Four Types of Digestion – Which Do You Have?

September 20, 2022by RebeccaLeave a Comment

What’s considered “normal” in our modern culture doesn’t necessarily mean it’s healthy or optimal.

As a pathway to optimal health and performance, optimal digestion is one of my main focuses as a clinical nutritionist. Why?

Because the fire element in the body is responsible for all forms of transformation internally – digestion, absorption, assimilation, creation of digestive enzymes, maintaining balanced body temperature and metabolism, providing energy, supporting regular and balanced elimination, deep sleep, mental clarity, stability, and groundedness, cellular communication, and zest for life.

Among many others.

In nearly all cases, the root cause of weight gain or stagnation, inflammation, muscle and joint pain, fatigue, anxiety and depression, hormone imbalances and monthly or menopausal symptoms, are all rooted in the condition of the digestive system’s ability to optimally transform food into a healthy body and mind.

So with that as a preface, there are four main types of digestion. Which you currently experience?

Irregular or Erratic Digestion:

This digestive pattern swings from very fast to very slow, with both ravenous hunger and lack of appetite, depending on the day or time of day.
There is both sluggish and rapid digestion; for example constipation to diarrhea, and/or being quick to hunger, and quick to satisfy, with the ability to only eat very small meals before feeling full, but perhaps a tendency to overeat.
May have a tendency to easily skip meals or forget to eat.
Hunger can be quite delayed after waking in the morning.
Symptoms such as gas, bloating, heaviness, rumbling or gurgling in the tummy or lower bowel.
Fatigue throughout the day or week, or crashes of energy after meals or feeling immediately cold after meals.
Frequently experiencing anxiety, fear, indecisiveness, or scattered thoughts.

Slow Digestion:

This digestive pattern is marked by its sluggishness. Undigested food has a tendency to sit in the GI for too long, and hunger isn’t often present.
Hunger can be quite delayed after waking in the morning, and you may have the tendency to skip breakfast or have only coffee for breakfast (not so great for blood sugar balance!)
May have a tendency to easily skip meals or feel like you can only eat small meals at a time, and quickly feel full and heavy.
May eat out of habit or have a tendency to eat emotionally.
Symptoms such as heaviness, fatigue, excess weight, slow elimination trending towards constipation, nausea, low appetite with perhaps some overeating, excess saliva, coughing, respiratory problems, and/or low mood.

Fast Digestion:

This digestive pattern is fast and sharp. Food is often digested very quickly. The fire is on too high!
Hunger can come rapidly after eating; You might eat a full meal and feel ready for another 30 minutes to two hours later, instead of the four to six hours that occurs with optimal digestion.
Because the fire is turned up, there is a tendency towards having a low weight, even though you can eat a lot.
Elimination trends towards loose stools and diarrhea.
You never miss a meal, become “hangry” easily, and may snack frequently between meals.
Symptoms such as excess dryness in the throat, mouth or lips, reflux and heartburn, anemia, and/or low energy.
Skin Irritations such as eczema, psoriasis, rashes, hives, or acne.
Frequent irritability, frustration, short temper or being extremely hard on yourself.

Balanced Digestion – The optimal state of digestion

Hunger is experienced routinely, about 30 minutes to 1 hour prior to each of the day’s three meals, in anticipation of food.
A healthy appetite; being ready for a morning meal by 7-9 am, feeling hungry again 3-6 hours later and at steady 3-6 hour intervals throughout the day.
Steady energy throughout the day with no fatigue or big drops in energy after eating or mid-afternoon, or difficulty waking up or getting going 30 minutes after waking.
One to three bowel movements daily, which pass easily and are formed like a banana
- no visible food, mucus, fatty film, or off colors
Clear skin, free of acne, itchy, inflammation, and rashes
Focused mind and inspired thinking
Your athletic performance is reflective of your training
Balanced hormones and menstrual cycle (if a menstruating female) with no PMS or menopausal symptoms

Which Type of Digestion Do You Have?

The ability to take food and break it down into nutrients, and assimilate it into the body to be used as energy is the basis for building healthy body tissue (and thus a healthy body!)

The goal for each of us is balanced digestion, and the stable mood, and smooth and efficient symptoms that come with it. This is possible for everyone.

When we are ready to embrace positive adjustments in our diet and lifestyle, we can see long-standing patterns shift, hormones and weight balance, sleep patterns become deeper and restorative, and acceptance, zest for life, and optimal performance return.

Did you find your digestion isn’t working optimally based on your symptoms? If you’d like to learn more about how you can fix it, I’d love to speak with you in a quick phone consultation! Or learn more about your digestion in some of my other articles on the topic of optimal digestion and gut health.

Nutrition + Health, Running

Iron Deficiency + The Athlete: Part II

August 30, 2022by RebeccaLeave a Comment

If you recognize the food on the left side of the plate above as red lentils (a red lentil soup), then you may also know it to be a rich source of the mineral iron.

