How to fix your gut and reset your body from the inside out with Dr Megan Rossi | Future Self Series Ep. 7

0:11What is up? I'm Grace Beverley and welcome back to Working Hard, the podcast shaped guidebook on how to improve your own life and achieve what you actually dreamed of doing, because life's too short for boring podcasts and bad advice. What is up and welcome back to Working Hard. I hope you're all doing really well. Welcome back to this next episode of the Future Self series. If you've been following the series so far, you will know that what we've been doing, along with the help of some experts, is to build out a pretty complete picture of what it actually takes to become the future self that you really want to be.

0:41So the person who has that very specific life, the mindset, the mental fitness you need, the habits you need, the personal brand you need to get there, and the long-term plan of where it's actually getting you. Like, what are you doing to build your dream life? And today we're going to go somewhere which you might find a little rogue when I start talking about it, but I want you to stick with me because this is going to be incredibly important to getting to where you want to get to in your life. So we're going to be talking about resetting from the inside out and specifically talking a lot about your gut.

1:09Maybe you're thinking gut health doesn't scream building your ideal life or working towards a certain type of future self. And I get it, but I want to pitch it to you like I pitched it to my team when I suggested this for the series. So your gut is home to 38 trillion bacteria that influence everything from your energy levels, your immune system, your mood, your focus, your mental health. I think it's already clearing up in terms of why this is so important to talk about. And our expert's going to get into it and we'll really get you converted. But there is a direct line from your gut to your brain when it comes to how you think and feel every single day.

1:43So really, all of this means that if you're trying to build your future self in a certain type of way, and you're trying to build a certain type of future for yourself, and your gut health is a mess, just as when we were talking about health in general, you are working against yourself at a fundamentally biological level. I would be so surprised if you can get to where you want to get to without running yourself into the ground if you are not looking after things like this. And that is why for this part two of the series, we've dived so specifically into individual topics that you need to have like a revamp on in order to feel actually ready and actually in the position to build the future you want.

2:18And for a bit of background, once I pitched this idea to the team like that, this episode kind of became a bit of a non-negotiable with a series, even though we were like, does it feel like a reach? Does it feel like it actually fits? And we just come back again and again to be like, yes, because when this is this important and when this can be the underlying issue you're having, like it literally is that deep. So I had a very specific person I wanted to bring in to talk about this topic. She is an absolute gem. She is Dr. Megan Rossi. She's also known as the gut health doctor and she's one of the most respected gut health scientists and clinicians in the entire world.

2:49She's a researcher at King's College London. She's a practicing dietician and the author of multiple best-selling books on gut health. So she obviously has a very strong CV if we're doing an episode on resetting yourself from the inside out and focusing on your gut. She also has a super rare ability to take very complex science and make it feel very accessible and actionable for us mere mortals who maybe don't have a PhD. But she doesn't lose the nuance when she's doing that and I can very much attest to the fact as well that she's not about to sell you a cleanse or tell you to cut out gluten if that's not the thing you need to be doing.

3:18She is here to give you actual advice that is, as you guessed it, gonna get you to that future self that you want to be. So in this episode, Dr. Megan is gonna take us through what your microbiome actually is, why the signs that your gut is struggling go so far beyond bloating, and why most of us have been completely missing those signs. She pushes back hard on a lot of stuff that is everywhere else right now, and so I want you to hear about that side of things as well. And the thing that stuck with me most is this idea that your gut isn't just about digestion. It's connected to your mood, your energy, your immune system, and it's possible to do a full reset if you feel like your gut is out of whack, which is something that I probably should have done in the past and now I know about it.

3:57I'm like, oh okay, that's probably what I need to do. So the aim is for it to be very, very actionable for you to be able to take to build this future you. So if you've ever felt like something was off but you couldn't put your finger on it or you're fed up of the phrase hot girls have stomach issues, even though we do, this episode might just be the missing piece for you. And as always within this series, Dr. Megan has put together follow-up exercises and her personal recommended resources in the newsletter for us this week. So that is going to be sent out tomorrow if you are listening to this episode on the day it goes live.

