The Science of Your Gut: 3 Easy Steps to Reduce Bloating, Improve Digestion, and Feel Better Today

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Restrictions apply. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast.
Today, you and I are going to talk about something that we have all experienced. Maybe you're experiencing it at this very moment.
What is the topic? We're talking about bloating. And there's a particular reason why I wanted to talk about bloating today.
And the reason is simple. I am so freaking bloated right now, I'm uncomfortable.
See, here's what happened. The last couple weeks, I have been on the road for work.
And I've been going from one city to the next city. And I've been giving speeches and having business meetings.
And it's been really great. And I want to tell you a little secret.
This is like a travel secret, little travel tip. When I travel for work, I always just travel with a carry-on.
And you may be asking yourself, well, Mel, if you have been traveling for two weeks, how the heck can you go to multiple cities with a carry-on? Well, the secret is simple. I wear the same outfit.
Every speech and every business meeting, I swear to God, I travel with a uniform. And if you ever look at any of the stories on Instagram, you will notice, well, Mel always has on the same pair of red pants and the black shirt whenever she's giving her speech.
It's true. I have this stretchy pair of red pants that I love that are made out of polyester.
And I have this great black Oxford shirt that is also made out of polyester. And I wear it on stage and I wear it to business meetings and it looks fantastic.
And the other thing that's fantastic about polyester is that when you get to a hotel room, if you hang a polyester pair of pants up in a shower and you run a shower, within about 15 minutes, the steam of a shower in a hotel room cleans it like a dry cleaner. Absolutely fabulous.
So here I am, I'm on the road and I've got my red polyester pants. And on Monday, I put the red pants on.
They felt great. On Tuesday, I'm in Nashville to give a speech, put the red polyester pants.
They felt great. Wednesday, put the red polyester pants on in Chicago.
They felt great. On Thursday, I put the red polyester pants on in Orlando for a speech.
They felt great. Friday, when I put the red polyester pants on, not so great, everybody.
I mean, I couldn't button them. And when I looked down, I realized I have the pants here.
You can see them if you look at YouTube. This poor button is hanging on by a thread for dear life.
Like I'm talking, it has a singular thread because the tension on the waistband on this poor little button over the course of the last week has basically acted like a saw, slowly sawing apart the threads that were attaching the button to the pants. That button was the hardest working person in my company for the last five days.
And I don't know what happened because I take care of myself when I'm on the road. It's not like I'm downing Jim Beam or I'm like out late.
I get a great night's sleep. I travel with friends.
We're having a lot of fun. I love what I'm doing, but I kid you not.
I will show you photos of me on that Friday. I look like I'm in the second trimester of a pregnancy.
I have a food baby that looks like a basketball right in my stomach. And here's the thing.
I know that I didn't gain weight. I mean, because you can't gain seven to 10 pounds in five days, but somehow I gained the equivalent of that in bloating.
And so I finally got home here and I'm like, I have to figure out what to do because I am either going to be belching for two weeks or farting this out. And neither one is a great option.
And I feel terrible. And I don't wanna wear sweatpants for the next four weeks while I'm waiting for the bloating to go down.
And so I was just about to Google, how do you get rid of a bloat? Five-day reset. And I thought, Mel, what are you doing? Why don't you call Dr.
Amy Shaw? I mean, Dr. Amy Shaw, as you probably know, if you're a listener to the Mel Robbins podcast, she's been on this twice before.
She is a double board certified medical doctor in the field of allergies, immunology, and internal medicine. She graduated magna cum laude from Cornell University's world-renowned School of Nutrition.
She went on to receive her doctorate with distinction. She's trained at Harvard at Columbia, and she is on the front line of nutritional and medical science.
She's been on the show before. She's incredible.
And her bestselling book, I'm So F-ing Hungry, Why We Crave, What We Crave, and What to Do About It.

It is the manual on trying to balance your hormones and understand the science of nutrition so that you can curve your cravings. And I'm like, what are you doing? Why are you going to Google when you can get Dr.
Shaw on? And Dr. Shaw can explain what is bloating? Why does it happen? And more importantly, what is the protocol?