I’ve written about iron in detail before, but a recent research paper on impaired iron and endurance athletes reminded me that I need to periodically review this topic.

Nearly all of my female clients in the past few years have come to me with iron deficiency, iron-deficiency non anemia, or iron-deficiency anemia. This has been true whether they are endurance athletes or not. And whether they’re highly active or not.

Here’s a refresher on the difference between those three:

Stage 1: Iron Deficiency: Iron stores in the bone marrow, liver, and spleen are depleted, indicated by ferritin values less than 35 ng/mL, Hemoglobin values > 11.5 g/dL and transferrin saturation >16%

Stage 2: Iron-Deficient Non-Anemia: Red blood cell production decreases as the iron supply to the bone marrow is reduced, indicated by ferritin values less than 20 ng/mL, Hemoglobin >11.5 g/dL, and transferrin saturation < 16%

Stage 3: Iron Deficiency Anemia: Hemoglobin production falls, resulting in anemia, indicated by ferritin values less than 12 ng/mL, Hemoglobin <11.5 g/dL, transferrin saturation less than 16%.

While iron deficiency may be much more likely in women, it’s not a female-only issue.

It used to be that when there were signs, symptoms, and laboratory results indicating deficiency of a nutrient, I did just the typical nutritionist thing of recommending eating more foods rich in that nutrient, increasing bioavailable co-factors in the diet, adjusting timing of nutrient intake so absorption increases, and according to the circumstances, recommending varying amounts of supplementation.

Generally, that’s a pretty good and standard game plan. But to a certain extent in many cases, it was band-aiding the real issue. Or at least not getting all the way there.

Why is nutrient absorption impaired in the first place? Did the individual merely need to increase nutrient intake and we’d solve the problem? Was it just an issue of increased demand or not eating foods rich in that nutrient?

What I started finding was that even with continued intake of iron-rich foods, or in some cases high-dose supplementation, we’d still have low levels of iron (and often of other nutrients).

So what’s happening here?

It wasn’t until I had continued professional training on gut health and malabsorption that I began having some personal aha moments.

When I began addressing the issue of nutrient deficiency from the standpoint of improving the person’s digestion and absorption and calming the nervous system (which is so incredibly entwined with gut health), absorption of iron and many other nutrients drastically improved.

We were finally treating the issue.

Which is to say, that still doesn’t mean it’s easy. Figuring out which puzzle piece or perhaps multiple puzzle pieces of the GI system are impairing absorption of nutrients and digestibility of food can take some time and it can take some persistence. But it’s so worth addressing.

Here are some factors that might be causing impaired absorption of dietary and supplementary iron and/or increased need. Check all that apply for you. The more that apply, the more likely absorption and/or intake of iron will need addressed.

Female of menstruating years
Endurance athlete
Digestive Symptoms – Pain, Bloating, Gas, Loose Bowel Movements, Undigested Food in Stool, etc.
Have low stomach acid (quite common and most people are completely unaware)
Follow a vegetarian, vegan, or plant-based dietary pattern
Omnivore who avoids red meat
Fast eater or eats while distracted or stressed
Low estrogen or testosterone levels
Supplemental intake of other minerals at the same time as iron, not-including nutrient cofactors when consuming iron rich foods or supplements, and/or consuming foods and beverages that prevent absorption at meals rich in iron
Taking prescription medication(s) – depending on the medication if may impact nutrient absorption or change physiology so there’s an increased need
Lack of knowledge about how to eat a balanced diet or poorly planned dietary pattern
INFLAMMATION! – Particularly inflammation of the gut (may be asymptomatic or not obvious)

Want to Know More?

If you’d like a refresher on iron, check out my first article on this topic.

Need help with iron or absorption of other nutrients? Within my nutrition practice, I specialize in endurance athletes and digestive imbalances. If you’ve struggled with chronically low iron or poor absorption of other nutrients, I encourage you to reach out to me for more personalized support.

Nutrition + Health, Running, Summertime

Knowing When (and how much) Salt to Consume

July 26, 2022by RebeccaLeave a Comment

Confused about whether you need additional salt in the summer or when you’re active? Or have you been avoiding salt because it’s been considered “bad for health”?

What are the roles of salt?

Salt is one of the six essential tastes or flavors. This means we need it for digestion to work properly, and it also makes food and meals taste “balanced/good.”
Salt is a required electrolyte for balancing water + fluids throughout the body
- Salt helps to keep us supple and to create flexibility in the joints – no added salt dries us out and is depleting. This is because sodium holds onto water in the cell.
- Sodium helps with water absorption from the gut. When you drink something that contains sodium and carbohydrate, you will have increased absorption of water and once it is absorbed, the water will be better retained.
Salt aids in digestion and elimination of wastes
- It’s a co-factor for transporting glucose (a simple sugar from broken down carbohydrates) across the small intestine lining to be absorbed.
- It’s a co-factor for transporting amino acids (the building blocks of protein) into the cells to be utilized via the sodium-potassium pump in a ratio of 3:2, sodium : potassium.
- The salty flavor stimulates the appetite.
Salt helps to support muscle contraction and muscle strength.
Salt helps to clear the subtle channels of the body of stagnation – these are often overlooked in modern western medicine, but are quite important in eastern medicinal traditions.