4:23I will put the link for the newsletter in the description. But all that leaves me to say is Dr. Megan Rossi, it is over to you. Thanks Grace and thank you for having me because this community you've got here really is something special. So guys, I am genuinely excited to get into this episode with you and we've got quite a lot to cover. Now as Grace mentioned, my specialism is gut health, which I promise has much more to do with your future self than you probably realize. Some of you might already know me as a gut health doctor, but for those who don't, the long and the short of it is. I'm a registered dietitian and scientist at King's College in London, and I spent the last 20 years researching the gut.

4:57And people do ask me why I got stuck on one organ for so long, but honestly, it's because it was never just about the gut. Your gut is linked to every organ in your body. It affects your immunity, your hormones, your skin, your mood, your energy, and even your future self. So Grace invited me to be one of your teachers, not just because I'm a scientist, but because of what I do outside of my lab at King's. And that is I take complicated science and turn it into something you can actually use. Not academic theory, real tools, real habits for real results. And that is exactly what I want to do with you today.

5:27Here's how we'll spend the next 20 minutes together. I'll start with what's actually going inside your gut because hardly anyone gets taught this properly. Then I'll give you two things that really move the needle for health and we'll turn that into something you can start this week. After that, I'm going to bust three myths that I think are wasting people's money. And I'll finish with daily habits that I personally live by. Now, I want to start somewhere that might surprise you because the loudest advice about eating for health is about cutting things out. Cut the carbs, cut the sugar, cut the thing you look forward to at the weekend.

5:56And the most frustrating part, something I see in clinic all the time, is that a lot of that advice can leave you worse off than when you started. So I want to teach you a new and inclusive way of eating that focuses on the adding, not the cutting. It comes down to one thing, and that is the variety of plants you eat in a week. Once you understand the community living inside your gut, you'll see exactly how and why it changes everything. One quick disclaimer first, though. If you have any persistent or painful gut symptoms, please do go and get proper medical advice from a GP or a registered dietitian.

6:28Today is about general health and well-being rather than diagnosing anything specific. Let's start with what's happening in your gut. Your digestive tract is around nine meters long and living inside it right now is a community of roughly 40 trillion microbes, mostly bacteria, but fungi and other things too. In science, we call that community your gut microbiome. Picture them as kind of like a workforce, right? Because that's genuinely what they are. They're carrying out thousands of jobs for you every single day. And this is what I meant when I said it's not just one organ. These bacteria can affect how you find infection, how you process what you eat, how your hormones behave, how your skin looks and how you feel.

7:04Now here's a bit that makes everything else make sense. Each type of bacteria, what we call a strain, has its own skill set. One might recycle estrogen while another helps calm inflammation and they're not all interchangeable. So think of the more as a team of specialists working for you and different strains feed on different plants. So simply put, the worker that does one job is fed one kind of plant and if that plant never turns up in your diet, that worker never really gets going, which means the more different plants you eat, the more different workers you're feeding, and ultimately more of those jobs get done.

7:36It's why variety matters far more than any single superfood. And it's part of why people with a more diverse range of gut bacteria tend to have a lower risk of over 70 chronic conditions. Essentially, they have a better workforce. So this is what I meant at the start. Your gut doesn't just respond to what you take away from it. It responds to what you give it. Every new plant wakes up a different worker. And when you take away foods, you are shrinking that team. Now, that's a science of the gut microbiome, but there's a second reason I work this way. And it has nothing to do with the bacteria and everything to do with your relationship with food.

8:08Adding to your diet is something you can live with, right? But most people approach food from a place of restriction, usually with a bit of guilt thrown in for good measure. That is exhausting to keep up with, no matter how good your willpower is. An inclusive approach to eating, however, is far more sustainable. And then there's your brain. And this is the one people really underestimate. me. When you said you've got a gut feeling about something, you're not being poetic. The science shows your gut and your brain are in constant conversation in both directions all day long. Stress affects your digestion and your digestion affects how you feel.

