Reset Your Gut in 5 Days: A Medical Doctor’s Step-by-Step Protocol to Transform Your Health

Dr. Shah (14:09):

Whenever I say fiber, everyone's always like, oh, what brand of fiber? And I'm like, no, I'm not talking about a brand. I'm saying fiber, but it is hard to conceptualize. So the best sources of say, let's talk about non bloating fiber. Okay, fiber that you would eat when you're trying to get over, say, a week long binge or vacation or whatever. It's, it's spinach. Leafy greens

 

(14:34):

Are a great source of fiber. Berries are a great source of fiber. Asparagus is a great source of fiber. Spices, they work like prebiotic fiber. So these are amazing things like turmeric and ginger and all of these foods. So also fruits and vegetables. So the best fruits to have when you are bloated is bananas, really is avocados, is pineapple, papaya. Pineapple and papaya have natural digestive enzymes in them while they're going through our system. They have natural ways to break themselves down. So it's really gentle on our gut. Bananas are the same way. They've been shown to actually help with bloating, and they all have fiber. So they're helping you in the short term with the deep bloat. And then in the long term, oh, asparagus, cucumbers, celery, those are all amazing things. Parsley, cilantro like the herbs, fiber and de bloating all at the same time.

 

(15:43):

These are the things you want to have when you're like, okay, I want to have more fiber, but I want it to be gentle on my stomach and help me digest. Have a big bowl of papaya, pineapple, bananas, and then have maybe some avocado you could have, if you're not sensitive to bread, you could have a sour dough with avocado on it because sourdough doesn't have as many of the fructans, which are these basically gas causing sugars that your gut can't digest as well in some people. So having an avocado sourdough toast with some fruit on the side would be a great breakfast to have some asparagus would be amazing to have. These are really, really also yogurt. If you're not lactose intolerant, like you said, you love that yogurt. I love probiotic yogurt and cottage cheese in the morning. And even though I can't tolerate a lot of dairy, that yogurt, it's just my body loves that stuff. So that's a great thing to have when you're trying to deep blow, because yogurt, as you know, has some bacteria in it. It's a probiotic food and it's going to help you in this setting.

 

Mel Robbins (16:58):

So let's talk about your five day gut reset protocol. What are we doing,

 

Dr. Shah (17:05):

Dr. Sean? So every day we're doing the three apps, okay? So every morning you're going to wake up no matter what, whether you're doing the gut reset protocol or not, every day you're going to do the fasting, the fitness, and the fiber fermented foods without goes without saying,

 

Mel Robbins (17:22):

Okay,

 

Dr. Shah (17:22):

When you start on the five day reset, the first day, in addition to what you've already done in the morning, you're going to add exercise and E. It's the first E of the four different E's that we're going to be doing. And the last day we're going to add all of the E's together. So it's like exercise Is the first E, okay? And exercise for all the reasons we already talked about your gut bacteria, get happy. It's the best probiotic that you could ever do. And when you start moving your body, all of that distension starts to move because whether it's fluid, whether it's a food baby, whether it's stool in there, whether it's it needs

 

Mel Robbins (18:03):

Just a lifetime of chronic overeating and making terrible choices, or doing keg stands or going to 17 weddings this summer, regardless of how you're coming to the table, you're welcome and we're going to start this protocol by adding in exercise. And does it matter what exercise you do during the five day reset?

 

Dr. Shah (18:28):

No, it doesn't matter. Just move your body because let's be honest, any kind of exercise is good exercise. Now, if you want to add in yoga because you get the twisting amazing, because we know that physically twisting your gut is going to help release some of that gas and some of that fluid retention and get things moving. So I love things like yoga to add when you're exercising, but more walking. So say you walk in the morning, walk in the evening, again, weight training, as you know, and I know we lose about one to 3% of muscle mass each decade as women. And during menopause, that speeds up to almost double. And so getting that body moving, lifting weights, okay, so exercise is number one.