Like what could you do in, let's say, five days? Is there a five-day reset that you and I could follow so that whenever you feel bloated because of what you ate or because of stress or because of whatever the heck is going on, you know what to do. And so that's what we're doing today.
And I also know that this conversation, we're planning on releasing it right during the holidays. And so you're going to be in the thick of it.
You're going to be in the thick of all those amazing meals and the stress of the holidays and the drinking and the travel and the this and the that. And so wherever it is that you're coming to this conversation, we got a seat at the table for you.
And you can have your pants buttoned or not. You can have on your red pants with your food baby.
You can have your sweatpants on. Everybody is welcome here because every single one of us at some point in our lives feels bloated.
And for me, it's today. And what we're going to do today is we're going to hear from the amazing Dr.
Amy Shaw. What are we going to do about this? So please help me welcome Dr.
Amy Shaw back to the Mel Robbins podcast. So grateful to be here with you, Mel.
Dr. Amy Shaw, can you start by just explaining what the heck is bloating? Bloating is that feeling of distension in your body.
But bloating is just a sign, it's just a symptom of really a larger issue here. It's that our gut microbiome, it makes us bloated or gives us symptoms when it's unhappy.
Our goal is to make our gut bacteria happy because we will get less bloating and we'll feel healthier overall. So bloating is just a symptom of a larger problem.
Everybody thinks it's just from gas. Yes, it is from gas, but it can also be from your hormones.
It can be like water retention. It can be from medications causing discomfort.
It can be just from being constipated. We all go through that where we're bloated, not because there's gas, but there's actual stool in there.
And then menopause bloating, right? That's like even more so than the regular PMS bloating. There's a whole menopause bloating.
And there's so many other causes of bloating. So it's not just you ate too much or you ate too many Brussels sprouts or broccoli, which we can talk about.
It's also, it can be from so many other things. Well, you said a big word just a minute ago.
You said distended. That bloating is when your stomach is distended.
What does that word mean? So when your belly is pushing out, so from the inside. So you can have, like I said, it can be from stool.
It can be from air. It can be from hormones causing water retention.
And I don't know about you, but when right before my period, I look like I'm pregnant. Okay.
So all of that is distension inside. So this could be the wall of the intestines like swollen, or it could be there's gas inside, or it can be there's stool or food inside.
And that's why it's distended. There's so many different ways, but it feels kind of the same.
That makes a lot of sense. Thank you for explaining that because I'm trying to really help myself and anyone listening tease out the difference between, oh, my habits have changed and I'm gaining a lot of weight versus, oh, I've got something going on where from the inside out, it's almost like I feel like somebody has blown a balloon up inside of me full of something.
Well, I know this might sound like an insensitive question, but I have to ask this. How do you know if you're bloated versus you've just let your eating slide and you're gaining weight? Yeah, it's hard to tell sometimes the difference, right? Because, you know, you go on a week-long binge, say that holidays or you're on vacation and you come back and it's almost like a combination of multiple things.
You're retaining water because you traveled a lot, you drank a lot, maybe you ate a lot of salt and then your gut bacteria are mad at you. Remember there is this world that lives inside your gut called the microbiome and they're just mad and they're producing all this gas to let you know that they're mad.
And then you probably ate a lot of excess calories for that period of time. So it could be a combination of all three.
And you won't know until you start to reset your gut, what is actually happening because the water weight will go away pretty quick. Yeah.
You know, if you're constipated, pretty much hopefully can resolve that. And then once you get your diet back on track, you might notice that the scale is starting to go down.
So all of these things start to resolve themselves together. You know, why don't I back up a minute? Because here's what I'm starting to wonder.
In reaching out to you, Dr. Shaw, I had a food baby.
I could not button my pants. And it happened so fast over the course of five days that I knew that this was bloating.
But can you explain what are the symptoms that might surprise someone to hear that you may be bloated and dealing with extra gas or really mad gut bacteria? You're burping a lot. Obviously, farting.
Because farting and bloating go really hand in hand. You're constipated.
That's a good sign. That's not a good sign, but that's a sign that you are bloated.

Uh, cause often when you have a lot of gas in your intestines, you can't push that stool out. Um, and you might not just be bloated in your gut.
You might be one of those people who's retaining fluid everywhere. Have you ever had that issue where your rings don't fit anymore or or your bracelets get tight, or your shoes feel like they're getting tight? That's basically what's happening in your intestines is happening all over your body.
So that's another sign that this could be bloating and water retention and not necessarily like you gained a bunch of weight. Huh.
Well, I want to tell you a couple things. Number one, I don't ever sleep with jewelry on because my hands swell so much.
And same thing when I exercise, like if I'm going to go out for a long walk, I don't wear my rings because my hands swell. And at the end of the day, my feet are typically like a half size larger.
I never thought that that could be a sign of bloating and or a sign that my body is inflamed. Inflamed.
And then the other thing I'll tell you is just a quick story because it might help you listening to start to discern what you may be dealing with. I'd say about six years ago when our daughter Kendall was in high school, she always was a big burper.
Like just these deep, just loud kind of burps. And she was such a little thing that it was so shocking how loud these burps were.
And it was almost like a joke in our family, like, Kendall. And then she started to say, Dr.
Shaw, she would go, I feel so fat. She was not using the B word.
She was using, I feel so fat, so fat. And because she was so thin, I thought, oh my God, she's got body dysmorphia.
So I took her to a therapist because I thought as she is, you know, saying she feels fat and I'm looking at her and I'm like, you don't look fat