8:39So this isn't only about being healthier, it's about feeling better day to day. Which brings me to something worth knowing and it's one of the reasons why Grace wanted gut health featured in this series. Most people only think about their gut when something obvious happens, usually that's bloating. But your gut bacteria are working on so much more for you. So the signs they aren't thriving can show up somewhere else entirely. Maybe it's energy that dips in a way you started to treat as normal, catching every single bug going around, feeling foggier than you'd expect. And the one almost nobody mentions, a bathroom routine that's drifted so slowly you've stopped noticing it changed.

9:12Now, to be clear, none of those on their own means anything is wrong. And I'm not asking you to go looking for problems. But if two or three are true for you, then it's worth a second look. and anything more painful or persistent is for your GP, not a podcast. Right, let's talk about the adding. Two things do the heavy lifting here and they do quite different jobs. First up, it's fiber. Now, unlike protein, we can't digest fiber ourselves. It travels down to the lower part of your gut where your bacteria live and they're the ones with the machinery, so to speak, to break it down. So fiber isn't really food for you at all.

9:45It's food for your workforce. So we should be aiming for around at least 30 grams of fiber a day, but only about 4 % of us are getting there, which means most of us have a workforce of bacteria that's going hungry. And trust me when I say they can get a little hangry. Now, I know you might be thinking, you eat your fruit and veg every day, so you're probably in that 4%, right? And I would love that to be true. But when I take a proper diet history clinic, most people fall short. So I have made you a fiber cheat sheet. It takes about five minutes to check yourself against and it is well worth doing.

10:15Moving on to this second heavy lifter, fermenter foods. I'm talking foods like live yogurt, kefir, kimchi, and sauerkraut. These have become all the rage recently, but there's actually genuine evidence behind them. In fact, a Stanford study found that adding fermented foods increased bacterial diversity and it also reduced some markers of inflammation. So we have fiber and fermented foods. Here's the key differences between the two. Fiber feeds the workers you've already got, right? Whereas fermented food tends to bring some new ones in, among other things. You want both because one doesn't replace the other.

10:45And before anyone thinks they can just add a fiber supplement instead, there are hundreds of structurally different fibers, so one supplement will never give your microbes that variety, which is exactly why I count plants instead. The American Gut Project is one of the largest studies of its kind, and it found that people eating more than 30 different plants a week had more diverse gut microbiomes than people eating 10 or less. Plant diversity mattered more than whether someone was vegan or eating animal foods too, so you really don't have to change your whole dietary identity for this. 30 isn't a magic number either so nobody needs to spiral if they've only hit 27 by Sunday night and actually based on our research at King's I'm not convinced 30 should be the ceiling but it's a practical starting point to get you thinking about diversity and it's where my plant point system came from.

11:29Now I've given you quite a few numbers today so let me tie them together because they aren't three separate targets they're three parts of the same goal. 30 grams of fiber a day is your quantity, 30 different plants a week is your variety. And the super six, which are six plant groups I'll come to in a second, is your spread that ensures your variety comes from all six plant groups, not just 30 different types of fruit. Quantity, variety, and spread. And here's the good news. Get the variety right and the other two tend to follow. So when it comes to my plant point system, each different plant earns you a point with the exception of herbs and spices, which count as a quarter because you're only eating them in such teeny amounts.

12:05Now, here's the only thing I'm going to ask of you. Over the next seven days, I want you to count your plants as you go. Don't remember them afterwards, count them as you eat them. Because if I asked you right now what you ate last Tuesday, chances are you would have no idea. So it's a note on your phone, that whiteboard in your kitchen, or it's my plant points one pager stuck on the fridge. The ask is simple. Every time you eat a plant you haven't already had this week, add it to the list just once. Because remember, at this stage, it's about variety, not quantity. And when I say plants, I don't just mean fruit and veg.

