E258: Top 3 Gut and Hormone Health Tips for Women: Simple Nutrition & Lifestyle Changes for Better Well-Being
E258:Top 3 Gut and Hormone Health Tips for Women: Simple Nutrition & Lifestyle Changes for Better Well-Being
Are you ready to take control of your health and feel your best? In this episode of the Women's Empowerment Podcast, I’m joined by gut and hormone expert Holly, who shares her top 3 actionable tips that you can start using today to support your gut and balance your hormones. From nutrition advice to simple lifestyle tweaks, Holly breaks down how small changes—like chewing your food 20-30 times and staying hydrated—can have a big impact on your well-being…
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Valerie LaVigne: Welcome back to the women's empowerment podcast today. We are joined by a brand new guest, Holly Short. Holly is a holistic health practitioner, passionate about helping women achieve optimal wellness through fat loss, hormone balancing, and gut health. After years in the fashion industry, she personally experienced burnout, which led Holly to shift her focus towards restoring her own wellbeing.
Now with certifications in stressed, reduced fat loss can fit pro personal training, STOTT Pilates, yoga, barre, Reiki, and reflexology. Holly has developed a whole body approach to health through personalized nutrition, movement, and lifestyle plans. She empowers women to transform their health, and live with vitality and balance.
I'm so excited to have you on the show today, we are talking about the top three things that we can do today to heal our gut and balance our hormones. Holly, welcome to the show. It's so great to have you.
Holly Short: Thank you, Val. I'm so excited to be here.
VL: I'm really glad you're here on this new season. And I'm excited to talk about this topic. So I'd love to, To start with, can you explain why gut and hormone health are so closely related and how they impact a woman's overall wellbeing?
HS: It's a great question. So let's do the Cole's notes version. You know, I used to joke that everything that was physically wrong in our body was because of our pelvic floor. And now I realize that everything that is wrong in our bodies is due to our gut health. When we do not have optimal gut health, that is affecting our hormones. all of them. It is affecting our neurotransmitters. So happy, sad, like a lot of those neurotransmitters are made in the gut. So you can imagine that when our gut is negatively impacted, it's impacting all of the areas of our lives and our stress, our sleep. If we're bloated, are we going to the bathroom?
It's insert whatever your symptom is. Chances are that that is tied to what's happening in your gut health. But the beautiful thing about your gut is that there are so many things that we can do to address it and to help you heal and therefore feel amazing the way you deserve, you deserve to feel.
VL: And that's closely related to our hormone health. So they affect each other. If the gut health is off, the hormones are off.
HS: Correct. Like for instance insulin or hormone insulin, insulin is not only an aging hormone, but it's also a hormone that's regulating our blood sugar. So if you are not digesting your food, well now your insulin is going to be off.
If you are chewing or not chewing your food, you're throwing off your digestive enzymes. So what's that going to affect? First, it's going to cause stress to your cortisol. So It's also going to cause stress to your insulin. And so now our insulin goes off the charts, more cravings, more bloating, more brain fog, or cortisol goes off the charts, you know, so yeah, everything in life is, is tied to the health of our gut.
VL: And I can see how that would really put a damper on just the day to day. Feeling right, whether that's emotionally or physically, and I know for myself, one of the things that I was really working on and have, and still am working on is my cortisol postpartum because there's a lot of hormonal shifts that you just, you can't really balance out too well.
When you're nursing and up all night with a baby. However, there are some simple things that I could do to help through this time. And one of the, one of the things that I know you talk about is nutrition. What are some of these simple nutrition tips that can make a big difference? Or what are some key foods or nutrients that we're looking for as women that we should prioritize to help support that gut and hormone health.
HS: I love that. It's a great question. I also love that you pointed out that hormones you know, that idea of balancing our hormones, I don't really think that's the thing at best we can manage our hormones. And definitely. So nutrition, lots of things that we can do nutrition wise. The very first thing is just look at your, the types of foods you're eating in terms of are those foods fueling your body.