to me. You look pretty darn skinny.
This therapist said, I think you should get her gut tested. Because I think she's dealing with disordered eating.
I think she's got body dysmorphia. She says, no, no, no, you should get her gut tested.
It turns out when they tested her gut that she was missing all, all of the good bacteria in her gut. And that what was happening is the food would go down her mouth and down her esophage and down into the stomach.
And all of a sudden it would hit her stomach. And because she had literally no good gut bacteria, the food sat and rotted.
And so the burping was from rotting food. And it was disgusting.
And the constant belching was her trying to relieve the pressure and her saying, I feel fat, I feel fat, I feel fat, was really her trying to explain, I am bloated. And so we went and did this protocol of resetting her gut microbiome, and all the symptoms disappeared.
And so this is a very real thing that you may be dealing with and be feeling symptoms other than a food baby and your gut health is really the issue that's causing all this. Because I was explaining earlier that I really wanted to talk to you because I had been traveling for the last couple of weeks and I wear the same pair of pants.
That's my little travel secret. I wear the same outfit everywhere I go.
And so the pants that I was wearing on Monday fit. They fit on Tuesday.
They fit on Wednesday. They fit on Thursday.
Although I'll tell you that poor little button holding my red pants together was the hardest working person in the room. I have my little red pants right here.
Oh, you have them. But by Friday, I had a food baby.
I literally looked like I was six to seven months pregnant. It was a balloon coming out.
And I had to do the trick where you unbutton your pants and

you stick a rubber band through the opening and hook it to extend your pants.

And I thought, okay, I can't gain seven pounds in five days because I can't lose seven pounds

in five days.

So maybe what we should talk about since you're basically saying when you're bloated, your gut bacteria is mad at you, right? Is that the basic thing that's going on here? It is the basic thing that's going on. That gut hormone immune connection.
I mean, when that's off balance, you get all these symptoms. People think, oh my God, it's hormone bloating or, oh my God, it's coming from something else.
But really it's because your gut bacteria are not happy. It's not only related to food, it can be related to other things.
But when they're not happy, they're going to let you know. Dr.
Shah, I feel better already, even though I'm still bloated. And I'm really grateful that you are grounding all of us in the science and you are elevating this beyond how uncomfortable our waistbands are.
Because this does matter. That's what I'm gathering, that there's so much more to care about.
And I have a lot more questions about what causes this and what we can do to change it. We're going to get to your five-day reset, but let's take a quick pause because our sponsors bring this to us at zero cost.
And Dr. Amy Shaw and I are going to be waiting for you right after a quick word from those sponsors.
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Terms and conditions apply. Welcome back.
Thank you for still being here. I'm with Dr.
Amy Shaw. We're talking about bloating and the science of creating a happy and healthy gut and why that matters.
So Dr. Shaw, what foods actually could bloat you? Okay, well, first of all, I want to give you the biggest tip.
Just take a step back. The biggest tip when you're feeling bloated or distended is don't wear those red pants with a button on them.
I can't tell you how many times I've traveled and you get bloated because of the change in the air pressure. You're not able to go to the bathroom for a couple of days.
It's like all of these things. You need stretchy pants for your travel.
You need to swap those red pants out for something a little with a little more give. And I get it.
Like, it's nice to wear some tight fitted pants, especially if like, you know, you want to look cute. But for the travel day, wear the stretch pants.
Okay. Got it.
Okay. First of all, ladies and gentlemen, let's give a round of applause for Dr.
Amy Shaw, who just told us all soft pants, people, soft pants, you're traveling, you're feeling bloated. Let's get rid of the zippers and the buttons, soft pants.
So I got it. I'm taking it away.
I am following it. And where, where, like you talked about the intestines and the stomach.
Is that where this is happening? Or are there other parts of your body involved when bloat is happening to you? Yeah. From the minute you take food in, right, you're chewing your food, the bloating can start to happen there.
You know, we all know with gum, with sparkling drinks, these are foods that can cause bloating because you're swallowing a lot of air from the time you put it in your mouth. Gum causes bloating? Yeah.
Did you not know this? No. Sparkling beverages causes bloating? Yeah.
What? So yeah, you need to know this. This is why I'm telling you, this is the reset.
So sugar-free gum, which is all gum now, right? You can't really get gum. I think bazooka used to be like our gum when we were younger that had real sugar.