 

Mel Robbins (19:13):

Okay, day two.

 

Dr. Shah (19:15):

Day two, eliminate E. So the second E is eliminate. So what that means is that food elimination diet we talked about, you're going to start doing that. So take out dairy, gluten, white, sugar, whatever you think may be triggering. So for some people that could be nuts. For some people that can be shellfish. Some people it can be corn, but usually it's gluten, dairy, and sugar. If you're not sure, just take those three out. Okay, that's eliminate. That's day two.

 

Mel Robbins (19:41):

Okay, day three.

 

Dr. Shah (19:42):

Day three, you're going to start eating foods. Your gut bacteria loves the stuff we've already talked about, the things that are going to help your body recover from this crazy thing that you put your gut through. So it's going to be that spinach, that asparagus, it's going to be that fruit that brolin from that pineapple, that papaya that has a digestive enzymes in there that help you digest it. You're going to add foods back that your gut bacteria love. Yogurt is another one.

Dr. Shah (20:33):

So if you're not plant-based, then egg protein is nicely digested by a lot of people. Doing an egg scramble or doing fish is a good way to get your protein, but if you're plant-based, then you could do beans, but make sure they're soaked like black beans soaked are really gentle on their stomach, whereas certain beans that if you don't soak them, they can be gas. Producing tofu is a nice thing to eat when you're trying to get that. And of course, like I said, probiotic yogurt and cottage cheese are awesome ways to get that protein. That's not necessarily meat, but it's a dairy-based high protein food that you can have. And then of course, nuts. Although nuts aren't necessarily the biggest source of protein, they do have some protein in them. And so having that protein, but protein in general is a great, great way to keep your gut bacteria happy and satisfied as well. So that's a really, your gut loves protein. What it doesn't love is fake protein. Do you know what I mean? Those shakes, fake meats and fake meats and all the fake stuff.

Mel Robbins (22:14):

Now, I noticed you didn't say locally raised meats, chicken, lamb, would you not want to eat meat during this five day period?

 

Dr. Shah (22:25):

The studies on meat have become very controversial, as you know. Okay, but a new study came out, and this is becoming a really big thought. It's that we used to think that meat in general was very inflammatory and that your gut was very inflamed with meat. But there's new data that show that maybe it's not necessarily the meat itself, maybe it's the type of meat that you're eating, like is it fast food, meat versus meat? So the meat story remains to be pieced out, but if you're eating something that's super healthy, locally raised, not full of antibiotics, not from your local fast food place, this is going to be a nice source of protein. And as I said, our biggest goal is to make that gut bacteria happy. And although fiber and fermented is the number one goal, we said protein is also the goal. And so getting that, but it's a very nuanced conversation because you basically could argue still the bulk of the research still shows that red meat or especially processed red meat is probably inflammatory to the gut and causes all kinds of issues, but things are changing. So I would say it's like a complicated answer. If you enjoy doing good for your body, you're feeling healthy, a great thing to add to your diet,

 

Mel Robbins (23:49):

I just want to recap for everybody. So the five day reset, one of the things that you're doing is Dr. Amy Shah's morning routine, which are the three F's. And so you're going to do this every morning, which is the 12 hour fast before you have your first meal. It is the fitness, and then it is a breakfast that includes some sort of fibrous and fermented food because that makes your gut bacteria happy. Day one, you're going to add in exercise, meaning in addition to the fitness walk in the morning, you're going to add in a little yoga, a little something else. Day two, you're going to start an elimination of dairy, gluten, and white sugar. Day three, you're going to be adding in and eating the kind of food that your gut bacteria loves, which we're learning all about. And what is the E that we add in on day four? Dr.