A lot of times we take in a lot of inflammatory foods and as a new parent, we can sometimes push ourselves last when we're taking care of our little humans. And so we will do things like grab a. a Wendy's burger or skip eating altogether. So we want to look at types of foods that we're fueling our body with.
We really don't want to be looking at inflammatory foods. High level, it's dairy products, corn products gluten and sugar. So those are some areas that cause a lot of inflammation to your, to your gut and therefore affecting the rest of your hormones. Skipping our meals. We either skip our meals because we're too busy or we skip our meals because we think that that's a healing tool for our bodies.
Every body is different. We should not be skipping meals. We want to be looking at eating meals consistently throughout the day. We want to ensure that we're having high levels of protein and fat and fiber and lots of vegetables in every single one of our meals. I mean, it seems like it's quite simple, but it is actually quite challenging.
Whether you are a new parent or whether you are a 52 year old woman who has older, has an older child, but really those things then come down to what can I do to support myself? And that starts to look like meal prepping, Planning things out a little bit ahead of time so that there we take away the stress we take away the stress We're not stressing out our digestion and our gut anymore and everything starts to heal with that type of consistency
VL: Love that it is easier said than done a lot of the time But maybe it's just focusing on one meal a day to get started
HS: Yeah, we say breakfast if I could just get the world to eat breakfast step one step two would be good breakfast Look like a high protein a higher fat and then you know There's a lot of different ways that we can eat breakfast whether it's a protein smoothie whether it's dinner for breakfast If I can just have everybody start their day with breakfast and a high like a good quality of protein and fat We are setting ourselves up our brain our body our guts for the for the day
VL: And I noticed when I have a high protein, high fat breakfast, I crave sugar less throughout the day versus if I had more of a carb loaded, sugary breakfast.
HS: Yeah. That makes sense because this beautiful body of ours you've now taken some really good dense macronutrients and we need all the macronutrients, including carbohydrates. But we've taken some really good macronutrients and we've eaten food and now our blood sugar gets to stay level. And so now we don't have sugar crashes.
No, we don't have those cravings and you have provided that for your body simply by. Switching up and adding in some things like even people who they still want to do sugary things for breakfast. Okay? So first have the sugary thing But then let's attach a protein or a fat to it so that we can start to control what that Blood sugar is doing and then it's the next step and then it's the next step and it's all those little baby steps There's there's no magic pill It's all us being our own detectives for ourselves and figuring out what works best for our body.
So we kind of, here's the foundation of it and here are the baby steps that we get to take in order for you to live in your most optimal body.
VL: Love that. You also said something about chewing food and I love the idea of something as simple as just chewing your food. Thoroughly. 20, 30 times makes a difference?
How many times are we chewing our food? And can you explain how this impacts our digestion and our overall gut health?
HS: Absolutely. Well, the very first thing that shuts down in our body when we're under a lot of stress is our digestion. So we may find that we are more tired, we're more bloated, we're more hungry, we're less hungry.
And so what happens if you were to actually sit down and chew your food? I can tell you within five to seven days, actually within one meal, you'll start to feel a difference. We have natural digestive enzymes in our body, amylase, but the amylase digestion shuts down because we're stressed out. So now we need to love on our digestion on our gut a little bit more.
So the very first thing you can do is start to take smaller bites of your food. Start to chew your food 20 to 30 times and listen, maybe it's 10. There's not a magic number, but I just want the food to be liquid. And then on top of that, the very most important thing is to bring your body into rest and digest.
We are all so used to living in a very high stress world, like that saber tooth tiger is going to attack us at any moment. And there's no way to live a life that is stress free, but you could have one meal today where you take one to three breaths. Literally feel your body go into just that, that calm, and then I want you to eat your, eat your food, love your food, chew your food, and now your meals have gone from two minutes to maybe 10.