But now it's all sugar substitute gum. And those sugar substitutes are very irritating to our gut bacteria.
And just the act of swallowing a lot of air, you know, chewing gum can kind of push that air down into all the way. It's one tube, right? So from your mouth to the esophagus, to the stomach, to the small intestine, and the large intestine.
So it's all one tube. So it can start from up there.
Then you have people like us who are always in a rush and always eating too fast. And so it can even be an issue with just eating too fast.
And it's going through that one system, that one tube from your mouth to your anus too fast, and you're not taking breaks and you're not chewing enough. And so it's not just a particular food, it's just that you're eating food too fast, right? And then you have foods like the foods that you consider super healthy, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage.
And Mel, you're being a great student. You're like, I want to eat all the fiber in one day.
And that is going to create a havoc in your gut because your gut bacteria are going to be like, we love this fiber, but not all at once. It's like giving them too much work in one day, especially when they're not used to it.
And so you're going to get a lot of gas production while they're trying to digest this. So it can happen in your mouth.
It can happen in your esophagus because you're eating too fast. It can happen in your stomach because you ate too many really hard to digest fibrous foods.
It can happen in your small intestine and then in your large intestine too. So it's like all the way through, you can get bloating from different causes.
Okay. Can we just stop on that? Because now you've sparked my interest because all those things you ticked off, I did not know that sparkling beverages, gum, or eating all these things that I would say are super healthy foods like broccoli and Brussels sprouts and cabbage and that kind of stuff, that that actually can contribute to bloat.
So thank you for explaining that. I want to focus on the foods that you just mentioned, cabbage, broccoli, and Brussels sprouts.
Let's just call the trifecta right there because if I hear you correctly, you're basically saying if you're already bloated and you throw that into your system, you're going to literally inflate the balloon even more. However, when you de-bloat and you get your gut back into balance so that your gut bacteria aren't mad at you anymore, introducing those into your diet, not as a smorgasbord, but as part of what you're eating as part of keeping the gut bacteria healthy.
Is that correct? That's right. So if you're at a party and there's this like raw cruciferous vegetable plate, I don't know if you've ever seen like, I don't know how- What's cruciferous? What is that word? Those are the family that we're talking about.
The cauliflowers, the broccoli, the Brussels sprouts, the cabbage. So a lot of times- Those four are related.
So they're like siblings, the cruciferous. Cruciferous family.
And they have these amazing sulfur compounds that are so good for like cancer reduction and inflammation reduction. So they're like powerhouse vegetables.
But often at a party, they're like on a tray, like raw, right? Yes. And I don't know about you, but I have had a few too many of those at once.
And you definitely feel it. So what I would say, someone, if you're already bloated, don't go to the raw vegetable tray and pick up the cauliflower and the broccoli because you're just going to really hate yourself later that night because it's going to start to digest and produce all this gas.
And I'll tell you who else is going to hate you. The person you're sleeping next to because you're going to be lifting the sheets up as you're farting so you don't create like a hot box in there.
That's right. But you know what's great about you telling us that? Is because if I'm feeling uncomfortable in my pants and if I'm feeling bloated, especially, you know, if you're in like wedding season or the holiday seasons or you're on a vacation, I would walk up to a raw vegetable plate and I would go, oh, I should clearly have some broccoli and some cauliflower because I feel bloated right now.
And I didn't know until you just said it, that that would literally stoke the flames and make me feel worse if I'm already feeling bloated and my gut bacteria is mad. So what do I eat instead? Okay.
And then I want to tell you another one that will do the same thing. So say you're at a party and you wake up the next day and you're like, oh, I feel so bloated.
I feel hungover or whatever. I feel bad.
And you take a whole bunch of ibuprofen or aspirin, right? That is going to make you more bloated. What? Why? A lot of people...
This is my morning routine after a party. What are you talking about? So medications are a big cause of bloating, especially NSAIDs.
So for what's an NSAID? What do you mean? A non ibuprofen and Motrin and naproxen. Those are kind of a class again, cousins in a group of medications called NSAIDs, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication.
So NSAIDs all have kind of the same mechanism of action. So, you know, some people like naproxen, some people like ibuprofen, some people like Motrin and all these different versions, but they're all the same parent medication.
Same with aspirin. Aspirin's very similar to all of them,