 

Dr. Shah (24:35):

I love this E because you're going to love it too. The E is for enjoy. So when we're in our stressed and opposite of enjoyment, right, is when you're stressed and anxious, you can't digest and you can't heal from what's just happened to your body. And a lot of people, they come back from a vacation or holidays and they're so stressed and they're punishing themselves by doing all these crazy diets and cleanses and exercises, and it's making things worse. You actually need to go back and enjoy, spend time with people who are good for your mental health because they're also good for your gut health, okay? These gut bacteria, just like we said, we want to make them happy. They are super happy when you're spending time with people who make you feel your best. And it's so crazy to think, but they love bonding. Bonding is a love language for your gut bacteria. They love it. So you want to enjoy yourself. It's spending time with people you love. It's dancing, it's doing something that lights your body on fire. So passionate about enjoyment is one of the things that people don't realize that can be so healing to our body, not just our God, but our entire body.

 

Mel Robbins (25:59):

Got it. Okay, what do we do? Day five?

 

Dr. Shah (26:01):

We're putting it all together.

 

Mel Robbins (26:03):

Tell me what that means.

 

Dr. Shah (26:04):

All of these, so in the morning you're waking up, you're checking if you're fasted for 12 hours, wait 12 hours before you eat your first meal. Then you're going for your fitness right after that. Then you're coming back and you're like, oh, time to eat. You're going to have a big scramble with veggies, yogurt, and berries on the side, and you're going to have your ginger tea because you're trying to eat the foods that are great for your body. So high protein, high fiber, fermented food, breakfast, and then you are going to maybe go for a yoga class or do some stretching or exercises again later in the day that is going to help you. You are going to be on this elimination diet journey. It's not one day. You're not going to know what things you're sensitive to. Our gut microbiome maybe doesn't even respond for a few days.

 

(26:57):

You'll have to do this, extend this for as many as three weeks for some people to really find out what their true food sensitivities. But at least one week you want to be doing the elimination and then you want to eat foods all day that your body loves. This is not the time to maybe have your artificially sweetened snacks and chips and crackers and fast food. This is time to eat really healthy whole foods. Maybe you'll have a spinned salad and you'll have a bowl of fruit on the side. That's your eat. And then do something, bond with someone. Go out to for a walk with a friend, go have coffee with someone that you haven't seen in a long time. A mentor, a friend, a colleague, your loved one. Spend time with your dog, your baby. Do something you love. Maybe you're doing some creative writing, and that is the perfect day at the very end. And that's like if you did all the things and you put it all into one day, that would be the day.

 

Mel Robbins (28:02):

Now, how long do I have to do this before I'm going to start to feel like the bloating is going down and my gut bacteria is happy and healthy again?

Mel Robbins (29:08):

I'm so happy you said that because this conversation is going to release during the holidays. And I don't know about you listening, but I fricking love the holiday food, and particularly here in the us the Thanksgiving fair, I have four or five helpings of the Turkey with the stuffing and the mashed potato and this cranberry jello thing that we've always made in my family, and I just love it. And then I love the leftovers. And I think what happens for me is I do feel like I have a food baby and I feel discouraged. And so I do these extreme things and then they don't really work, and then I feel more discouraged. And so hearing that you can leverage science and you can follow this reset and you can understand the greater context of this, and if you simply stick with it for these three to five days, you'll likely start to feel better because you're using the science of all of this.

 

(30:05):

That makes me feel more motivated, honestly, because oftentimes me too. Yeah, because I felt after this week where the pants started out fitting at the beginning of the week and at the end of the week, I kid you not, I could not even button these pants and the pictures I do look like I am in my second trimester of a pregnancy in these pants. And I felt like I was. And so I felt really discouraged. I thought, what is going on? Is this menopause? Is it stress? Is it travel? What is it? It's probably all of those things, but I now feel very empowered because this is something I can do. And when you tell me that there is research that says within three days, the studies show that you'll start to feel better if you follow this. Obviously, I can't be downing a bottle of Jim Beam on top of this, or I got to really pay attention to all the things that you're talking about. Can't be taking Advil first thing in the morning while I'm doing my fast. This makes sense to me. One thing that you didn't mention was taking a probiotic.