* Salt is lost through sweat in varying amounts that are individual to you. What’s really interesting (depending on how you look at it of course) is that people that tend to be salty sweat-ers tend to crave salt more, potentially indicating they desire more salt because they lost more. But counter to this, consuming more salt leads to sweating out more salt in the skin. So it’s not yet entirely clear if you’re craving salt because you lost a lot, or you lost a lot of salt through sweat because you ate a lot of salt.

For highly active individuals, it’s really important to replenish salt and other minerals that are being lost through sweat. In addition to sodium, we also lose potassium, chloride, magnesium, calcium, iron, and others through sweat, and these minerals are all considered electrolytes, meaning they conduct an electric current when dissolved in water.

The electrolytes that are lost in the highest concentrations through sweating are sodium, chloride, and potassium, in that order. The others are lost in much smaller amounts. Because salt is primarily sodium and chloride, salt is needing to be replenished in the highest amount after sweating.

What about when I’m craving salt? Does that indicate I need to eat more of it?

Not necessarily. Take a look at what foods or drinks you are craving. Is your desire for salt satisfied by adding an extra ⅛ – ¼ tsp. per serving of mineral/rock salt to your meals during the cooking process?
An additional way to add extra salt to your diet is by adding rock salt and rock sugar in small amounts in warm water. You can then let them sit at room temperature if you don’t want to consume a hot drink. Or sign up for my newsletter. I’m sharing an easy homemade electrolyte drink this week.

If your cravings are not relieved by the above and you’re craving salty junk food such as chips, french fries and fried potatoes, pretzels and snacky foods, it’s likely that this is a craving representing imbalance in the body at the moment, and eating more of these foods is not going to sustainably satisfy the imbalance.

Craving salt all the time might also indicate a need for additional zinc, and it would be good to check in with your nutrition professional to check your zinc levels and determine other symptoms of zinc imbalance – simply supplementing with additional zinc can lead to other mineral imbalances over time so it’s wise to work with an expert on this.

Symptoms of too much and too little salt

Too little sodium can lead to hyponatramia (low blood sodium), dizziness, muscle cramps, nausea, vomiting, loss of appetite, seizures, or coma
Too much sodium can lead to hypernatremia (high blood sodium), hypertension (high blood pressure), and nausea
Too little chloride can lead to muscle spasms with loss of consciousness
Too much chloride can lead to hypertension (high blood pressure)

Quality Salts to Cook With and Eat

Himalayan Pink Salt has the same potassium concentration as the human body – it also contains other trace minerals and electrolytes that are essential for fluid balance.
Redmond Real Salt (from Salt Lake City area in Utah) is similar to Himalayan Pink Salt and is also recommended.
The last best choice is sea salt. Sea salt is very similar to table salt (sodium chloride), with a little more of the other electrolytes. It is less processed than table salt but our modern oceans are not as pure as they once were and thus, sea salt is going to be less of a good choice than mineral (rock) salt. We’re even starting to find microplastics in sea salt!
Table salt is the least expensive salt at the supermarket and made of sodium and chloride. It’s also what is used in nearly all pre-packaged, restaurant, and processed foods–Table salt is realistically more harmful than it is helpful. It has virtually all the other minerals stripped out of it, and has undergone intensive mining and refining processes.

How Much Salt Should I Eat/Drink?

The answer to this is that it depends on you, and it’s not super easy to gauge just exactly how much salt you need. I recommend ⅛ teaspoon per person cooked into meals at breakfast and ¼ teaspoon at lunch and dinner as a starting point. If you add no additional packaged/processed foods and no other salt in meals, you will inherently meet the lower end of the recommended daily amount per day using these amounts.

Most of us are adding additional inherently salty foods to our meals such as olives, pickles, etc., or eating foods that have salt-added as part of the processing, so still keeping with the suggested amounts to add when cooking meals, you’ll likely still be within the recommended sodium amount.

If you’re a salty sweat-er, or highly active, gauge your desire for salt, and whether it’s relieved by adding additional high quality mineral salt to foods rather than through snack foods, or mix up a batch of the electrolyte homemade electrolyte drink, if you’re a newsletter subscriber, to drink throughout the day or during workouts.

Next Steps

This is by no means a comprehensive review or personalized advice. I encourage you to reach out to me for more personalized support, especially if you need assistance with how to adjust your salt intake in and around exercise or based on your symptoms of imbalance.