but their side effect is bloating.

And so you ate a bunch of cruciferous vegetables,

you took a bunch of ibuprofen,

and now, and it's the week before your period,

and then you wake up and you're like,

oh my God, I look six months pregnant.

And that's what is happening.

And so I'm gonna tell you what you need to do to kind of reset that. Thank God.
I hear a lot about gluten and bloating. So is there a connection? Like what are the foods other than the cruciferous is that you just explained? What are the foods that tend to cause bloating in people? Gluten is definitely one of them.
I mean, we all know there's so many people out there who feel bloated when after pizza and bread and pasta. And sometimes it's not necessarily a gluten, like you can have a sourdough bread and be okay, but you have, you know, pizza and you're not.
So it's not necessarily the gluten itself, but the way it's prepared. There's also, I think 68% of the world population is lactose intolerant.
What does that mean? That means that when you eat dairy foods, you get bloated because your body can't break down the lactose sugar. Oh.
I don't know. Are you one of those people? So everybody's different, right?

So 68% of the world population can't digest a glass of milk or a big scoop of ice cream. They get bloated from it.
What are some other symptoms or things that you've seen in helping people to reset their gut, Dr. Shaw? Well, you know, I talk about this all the time, but your mood and cravings has a huge connection to your gut.
So we talk about this gut brain connection. And so just to bring it back to hormones again, is like, you know, when you're bloated, or it's right before your period, you feel bloated, or you're in menopause, you feel bloated, but you also feel really like sad and you feel like, you know, you're craving certain foods.
What we're learning now is that this disorder gut bacteria that's happening. And for that, it's, you know, hormone based situational, but is disrupting things in our brain.
And we have this gut-brain connection. And so if you're feeling kind of down, fatigued, having cravings for strange things, that could be your gut bacteria talking to you and saying like, you know, I don't feel good.
And we're sending signals to your brain that we need to be healed. And now nobody, even in modern medicine, this is not talked about.
Very few people, when they go to the doctor and they say, I'm depressed, I'm anxious, I'm, you know, I'm feeling tired all the time. Very few doctors are gonna be like, let's look into your gut health.
You know, like, it's not even, it's like, go, here's some medicine. You know, here's some antidepressants or go talk to someone.
They don't even think that it's related, but it's completely related. I mean, we have study after study after study saying like, okay, take some fiber.
And all of a sudden people get improved cravings and mood and, you know, eat some fermented food and all of a sudden they feel better. So there's a huge connection with mood and feelings of anxiety.
So Dr. Shah, what are some other foods that can make you feel bloated? So we talked about cruciferous vegetables, including your broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, okay? We talked about artificial sweeteners, like in your Diet Coke and in your gum, etc.
Those are huge causes of bloating. We talked about sparkling drinks being a cause of bloating.
We talked about dairy for so many people, gluten for so many people, high amounts of sugar for so many people. I actually, in my gut reset plan, I have every single person take out the foods that they think are triggering, like gluten, dairy, white sugar, and put themselves on a food elimination diet, at least for a week, if not four weeks, to identify which foods are triggering your bloating.
So for me, it was gluten and dairy and sugar. And for a lot of people, it is all three.
But for some people, it's just one of the two. So you have to do a food elimination diet.
Did you know, Mel, that food sensitivity testing is not validated? And all those tests that people get for food sensitivity, it's in 2023, we don't have a validated food sensitivity test. We can tell food allergies, like if you're going to have anaphylaxis to peanut, we have a test for that.
But there's no test that's better than a food elimination diet for checking for your food sensitivities, the foods that are causing you to bloat. Let me see if I'm following you.
Because I was about to ask you, how would you know if you're lactose intolerant? How would you know if you are sensitive to gluten? Because you asked me, Mel, are you lactose intolerant? I'm like, I have no idea. I have whole milk in my coffee every morning.
I eat cottage cheese. I love that SKYR yogurt.
So I don't know. I'm ingesting this stuff.
I don't burp afterwards. I don't fart afterwards that I know of.
So am I bloated by I don't know. I'm just, I'm ingesting this stuff.
I don't burp afterwards. I don't fart afterwards that I know of, but I like, so am I bloated by it? I don't know.
So are you saying that the only way to determine whether or not you are getting bloated or triggered by certain foods is to eliminate them from your diet and then to see what happens when you add them back in? Yes. The gold standard for food related gut discomfort is to eliminate the foods and to add it back.
When you add it back, that's really the test. I don't know if you've ever, you know, gone a long time without eating, say, you know, certain food and then you add it back to your diet, and then you get this huge bloating reaction, that's the sensitive food that you are eating.
So you're only going to know if you're lactose intolerant or if you're not tolerant to dairy if you stop eating it, and then you add it back and see what happens to you. That's like the gold standard for checking which foods that trigger you.
So there's certain foods that trigger everyone, but there's certain food groups that trigger only a few people. Like the insoluble fiber is like a thing that bloats everyone.
What is insoluble fiber? So, you know, those vegetables that I was talking to you about, the raw vegetables. So they're made up of insoluble fiber.
They have like there's soluble fiber. So for example, things like baby spinach that's cooked really well, right? That has a lot of like soft fiber is how I would think about it.
And it's easier to digest for the body. Whereas a raw broccoli or cauliflower has a lot of insoluble fiber.
It's really hard for the body to digest. And it takes a lot of work.
It's like marathon training. Eventually, you'll get there, but you don't want to start with huge amounts in the beginning.
And then alcohol. Let's talk about...
Oh, do we have to? Come on. This is coming out during the holidays, Dr.
show. Let's talk about, you know, come on, this is coming out during the holidays, Dr.
Shaw. No, let's talk about alcohol.
Cause the truth is I have this love hate relationship with alcohol where I tend to go for periods where I don't drink at all. And I feel a thousand times better and I sleep better and I know it's better for my health.
And then particularly around the holidays or in the summer or, you know, when we're celebrating something, I'll have a drink. And the next thing you know, I'm kind of sliding into drinking a little bit more frequently.
And I definitely notice I don't sleep as well. I definitely notice that I'm tired in the morning.
I have not really noticed bloating, but maybe I'm not understanding the signs or the symptoms to look for. Well, let me tell you the problem with alcohol.
Dr. Shaw, I cannot wait to hear the problem with alcohol.
But first, I want to make a drink. No, I'm just kidding.
I do really want to understand the connection between alcohol and your gut and why it's problematic. So how about this? Let's take a quick break, hear a word from our sponsors.
And when we come back, Dr. Shaw will explain the problem with drinking alcohol and how it impacts our gut bacteria.
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Restrictions apply. Welcome back.
It's your friend Mel. And you and I are here with a private session with the amazing Dr.
Amy Shaw. And we're talking all things bloating.
Perfect for right now, right? We're in the thick of the holidays. We're talking bloating, healthy gut bacteria.
And now we're adding alcohol to the mix, just like you did over the holidays. So Dr.
Shaw, what is the problem with alcohol as it relates to your gut health? The problem with alcohol is that number one, a lot of us are ingesting it later in the evening. And so I told you that our body, just like our brain needs sleep, our gut bacteria need sleep as well.
They need rest. If we're eating big meals and lots of drinks late into the night, you're already short changing your growth hormone, you're cleaning all the things that happen during the night in your gut.
And so you're just more likely to be