12:34There are six groups and I call them the super six. Vegetables, fruit, whole grains, legumes like beans and pulses, nuts and seeds, and your herbs and your spices. Now I want you to lock that super six into your memory because each group feeds a different set of workers. And actually it's quite helpful to tally your plants under each of those super six as you go. So broccoli goes under the veg, quinoa goes under the whole grains, et cetera. That way you can see whether you're getting this spread across the week and ideally within each day. Later, I'm going to share how I check in to make sure I get all super six every single day.

13:06And remember, all whole plants count. The porridge oats, the baked beans, the handful of cashews, even that cucumber in your sandwich. Then after a week, add it up and that there is your number. Now, whatever that plant point total is, please don't judge it. It isn't a verdict. It's simply where you're starting from. And every single person listening to this is starting somewhere different. Once you've got your number, the rest is actually pretty simple. Using the reverse engineering concept, we're going to start with a goal and work backwards. So 30 is the starting goal. Let's say you count at 12.

13:33That's 18 new plants sitting between you and 30. Add one new plant a week and you'll be at 30 in 18 weeks. One new plant, once a week, one new thing in your shopping basket. Now, some of you are going to count your week and find you've already hit 30. If that's you, brilliant. But you're not done yet because your next level is quantity. 30 different plants in teeny amounts still won't get you your 30 grams of fiber. So it becomes about portion sizes. and I've pinned my portions guide to my Instagram so you can see what a portion of each of the super six actually looks like. You might be wondering, where should that new plant come from each week?

14:07Which is fair enough. What I recommend is to look at your list and find which of the super six groups you barely dip into. Very often it's legumes or nuts and seeds. That's where your easiest points are hiding because you're starting from nothing there. And here's a trick that makes this effortless. Don't add a whole new shopping trip, right? Just buy the mixed version of something you're already buying. Mix frozen berries on your porridge instead of just one berry. That's three points. Mix frozen veg instead of peas and a stir fry. Another three to four points. A jar of mixed beans into a chili or bolognese you were making anyway.

14:37Same shop, same dinner, and same effort. And you know what? Some weeks you might find one spot will get you three or four points, which is a very nice problem to have. One note on pace though. If you go from very little fiber to loads in a fortnight and you suddenly feel really bloated, please don't panic and decide fiber isn't for you. You've probably just overloaded your gut without giving it time to adapt. Think of it like any other muscle. You need to train it to get what I call fiber fit. So just like you wouldn't go, you know, from sitting on the sofa to running a marathon overnight. Same principle here, which is exactly why we're only adding one a week.

15:09All right, before I give you my daily habits, let me save you some money because these are the three areas where I think a lot of people get sold to. Number one, probiotics aren't magic. I did my PhD on probiotics, so I do feel quite strongly about this one. Here's what most people don't realize. even my husband didn't and he's a GP. Probiotics are the good bacteria and they're different to fermented food because the benefits of probiotic supplements are strain specific, which means different strains genuinely do different things. So just like you wouldn't take half of a medication for contraception, you need to get specific for probiotics to have any real benefit.

15:45So however impressive that packaging sounds, there is no probiotic supplement proven to support your general gut health. That job belongs to your plants and your fermented foods. But, and this is really important, there are specific strains that can be quite effective for certain things such as balancing your vagina microbiome, protecting your gut from antibiotics and supporting little tummies as Grace with baby Cecilia will know all about. So when it comes to probiotics, think the right strain, right time, right weight. That's my mantra and that is why I founded Smart Strains because a generic daily probiotic wastes your money.

16:17Number two, gut cleanses don't work. Detox teas, colon flushes, I honestly do understand the appeal, especially if you've got symptoms and you're desperate to feel better. But the science just isn't there and some laxative-based products and cleanses can actively disrupt the very balance you're working so hard to protect. The real cleanse is sadly much less glamorous. Fiber, plants, fermented foods alongside water, sleep and movement. And three, finally, leaky gut. It's so misunderstood. Now, for the record, leaky gut is real. In science, we call it increased gut permeability. Think of your gut lining as a clever security barrier.