 

Dr. Shah (31:19):

Yeah.

 

Mel Robbins (31:19):

Do you recommend that people take probiotics? What's your, and I realize that not all probiotics are created equally, but does taking a probiotic help if you're bloated?

 

Dr. Shah (31:33):

Yeah. I mean, okay, this is how I would think of it. Our species in our gut is like the Amazon jungle. 

Mel Robbins (31:47):

Probiotics

 

Dr. Shah (31:48):

Of bacteria, so

 

Mel Robbins (31:51):

Probiotics it pro the same thing as a bacteria?

 

Dr. Shah (31:54):

So a probiotic is bacteria that you take by mouth. So a probiotic might have say hundreds of strains, but that's not even close to how many different types of bacteria are in your gut. So what the problem with probiotics today is that if you threw seeds from a plane into a barren land, you just threw them not knowing what climate you were in, not knowing what the local kind of weather soil was like. Some seedlings may come out of it if you got lucky, but you don't know what you're doing. You're just throwing things at the wall and hoping something sticks. So the difference is when you eat probiotic foods like yogurt, like cottage cheese, like kimchi and sauerkraut, the bacteria come in a food matrix and they're delivered to your bacteria that already live there. Like, Hey, look, I brought you some friends. And then for some reason our body is just more likely to incorporate those guys into our existing ecosystem than they are when you throw a whole bunch of pills into your body.

 

Mel Robbins (33:11):

That makes a lot of sense. And so I just want to make sure that you listening are tracking with me and Dr. Shaw. So I want to ask a couple questions. So are you saying that probiotic food based on the research is a more effective way to put healthy bacteria and to get your gut health in order more healthy and effective than taking an oral probiotic?

 

Dr. Shaw (33:42):

Absolutely. When we get to the place where I can say, Mel, let me see the organisms that are in your gut right now, and let me produce a cocktail that's going to be complimentary to them. And then you're going to be like, oh yeah, this definitely works. And that's why fecal transplants work so well.

 

Mel Robbins (34:04):

Fecal transplant, what the hell is that?

 

Dr. Shaw (34:07):

So the best way, transplants. So the best way to deliver,

 

Mel Robbins (34:11):

I'm just trying to get rid of the food baby I have from Thanksgiving. I dunno if I need a fecal transplant.

 

Dr. Shaw (34:17):

We're talking about delivery of bacteria. So you can deliver them through a probiotic. You can deliver it in a food matrix here, serve it on a platter through a food matrix. 

Mel Robbins (34:31):

Makes sense.

 

Dr. Shah (34:32):

Or you deliver it straight up poop from someone else that already has that. It's like taking wait from somebody else. Yeah, It's called a fecal transplant. Do you have to eat the poop? How do you do it if you just place there through colonoscopy, it's curative for so many diseases because it's the best way You should see everybody's facial expressions. But now think about it. I mean, I know it sounds gross, but you don't have to eat it. You can have it say it's your husband. I know your husband. Okay too. I know he's a super healthy guy. Yes, he's a very super healthy guy. And you're like, you know what? I am so sick and tired. Say you want his motivation. It's crazy. But it also athletic performance, mood, all of this stuff can be transplanted through the gut. So there is a theory, and it's already been seen in some diseases that you take a family member or someone that's really healthy doesn't have diseases and you take their feces, their poop, you get it transplanted and placed into your colon through a colonoscopy and you let it sit there. So it's like adding soil. You let it kind of sit there, let it get incorporated. It can cure diseases. We already know. We think it may be able to cure depression. It may be able to heal A DHD, it may be able to stop cancer. I mean there's the potential for the fecal transplant is insane. There's

 

Mel Robbins (36:15):

Actually, so I'll give you that. I'll give you that. I will give you that. I can wrap my brain around that. And I remember it may be something that you shared on one of the other episodes that you were on that there was a study done, I think on rats.