bloated in general. It doesn't mean that every single person is going to wake up the next day bloated.
It's just contributing to this overall circadian rhythm misalignment that we have in our world. People are going days without seeing natural light.
And then they're eating really late at night with bright lights, right? We're in this world where our circadian rhythms are getting thrown off all the time. And one of the biggest causes of bloating is that we're eating late at night and we're drinking alcohol late at night.
So not only does alcohol cause bloating, it also is usually consumed later in the evening, closer to bedtime for a lot of us. Now, there are people who have it earlier in the day.
And I would say if you are going to have alcohol around the holidays, and you are trying to, you know, manage your bloating, and just in general, better health, start earlier in the day. And that way, your body has time to kind of metabolize it.
It's not going to disturb your sleep as much and it's not going to disturb your gut health as much. So what would be your recommendation for how much time you need between your last meal and your last drink with calories or sparkle in it, right? Whether it's alcoholic or not.
And when you fall asleep, like, do you need like three hours, two hours, five hours, like what is going to help your gut process what you ate and drank, and then also get the rest that it needs, which helps your gut bacteria not be so mad at you? Yeah, exactly. Our gutria are our biggest allies, right? We want them to be our

friends. And we don't want to starve them to death and kill them in all these ways that we're doing.
Fasting, at least circadian style. So something natural, like, you know, taking a break from food for 12 hours, which sounds like it's nothing, but most Americans are eating 16 hours a day and just taking a quick break for eight hours or less.
So we want to

extend the time that your gut gets rest. So it might be two to three hours before bed, you stop eating, and you're only drinking water or decaffeinated tea, that kind of thing, clear liquids, and then go 12, 13, 14.
So it may be 6 p.m. to 6 a.m., 7 p.m.
to 7 a.m. That would be ideal timings according to circadian rhythms.
You just said that the average person is eating for 16 hours a day. And I stopped for a second and thought, oh my God, you're right.
Because you start eating the second you wake up and you eat until you go to bed. And I've never heard anybody talk about the fact that we're eating for that long of a period of time.
And I've noticed that whenever we talk about intermittent fasting or fasting for a 12 hour window as a health and digestion and a gut bacteria tool, people go crazy, right? But when you focus on the fact that it's not healthy to eat for 16 hours a day either, I mean, that was sort of an aha moment for me. Me too.
I, you know, I, when I read the circadian rhythm data that says basically the Nobel prize in medicine, a few years ago, went to the scientists that were looking into how circadian rhythms actually run our bodies, that 80% of our body's functions work on circadian rhythms. This means that our gut needs rest, our bacteria needs rest.
Like when it's dark outside, that is a time that our body switches into a different mode. And when I understood that, I was like, wow, why is it that we're eating so late into the night? And then we're not giving our gut a break.
We know we need sleep. So why don't we ever talk about giving your gut a rest,

which is just as important as giving your brain a rest.

And that could improve so many things in our body

that you know and I know,

like you have an early dinner,

you have a great night's sleep

because now you have your growth hormone

that is pumping, it's repairing everything.

You wake up and you feel like a different person,

like a million bucks, right?

And we know that, but we still don't do it.

Thank you. That is pumping, it's repairing everything.
You wake up and you feel like a different person, like a million bucks, right? And we know that, but we still don't do it. In America, at least we don't do it.
And so I think the circadian rhythm size is just gonna get stronger and stronger because people just still are starting to understand what an impact that's going to have. Taking a break, just a break.
It's not intermittent fasting per se. It's just being, you know, it's how our bodies were designed.
I mean, thousands of years ago, you didn't have Uber Eats to call at like midnight. You know, I'm just laughing because I'm sitting here going, it's not like we call sleep intermittent wakefulness.
You know, it's like, it makes a lot of sense that your medical recommendation based on your expertise is that your gut needs 12 hours of not having to digest food in order to have your gut bacteria remain healthy and have your gut in balance. I mean, it makes sense.
Yeah. And we know that how much poor sleep we talk about all the time, right? Poor sleep makes you depressed.
Poor sleep makes you eat more. Poor sleep makes...
It's the same thing when you get poor gut rest and you're eating all the time. The studies are very clear.
Now, why intermittent fasting got such a bad rap is because the colloquial science, I don't want to say bro science, but the fitness world said, oh, if you want to do intermittent fasting, the way to do it is eat late into the night and then don't eat all day. Don't eat till 12 or one or two.
And that's actually, that's not been shown in the science to be helpful in weight loss. It's not been shown to be the way to do it in optimal health because our bodies don't work on that cycle.
We are supposed to be eating during the wakeful hours. Now, that can be delayed.
We don't need to eat first thing in the morning. But eating an early dinner and having the fasting start in the evening is something that I don't see a lot of fitness and health influencers talk about, which is the way it's supposed to be done.