16:51It lets the good stuff through into your bloodstream while keeping other things out. Sometimes that barrier can come a little bit leaky, but we can all get a slightly leaky gut from time to time. Stress can do it, certain meals can do it, and too much alcohol can do it. Then when that trigger goes away, the barrier tightens back up again. So leaky gut is like a symptom. It isn't the root cause of everything wrong with you. So please don't spend a fortune on supplements claiming they can fix it. Okay, so we've covered what not to do. Let's look at what we should do. And this is what's happening in my house.

17:20I've got five daily non-negotiables. Number one, I check in with the super six at 3 p.m. It's just a quick mental scan. Have I had all six groups today? And if I haven't, I know what's going into dinner. Usually a jar of beans or a handful of mixed nuts thrown into whatever I'm already making. Number two, I shop for diversity, not just quantity. It's those same mixes I mentioned earlier. It does more for your points than anything else on this list. Three, I have at least three servings of fermented food a day. Kefir with my granola, a spoonful of kimchi in my lunch, and aged cheese as a snack.

17:49And you really don't need to start brewing kombucha in your kitchen either. Just find a couple you genuinely enjoy or you won't stick with it. Four, I do two minutes of belly breathing before my two main meals. This one is especially for anyone struggling with bloating and you'll want the receipt. So here it is. switching from chest breathing to slow breathing into your belly what we call diaphragmic breathing dials down that stress response and it relaxes your gut brain conversation we talked about earlier which helps prepare your gut for digestion and five my probiotics are targeted never generic during pregnancy i took specific strains to support my vagina microbiome and now i take different strains to support my immune system because with three kids the nursery bugs are very real and frankly, I don't have time for a cold.

18:32So there you have it. Those are my five. And please don't try to take them all on at once, right? Because that's exactly the kind of overhaul that falls apart quickly. Pick just one for this month. And that's it for me. To recap what I'm asking of you is two things, and neither of them is today. This week, count your plants as you go. Then from next week, add one new one to your shop each week. That's it. Not a diet, not a protocol, just a few numbers to remember. 30 grams of fiber quantity, 30 plant points variety, and super sick spread. Remember, every version of yourself you've been designing across this series, the one with the energy and the clear head, the one who shows up for the things that matter, is going to be running on what you feed it.

19:10Your gut and your mind aren't two separate projects, and the way there isn't by taking things away from yourself. It's mostly by adding. Now, if you're anything like Grace, you're probably wondering, how fast does this all work? It's a fair question, and I'd be asking it fast. Once you've started to change the way you eat, your microbiome usually starts to shift within a few days. And many people notice a difference in bloating and regularity within a few weeks. But the deep diversity, the things we're really building here, is built over months and years of consistency. As promised, I have sent my plant points one-pager and my fiber cheat sheet over to Grace's team for this week's working hard newsletter.

19:47So you'll have everything you need to run this properly. And if you want to go further, whether that's easy gut nourishing recipes, more on strain-specific probiotics or one-to-one support from a gut specialist dietitian. It's all linked in the show notes. So remember, if you look after your gut, it will look after you. And I promise your future self will thank you for it. Back to you, Grace. Right, I hope you really loved that episode with Dr. Megan Rossi. I hope you can see why I thought it was very important when we were deep diving into different topics of where to improve your life to include this episode.

20:17So a massive thank you to her for contributing to today's episode. And a massive thank you to you as well for listening to this episode of the Future Self series and for supporting the podcast and our team during my maternity leave. We will be doing a full breakdown of all Dr. Megan's tips on the Working Heart Instagram this week so that you can actually action the things that you've heard. Otherwise, I will see you next week where we are going to be talking all things money. This is obviously an area that I like to talk about. I think it's very important for women to be talking about money, to be talking about building financial security, financial education, and to be able to build your finances, to be in the position that they need to be in to build that future life for yourself.