help bring back balance into the body and restore a healthier metabolism.

Support Digestion with Enzymes and Stomach Acid

Now, number four on the list is going to be supporting your digestion in the way of digestive enzymes or supporting low acid or your hydrochloric acid in your stomach. If you have trouble digesting food, you're not going to get the minerals and vitamins that you need out of your foods to help support all of these symptoms, including your metabolism into having it run more smoothly.

Now, you may think, well, how do I know if I don't digest my food well? And some of the signs and symptoms of that is going to be feeling full, really fast, feeling full for a long time. A lot of burping happening overall, just kind of upper bloat above your belly button and up.

So those are just a few of the signs of maybe you're just not really digesting the foods well. So adding in digestive enzymes can be one way to help support the digestion of food and your hydrochloric acid in your stomach. Now, if you want to learn more about digestive enzymes, we have lots of videos on that. So search our channel to find some very in depth videos regarding digestive enzymes.

The Gut-Brain Connection and Stress

And number five is going to be watch for the gut-brain connection. And I know I don't think there's been one video I've done in the last four years that I haven't talked about stress. Stress is so impactful in so many ways, but when you are highly stressed, your metabolism actually suffers. Stress can alter our gut bacteria, it can slow down our digestion and even increase our cortisol, all of which cause that storage.

So really working on therapeutic ways to help you become more calm or how to work through stress.

Now, obviously life is going to throw stress balls at us basically, right? And so we're not really going to get away with it. It's more about what can you do to deal with it, making sure you're sleeping enough, making sure you're eating whole real foods, making sure that you're not saying yes to everything and hope you can get it all done, really prioritizing some good day, whether it's five minutes or 10 minutes, or maybe you get an whole hour. Those things can set us up for a very good day and also a lot less stress. And when we're thinking about metabolism in general, obviously if you're having this chronic stress on a daily basis, we need to find those ways to calm down so our metabolism can run efficiently.

Final Thoughts: How to Fix Metabolism Naturally

If you're doing all the things of eating good food, maybe you're doing some working out, walking every day, whatever your movement is and the pounds are not coming off, I want you to take a look at all five of these categories that I talked about and think are any of these things that are impacting me? And then maybe you have be more directed on how you can help your own metabolism.

So thank you for watching today, and again, I'm going to link our website here where you can easily make that initial appointment if you too are struggling with your metabolism and maybe even not such a happy gut.

Have a great one. Thank you.

If you'd like to explore any of this information further or obtain an individualized nutrition plan, you can schedule an initial appointment at our clinic.  We also take insurance and some of our clients get full coverage, which is great.

Or you can just start by downloading our FREE GUIDE: 5 WAYS TO IMPROVE GUT HEALTH