We're supposed to give our body a time to digest so we get better sleep, better growth

hormone production, more rest to our gut so that we can wake up less bloated and we can

be happier and healthier.

I have this morning routine so that I'm not as bloated. The three Fs.
Fantastic. And you know what? That's F number four.
And Dr. Shah, if you've got a simple morning routine that can help us not be bloated, I'm all ears.
But I also just want to take a quick pause and be sure that before we learn your 3F morning routine, that you and I are properly digesting everything that we've already learned from you, Dr. Shah.
So why don't I try to recap what we've learned, and then you can jump into your 3F morning routine. Yeah.
So number one, bloating means that your gut bacteria is mad at you. Number two, bloating can be caused by a ton of different things, not just what we ate over the holidays, not the stress, not just hormones, but a ton of different things.
And that's important to know because when you feel bloated, what I've learned so far is that it's a symptom that your gut is out of whack and those bacteria in your gut are mad at you. Now, you've told us what food to avoid.
And I realized I was making a major mistake because I was beelining it for the broccoli and the cauliflower on the crudite platter. And I'm not going to do that anymore.
And I don't know about you. But as I've been listening to Dr.
Amy Shaw, I'm here in the tough love. And I am starting to take this very seriously.
Number one, we got to get the comfortable pants whenever we're bloated. So don't torture yourself.
But number two, I really get why it's important to prioritize your microbiome health and to take it seriously. And so Dr.
Shaw, thank you for just sharing all that with us. And knowing all of that, I'm excited to learn this 3F morning routine formula

because I know you say that you kind of pull it all together

in these 3Fs and you do it every morning.

So tell us about it.

Every morning I wake up and I'm like,

okay, fasting is number one.

Have I fasted for 12 hours?

If I have it, I'm not gonna have my first meal yet, okay, because I might have stopped on some days later, seven or eight. And I might say I wake up at six and I'm like, okay, I'm not going to eat yet.
I'm actually going to go exercise. So fitness is the second F.
So fasting, fitness, and then when I'm ready to eat, it's fermented and fiber food. So those three Fs, fasting, fitness, and the food, those make up my morning routine so that I'm not as bloated.
I fix my circadian rhythm. So our gut bacteria are happy with us.
And we start our day with something that is nourishing for that gut microbiome. So that over days and weeks time, we can experience less bloating,