And that will positively affect your body, you will be able to absorb your nutrients, because when a body is under stress, it doesn't absorb nutrients, your gut just starts to sit with, it starts to ferment. Thank you It's moldy. It gets yeasty. I mean, none of these words, I can't even say the word with a nice face, like a scrunchy face, but we want the digestion to work for you.
So we got to start with chewing the food 20 to 30 times because what you put in needs to then come out the other side. And there's a transit time of, you know, anywhere from 12 to 30 hours.
VL: And I think a lot of people are forgetting that your digestion starts in the mouth. Like they just think, Oh, if I just get it into my stomach, it'll digest.
But when you chew your food, you're, there is a secretion of those digestive, I can't say digestive today, digestive enzymes that. helps like the saliva is helping break down the food so that not only can you swallow it properly, but you can fully digest it and absorb it. And I think that's a big part too, is that people aren't realizing that the absorption of the nutrients is also so important.
We got to make sure things are working properly for that to happen and that we're absorbing the right nutrients. Like you said, it's a big deal. Our gut health is a big deal. One or the other. Yeah, sorry.
HS: No, I was gonna say it's a lot like our, I think our gut is like when we're born, it's like when one of the first things that is like made in a baby in our babies.
So, I mean, that's how important it is. But somebody said, Hey, there's a baby. Let's work on their digestion first.
VL: Yeah. Definitely. And we're going through that right now with trying to feed our baby solids. Oh my God. What an adventure. I'm really seeing it from the top to the bottom. Anyway, we'll, we will.
You know, digestion
HS: time, you know, transit time, you know what it should look like. Yeah.
VL: We need to chew this more with our gums. So something that else I noticed. That well, I noticed that is often overlooked is hydration. And I think a lot of people don't realize how important hydration is. I was going to say the words hormone balance, but I'm going to say how important it is for hormone managing.
Can you tell us a little more about the role of hydration and even just mineral replacement or mineral supplementation is for supporting our gut and hormones?
HS: Well, our bodies are mostly water. We all know that. So we walk around with a lot of dehydration in our bodies. We go to bed at night and we probably haven't had enough water during the day.
And we wake up in the morning and our first thing we do is maybe we have a delicious cup of coffee. And then we then go and have a sugary breakfast and then we're on our journey of the highs and lows of the day. Knowing that our bodies are almost always dehydrated because First off, we don't have enough electrolytes or minerals in our water.
I'd like to say that, you know, we are blessed in Ontario, Canada, in Ontario, that we have tap water that we're able to drink. But even that tap water has some toxins in it, that when we are drinking giant litres of water every day, we're not actually getting into cells. We're not hydrating our actual bodies.
Like you could say I drink three liters of water a day, but some people are like, Oh, I feel really full after I drink water. Oh, my, my belly feels really jiggly. It's because all we're doing is we're like, we're bringing in all this water, but the, the water, the body's like, now what, what do, how do I do?
How do I do what I do with this now? So. The very first thing we need to do is look at drinking water and adding some minerals back into it, which is something as simple as adding in some Himalayan pink sea salt, high quality Himalayan pink sea salt, Celtic salt. So these salts have minerals in them.
And now we get to put that into our water and consume that that is helping with your electrolytes. You can drink that a couple of times a day. When you're drinking water, we want to be sipping water, not like I have to get in three liters of water. I'm going to chug it back. You want to sip the water because you want to imagine like the water is being absorbed into ourselves.
That's where it's actually. Doing you know, supporting your body and the other thing is we want to look at our what type of water we're having. So hopefully that water is a filtered water. Lots of different ways. You can drink filtered water, whether you have like great sustainability. A Berkeley or you buy something simple like a centivia or a zero water filter, these are, they pull out more toxins and some of them actually put some minerals back into it.
So stay hydrated with electrolytes, mineralizing your water. Sipping your water and also ideally when you're chewing your food 20 to 30 times, we want to leave water like we want to bookend our meals with water. We don't want to be using water or liquids to help digest our food. Let your stomach acids and your teeth and your nose that's smelling in all of the goodness of your food.