 

Dr. Shah (36:30):

Yeah. What they did is they took the patients who had schizophrenia and they took their gut bacteria and they put it into mice that didn't have their own gut bacteria so that they could see what happens when we don't change anything in the animal's brain. We just give them the gut bacteria and they exhibited the change in mental health. So yeah, you understand that that potential is there. So when you asked me what's the best way to get bacteria into your gut? And I'm like, okay, probiotics is a C, food-based probiotic, foods is a B, and the A is actually getting bacteria from another human.

 

Mel Robbins (37:12):

What you're basically saying is that the healthiest way to get a sample of live healthy gut bacteria is when that live healthy gut bacteria moves from the stomach down the intestines and out somebody through the colon. And so we obviously know that's fecal matter, but inside that is live healthy bacteria and a healthy person. And what you're saying in terms of the emerging science is that that source of live healthy bacteria, even if it's encased in something we all think is disgusting, that is actually the most effective way to help somebody else grow. I would imagine as the technology emerges, especially with all this research that's showing over and over and over again, how effective it can be in the positive or the negative to transfer healthy gut bacteria from one person or species to another, that they will figure out a delivery mechanism for that. That doesn't sound disgusting, but that I hear you in that it is wildly effective.

 

Dr. Shah (38:22):

And to add on that, one of the other ways to get healthy bacteria from other humans, you broke it down so, so nicely because the best way to get healthy good gut bacteria is from other humans kissing just by spending time with other humans that you want to be like, wait a minute.

Dr. Shaw (38:49):

You share food with him, you hug him, kiss him. You are basically more like Chris's gut microbiome than your identical twin sister if you ever had one.

 

Mel Robbins (39:03):

Really?

 

Dr. Shaw (39:04):

Yeah. For real identical twins that are separated at birth, their microbiomes look closer to the people that they live with or their significant others than each other. And when you want to be more like someone, you want the athletic prowess, you want to be as happy, you want to be as successful as they say the people you spend your time with, you become like when you look at it through this gut bacteria lens, that actually is happening.

 

Mel Robbins (39:31):

That's fascinating. Alright, well more importantly, we now know regardless of what is causing you bloat and how you got to this conversation, we now know a five day science backed protocol by the absolutely extraordinary Dr. Amy Shaw. I want to thank you so much for being here with us.

 

Dr. Shaw (39:54):

I'm so grateful to you and the team and I'm happy to be on here to talk about maybe the most important part of health that we don't ever talk about is this whole world of the gut brain hormone connection. It can make us happier, it can help us age successfully, it can make us better people in general. And I think it's something that everybody needs to hear.

 

Mel Robbins (40:20):

I just love Dr. Shaw. Every time I talk to her, I feel smarter. And the other thing that I love about her is she doesn't talk down to you. We just learned so much. That was a goldmine. I mean, you know exactly what to do and of course you have to decide whether or not it's something that fits for you and your lifestyle and your health. But she just gave you the research and she walked you through step-by-step by step based on the research and her expertise, what you could do to not only fight the bloat, but more importantly take control of your gut health. And as she explained in the very beginning, your gut health and happy gut bacteria means a happy you. And I want that for you. You want to know why? I'll tell you why. Because I love you. That's right. In case nobody else tells you today, I'm going to remind you that I love you.

 

(41:08):

That's why I show up here twice a week to be with you. And I also believe in you, and I believe in your ability to take the information that you're learning when you listen and apply what you feel is right to your life so you can create a better life. Alright, I got a reset to go do. I got to find some fibrous foods. I'm going to go eat a banana and some blueberries. And there we go. I'll talk to you in a few days. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for being here on YouTube with me. Thank you for subscribing and sharing the episodes that you love. And now here's an episode I love. You got to go and watch the first part of this conversation, episode 1, 2, 3 with Dr. Amazing, Amy Shaw.