we can have better body composition, who doesn't want that and better hormone health. First of all, I love it.
It's super simple. Secondly, I love the fact that when you said fasting, you basically wake up when you wake up and you go, okay, wait a minute, I'm just not going to eat until I give my gut a 12 hour rest.
And so even if you were at like, let's say you were at a wedding or at a party last night and you were out and you stopped on the way home for some pizza. It was 11 o'clock at night.
You're sound asleep by midnight. When you wake up at nine o'clock in the morning, ask yourself, okay, first step is fasting.
12 hours would be that I don't have my first meal until 11 o'clock this morning. And then you said fitness, which is how much fitness? How long do you need to exercise? Can it be a 10 minute walk? Can it be anything? What is fitness for you? Fitness for me and for the morning routine is anything, anything.
So So total in the day, I want to get about 30 minutes, you want to get 30 minutes of sunlight of movement. So the best way to get this done and over with and checked off is go for a 30 minute walk and you're done.
And it makes so much sense because our bodies are designed to see light in the morning. We're seeing now, you know, you see all these research coming out about how important it is to get natural light.
You just check it all off in one walk. Did you know that the best probiotic, the best deep bloating is actually exercise? No, I did not know that.
I didn't know that because I was just about to ask you, how does taking a walk for 30 minutes outside stop bloating and help my gut bacteria be happy? How does that help? So just like your gut bacteria need sleep, like I said, they're like organisms, live organisms, and they need rest. They also love when you get sunlight and when you exercise, It makes them very happy.
They do this like crazy dance that produces these chemicals in your body called short chain fatty acids. They go all over the body.
They calm your inflammation. They make you happy.
It is the best probiotic you could ever take. That's so cool.
That is so cool. And we're trying to produce short chain fatty acids through so many different things.
Like everyone's like, take this pill to produce short chain fatty acids. Do this.
All we have to do is exercise in sunlight and look, all of a sudden our body produces it for ourselves. Well, the other thing that I like about what you're saying is the second that you said your gut bacteria is mad at you.
And if I think in simple terms, which I like to do, because if a concept is simple, I can apply it to my life, right? Yeah. When you tell me the game here, everybody, is make your gut bacteria happy.
And when you tell me that, okay, there's some things that you can do every single day to just make your gut bacteria happy, which is going to help with bloating, which is going to help with how you feel, which is going to help with your mood, Mel, one of which is getting good sleep and getting rest from needing to digest, which you just said is about fasting. The other one is take your gut bacteria for a walk 30 minutes outside.
And all of a sudden, it's like doing its happy dance and it's making you feel better. And we all know this to be true.
And then you said the third F is fiber and something else. So what does that mean? Fermented and fibrous food.
So, you know, the first meal of your day is your best chance. Research shows that the first meal of the day is statistically shown to be our best chance at improving our health in general, but definitely our gut and hormone health.
And what I want to tell every woman out there is use this opportunity to improve your hormone and gut health. So a perfect breakfast would be something like yogurt, nuts, berries, and maybe some ginger tea on the side, okay, like a chai or because ginger and peppermint are two things that you can really do take to really make your gut bacteria happy.
You know, we know that a tofu scramble or an egg scramble with veggies. So you want high protein, so 30 grams of protein.
You got your fiber in there with your vegetables. And if you're having a yogurt or probiotic cottage cheese, or you're going to have a little spoon of sauerkraut or a little glass of water with some raw apple cider vinegar, you're going to get your fermented food, use your breakfast as your chance to kill it.
Like this is my hormones and my gut bacteria are so happy because I started my morning with a high protein, high fiber, high fermented food breakfast. It makes sense because if you apply this advice, everybody around making your gut bacteria happy, you just gave it 12 hours of rest of needing to just take a break from the constant eating.
You then made it do its happy dance with the walk, right, and the sunlight. And now the first thing that you're putting in your stomach is not something that is going to cause all kind of gases.
I don't even know if that's a word, but you know what I mean. It's not going to make the balloon inflate.
You're dropping into your stomach the things that it needs to work properly for you and stay happy. And that makes a lot of sense.
Isn't that pretty amazing what you and I just learned from dr amy shaw and you know what what you've listened to so far it isn't the whole conversation we were only just 40 minutes in with dr amy shaw and there was already so much information that she threw at you and me and so here's what i decided to do while i was in the studio. I decided, let's just hit the pause button right here.
I want to give you a chance to digest this information about bloating, about how your gut works. I want you to try the 3F morning routine because that's a great place to start.
And we got a lot more to cover with Dr. Amy Shaw.
And you and I don't have time to listen to a two-hour episode. That's why we're dividing this into two different amazing episodes.
And in the next episode, which is dropping right after this one, we are going to cover so many more essential questions about your gut health. We're going to cover, do probiotics work? Should you take one? How can you do the probiotic thing naturally? What are the steps to creating a healthy microbiome naturally in terms of like ongoing? Does stress impact your gut health? Yeah.
And what can you do about it? And the burning question, which is why I reached out to Dr. Amy Shaw in the first place.
Dr. Amy, what is your medical recommendation, knowing that this is not medical advice, but you know what I mean, as a doctor, how do I do a five-day gut reset that I can follow anytime I feel bloated? So guess what? The very next episode of the Mel Robbins podcast is Dr.
Amy Shaw walking you through that step-by-step, walking you through the five-day gut reset. And right now, you got what you need.
Try the 3F morning routine, follow all the advice you just heard, stay away from the crudité and the alcohol, get your sleep, and by God, make sure you forward this to all your friends who are bloated and complaining about it, and be right back here when the next episode drops so we can walk through that five-day reset. And in case nobody else tells you, I'm going to tell you.
I love you. I believe in you.
And I believe in your ability to create a better life. Thank you for investing this time in yourself and in your health.
Thank you for spending your time with me. I love you.
And I will see you and all that gorgeous gut bacteria inside you with Dr. Amy Shaw when this conversation continues in the very next episode.
See you there. We're rolling.
Are we rolling? Oh, God. Oh, here we go.
Okay. Okay.
Okay. I am so bloated.
There I said it. Wait, how do I want to? And how do I how do I actually I'm trying to request access.
It's not doing it. This does not feel right.
Okay. Okay, great.
Let me see if there was one other thing that I wanted to say. Let me think about this.
Okay, let me try this. I have so many questions.
I'm trying not to go all over the place. Hold on a second.
I just lost her on screen. I don't know what I did.
Can you bring her back? I don't know where you went. And oh, I go.
I can go down to Zoom. Hold on.
Oh, there you are. Okay, great.
Awesome. Anything else? All right.
I think we're amazing. Oh, and one more thing.
And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language.
You know, what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes.
I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist.
and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good.
I'll see you in the next episode. Stitcher.
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