Let that start the journey of the digestion.
VL: Very cool.
HS: It's pretty cool.
VL: One of the things you also talked about was stress and cortisol, and I feel that this is a huge factor in gut health is stress management because we talked about how the gut affects our moods and how our mood affects our gut and how they really are. Inter not interchangeable, but how they really do work together.
I think this is a crucial factor. What do you think, or what could you share when it comes to practical ways us busy moms can manage our stress that will have a positive impact on our gut and hormone balancing.
HS: It will be so different for every body, and I'd like to say that, you know, cortisol gets a really bad rap, especially right now cortisol, if we didn't have it, we would not get out of bed in the morning to do all of the great things that we get to do in our day.
So what does that stress management look like for you? Well, digestion wise, it comes back to taking a breath before you eat. Digestion wise, that looks like chewing your food 20 to 30 times and drinking your water away from your meals. So it doesn't seem like that's dealing with stress, but you are actually dealing with the deepest layer.
You're not noticing that you're doing it, but you're bringing your body into that parasympathetic nervous system so that your digestion can work for you, you can absorb the nutrients, and then the cortisol is happy. We have happy cortisol. And then on top of that, what does it look like? I mean, I remember being a mom to my tiny Ella.
I was outside all the time, walks, sunlight on on our body, putting our feet in, in grass, being with other epic moms and babies, people you want to hang around with because you probably don't have time to put. Legs up the wall, journal, meditate, do a yoga class, do all the things that we think as a society, those are the only things that we need to do for, for stress management.
Stress management literally comes back to ourselves and breath. And even as you know, you knew mamas get to have that breath, right?
VL: I'm going to do it right now.
HS: Let's take a big breath in Val. Ready? Thanks. Thanks. Hold it at the top for just one second, and then let's let it go.
VL: My head exploded.
HS: Like my fingertips go all like, oh, it feels so good when we have it, right? Like everything just opens up, lymphatic, all, everything just opens up again.
With breath and we all have it in us. That's our biggest our biggest way to move with ease through reducing cortisol.
VL: Yeah. I, I will say my baby has been one of my biggest teachers and I know he will continue to be a big teacher in my life and I'm learning so much about where my capacity is and how much energy I have, which is very different from before I had a baby, I was doing all the things, spinning all the plates and actually balancing almost all of them.
And now I'm thinking, yeah, you can only spend one plate at a time. So here's how this works. But one of the things, one of the things that I've, I've learned and recognized in my own son is that how before inside for too long, things get a little crazy. Okay. And the volume of this child goes to crazy decibels.
You wouldn't even, you wouldn't even imagine would come out of such a small human. So the second we go outside, it is a completely different energy. And that's something that we can do together and then not trying to do all the things at the same time has been a huge lifestyle tweak or daily routine tweak for me.
You know, I don't have to listen to a podcast when I'm on a walk. I can just go for a walk for the sake of walking. I don't have to go to the grocery store. I don't have to walk to the grocery store if I'm out for a walk. I don't have to be productive all the time. And Letting go of that need to be productive has been really helpful and actually has made me more productive, believe it or not. Get more done when I try to do less things.
HS: And I think for you, we've known each other a long time. You are a very high performing, high productive human. And then you go and throw a beautiful baby who does nothing but smile all the time into your world. And you're like, Oh. I get to change things now and you have, I have seen how you have changed.
And doing less, but getting more out of it. So I think that's the biggest thing that everybody can learn. And I think that you're a great teacher for, for other beautiful mamas out there to know that you will get, get it done what needs to get done.
VL: Thank you. I appreciate that. It's been quite the adjustment.
People are like, how's it going? I'm like, it's an adjustment. It's good. It's good.
HS: As my mom would say, it's a moment in time.
VL: Yep. We were chatting on a different episode with my friend, Katie, who's also a new mom. And we were just talking about how this is a season of life. This is the season of life we're in. It is a season and a new season is just around the corner.
HS: I love that.
VL: We've got,
HS: Oh, good.
VL: Yeah. Right. I'd love to, I'd love for us to share maybe three quick wins that anyone can start doing today to feel better in terms of their gut and hormone health. And I've know, I know we've shared some really simple things.
Breath, chewing our food, separating our water, or just having better quality water. Are there any smaller or not smaller, but other small things that we could do? Maybe it's not daily, but maybe it's weekly.
HS: Mm hmm. Go out for a walk.
You already, you already nailed it. If it was, definitely chew your food 20 to 30 times. Like, let your digestion do what it wants to do for you. Please, if you can, go out for a walk. Whether it is after a meal. Whether it's on your own with your, your little munchkin with your entire family, the walk after a meal is proven that it helps you digest your food.
It takes the food and moves it into the cells that need it. And we don't just store it as that because the body's just protecting you, right? She just wants to make sure you're alive and safe. And so she likes to do those So it's taking a walk or just sit outside, take a moment and sit outside. It gets to be that, it gets to be that easy.
That's how simple it, it can be. Unfortunately, the things that are simple are most easily not done. And it's a gentle reminder to ourselves that when you get halfway through a meal and you're like, Oh crap, I forgot to chew 23 times. Okay, you can start right now. Oh, baby's making a lot of noise in the house.
Say, I get to go outside for a moment or, you know, so it's The walk, the chewing, and by most certainly staying hydrated, especially new mamas who are not probably consuming enough water that they should be. So doing your best to fill up a couple of these the night before and remember to sip on them.
Yeah. Keep it, keep it simple. Simple and doable. It really is. It really is. It is. Yeah. Your baby will thank you.
VL: And I think too, coming from my background and habits, it's really easy not to do. And also once you start doing it, because of how simple it is, it can quickly become a habit for sure. You did mention, I was going to say, we haven't talked about movement.
You did just mention walking. I want to ask about how movement in terms of. Maybe a more structured exercise, not just not just a walk, but maybe something more exercise exercise related How does this play a role in balancing the hormones and the gut?
HS: Well, so here's the beautiful thing about our Bones and our strength is that when we get to the age of 30, we start to lose 1 to 3 percent of body mass a year. So that is affecting everything Functionally, so even though people don't some people may not consider walking to be an exercise, walking is by far the greatest exercise out there. Then when you have some more time. Then you get to go to maybe a gym or start using your own beautiful body weight to do some body resistance or strength training so that you can start to counteract that loss of muscle mass that that everybody gets to gets to go through, right?
Mm hmm. But I find that the working out that for many people is, is the part that it seems to be the most challenging. We might come into the idea of we work out, we lift weights because it's going to make me skinny, like insert all of the things that has been in our minds where we're working out lifting weights is helping us stay functional for our entire lives, lifting, picking up, walking, all of those things. It's a different mindset.
VL: Yeah. And before I had a baby, I was going to the gym very consistently. But one of the things I said was it's for my mental health. I need this for me as just a time for me to set the tone for the day or the week or whatever it was. Now, my partner and I are really working at.
Yeah. What does that look like now? And how can I get that time? And I'll tell you the time, the schedule that we've created is a lot harder for me to maintain because I'm now working out in the afternoon and some days I don't feel that energy. I don't feel like I have that energy, but I still try to go to the gym to show up because almost always I'll show up and I'll pick up a weight.
And I'll put it down and I'll do that a few more times. And then I'm like, well, I'm although I came here, so I may as well do something. I'm not going to just turn around, but there is a block barn beside my gym.
HS: And then how do you feel after you've gone to the gym with little motivation to want to go, but you've gone to the gym, you picked up some weights, maybe you stayed a little bit longer. How do you feel after you've done, whether it's five minutes or 45?
VL: So much better. And honestly, it actually is now more, I would say around. 30 minutes of a workout, which before I was kind of there more for like 45, 60 minutes, but that 30 minutes, I am more productive again in that 30 minutes. I'm not just scrolling on my phone between sets.
I'm actually taking those mindful breaths. I'm allowing myself to be present in my workout. I'm getting my workout done within those 30 minutes and I'm breaking a sweat. And yeah, it's definitely made a difference. And right now it looks more like two times a week, plus all the walking that I'm doing.
Trust me, we are at the park every day. And also recognizing that this is my capacity. This is my season. This is where my schedule can take me and I feel good about it. And it's a lot of the giving myself grace as well. And I think like you mentioned, if you're halfway through a meal and you're thinking, oh crap, right. I'm barely chewing my food.
Well, take a moment to just take a few more bites before you swallow this next one, right? It's recognizing that this is where I am meeting yourself where you are and then doing your best
HS: moment.
VL: Yeah. Moment by moment.
HS: In this moment, all we need In that moment, it's just to take a breath. And if it's not in that moment, then you have another meal, another bottle of water, another opportunity to go outside or to go to the gym.
We always have the next one and all done with a lot of self love and grace. Grace has got to be the biggest part about all of it, because the way, and you know this, we all, hopefully we all know this is the way we speak to ourselves. Every single cell in our body hears it. And we would never speak negatively.
I would never speak negatively to my 13 year olds. Some of the words I've used to say to myself. I would never, ever want that to impact anybody else. So, and taking care of myself, that's where that, a lot of self love and grace comes into it.
VL: And it's incredible to see how our kids are mirroring us, how they absorb everything, whether we realize it or not.
You know, my kid doesn't really talk, but he's starting to make more noises. And sometimes those noises are repeating the noise that I made. Right. And I feel like that could be a whole other podcast episode of just how we speak to ourselves and how the people around us treat us based off of how we treat ourselves.
That's a whole other thing, but a very valid point. Yeah. Next episode. Yeah. Okay. We have a rapid fire round for our guests. Before we get to this part of the show, I'd love to, I'd love for you to let us know, where can we find you follow you? How can we work with you? What does that look like?
HS: Well, I can be found on HollyShort.com that's my website. I have a new website. Yay! So it lists all the services and ways that we can work together. I do a ton of education on Instagram, and that is @itshollyshort. Because I feel that when we are educated and then we take action to that education, that's how we make a new pattern, habit, or routine.
Sorry, so I'm very passionate about that. I mean, currently I'm getting ready to start another six week container. And and then I do a lot of one to one work with beautiful humans. So there's lots of ways to work with me. And I'm always my door's always open to answer some questions and to see what's the right way to support that person I'm going to be working with.
VL: Amazing. I'm going to link to those in the show notes. People can find this episode at valerielavignelife.com/holly okay. Holly rapid fire round. Are you ready? Question one, what does empowerment mean to you?
HS: Loving ourselves.
VL: Question two, what is the best piece of advice you have for new moms?
HS: Oh, don't listen to other people. You know what's right.
VL: It's so funny.
HS: I'm going to get a t shirt that says that actually. Yeah.
VL: Take it with a grain of salt. Question three, what is one way you are taking care of yourself this week?
HS: I am getting up every day and walking with no ear pods, nothing in my ear, just me and the world around me.
VL: I love
HS: that. Yeah.
VL: It is.
It truly is. You really get to see the world when that happens. Well hopefully if you're going for a walk and listening to this episode, you're also enjoying some of the nature around you. Love it. Thank you so much for being on the show today. This has been a very educational episode. I feel I've learned a few things.
I've been reminded of several things. I have lots of tips to work with. And I know the listener does as well, and we will find you on Instagram and look for all the ways that we can connect with you. So I'm excited about that. Thank you so much again,
HS: thank you so much.
Podcast Host
Valerie LaVigne
Valerie is the creator and founder of Valerie LaVigne Life and the Women's Empowerment Show. She helps busy and empowered women create healthy habits so that they can become the best version of themselves and transform their lives. Learn more about Valerie here!
