Listen to Your Gut! Fiber, Digestive and Dr. Felicia Stoler's book, Living Skinny in Fat Genes!

Are those butterflies in your stomach from love, or from something you ate last night? I have a Gut feeling that today’s episode is about something that you or someone in your life is concerned about:  GUT HEALTH.  Over the past decade, researchers have discovered connections between the gastrointestinal tract and a whole host of physical processes and ailments. Taking certain gut friendly measures, like eating probiotic foods, or taking a quality probiotic supplement, can keep not only your gut, but your entire body healthy. 

In today’s episode, I’ll be talking again with Dr. Felicia Stoler.  Dr. Stoler is one of the most sought-after nutrition and fitness experts for in the U.S.

Dr. Stoler earned her Master of Science degree in Applied Physiology and Nutrition from Columbia University and her Doctorate in Clinical Nutrition from Rutgers School of Health Professions. She is Board Certified in Lifestyle Medicine and has a private practice in New Jersey.  She’s a college professor and public speaker.  Dr. Stoler was the host of TLC’s ground-breaking program “Honey We're Killing The Kids!”

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Together, we'll build Healthy Cells, and a Healthy You!

Transcript

Janet Walker  00:03

Welcome to healthy cells healthy you. I'm your host, Janet Walker. I've been working in the healthcare community for 30 years. And for 16 of those years, I've been a writer and producer for the award winning national PBS Health Information Programs, American Health Journal, and innovations in medicine. We've interviewed 1000s of doctors, scientists and researchers on every topic related to health, medicine and medical technology. You can watch current episodes of innovations in medicine on your local PBS channel, or you can stream our programs on the American Health Journal channel, the better health channel and TV healthy kids. This podcast is sponsored by the good folks at life farm Incorporated, a company whose innovative cellular repair products are backed by extensive science, research and clinical studies.

 Janet Walker  00:57

Are those butterflies in your stomach from love? Or from something you ate last night? I have a gut feeling that today's episode is about something that you or someone in your life is concerned about gut health. Over the past decade, researchers have discovered connections between the gastrointestinal tract and a whole host of physical processes and ailments. Taking certain gut friendly measures, like eating probiotic foods or taking a quality probiotic supplement can keep not only your gut, but your entire body healthy. In today's episode, I'll be talking again with Dr. Felicia Stoler. Dr. Stoller is one of the most sought after nutrition and fitness experts in the US. She earned her Master of Science degree in Applied Physiology and nutrition from Columbia University and her doctorate in clinical nutrition from Rutgers School of Health Professions. She is board certified in lifestyle medicine and has a private practice in New Jersey. Dr. Stoller is a college professor and public speaker. She was the host of TLCS groundbreaking program, Honey, we're killing the kids. Last time Dr. Stoller talk to me about the pillars of lifestyle medicine, Blue Zones, and intermittent fasting. Today, we'll learn about the importance of dietary fiber and probiotics. We'll also talk to Dr. Stoller about her book, Living skinny and fat genes, the healthy way to lose weight and feel great. Welcome back to healthy cells healthy you. Thank you for joining us again, Dr. Stoller.

 Felicia Stoler, MD  02:30

Thank you for having me.

 Janet Walker  02:32

Dr. Stoler, the last time you joined us, we talked about pillars of lifestyle medicine, Blue Zones, and intermittent fasting. Today, I'd like to talk about fiber indigestion. But also I'd love to talk about your book, Living skinny and fat genes, the healthy way to lose weight and feel great. So welcome back to the program.

 Felicia Stoler, MD  02:52

Thank you so much for having me back.

 Janet Walker  02:54

The healthy cells healthy you podcast is all about health at a cellular level. And of course, our DNA factors into that. So it's fascinating to me that your approach to health and diet starts with our genes. What inspired you to write the book?

 Felicia Stoler, MD  03:09

Well, I'll tell you what it really came from, I remember being at a presentation. And it was actually it was like an image of a cardiologist that sitting with somebody says, the person saying fat genes run in your family, and the doctor goes, no, nobody in your family runs. So I think about how so many people blame their genes for their weights. And, and I grow I came from a family of obese people. So I say that, that there was a little bit of, you know, it hitting close to home for me. But as I went through graduate school, and I learned a lot about the impact of you know, is it nature or nurture, there are some things that are in our genes, but there is so much more, that is all about the environment, and by the environment. I don't just mean you know, like pollutants or, or toxins in the environment, if you're exposed to things that are unhealthy. I mean, the environment of how were you raised? How, you know, I've met one of my very first clients, I asked to write a future and have them write a food journal. So I learned in grad school, I still have people write food journals, because I need to understand how they eat in real time. Because when you do a 24 hour recall, or you just tell somebody like we know that those are not accurate at all. So somebody actually literally going through the effort of writing down everything, every single thing that they eat for five days, by the last day. He's writing, not the last day, the fourth day. He said, You know, my mom has their Italian they have a Sunday supper and you know, the meatballs are the size of your head. And I can't even say it on here. You'd have to believe me, but he said, Now I know why I'm such a fat blank. Because he literally had to write down everything he ate and to me this guy I was eating what would be the equivalent in my mind of two entrees at every meal. Wow. Which explained why he was so overweight, but he was conditioned that way. When we get accustomed to an eating that way, we become used to that we that is that is our normal, you know, very few babies are born obese. Right? Right. So where does the obesity come from, you know, we tell moms, you have to give your kids X amount of formula every so many hours instead of if a baby's nursing, and they turn away from the breast and they stop eating, or they turn away from the bottle, it means they're full, we have we've damaged people satiety cues, you know, or their hunger cues, because they got to be on a clock instead of eating when they're hungry. And I mean, granted, you can't always eat when you're hungry. And, you know, sometimes when adults are hungry, they're really dehydrated, and they don't drink enough water. And so, you know, sometimes there's a little bit of that at play. And we're not also brilliant at understanding our cues. And what those mean, and those cues also don't mean that we're going to necessarily choose healthy things, either, right? I tell people not to go to the grocery store when they're hungry. Because right don't always make the best choices. Why do you think they're candy bars at the cash register?

 Janet Walker  06:13

Right. Well, and you know, coming from an Italian family, food is love. And that's what you want to give to your kids. That's what you want to give to your guests. And the more people eat, the better it makes you feel because they're loving your food and you're loving them.

 Felicia Stoler, MD  06:31

And and you're very lucky that you have a wonderful relationship with food. Some people don't have good relationships with food, some people, you know, maybe they don't have good experience with cooking food or access to food. Or maybe there was too much stress in their family at mealtime when people come together, you could use that as a good time. But some people it's traumatic, and I never really appreciated that until I did some of my training at an inpatient eating disorder program. And this one patient I'll never forget she said mealtime was when, you know my parents like grilled us about our schoolwork or yelled at us about other things. And you know, you don't realize like that, you know, there's that like a like a like a response. It's it's like a Pavlov's dog kind of thing. You know, where if every time you sat down there were these topics that made you want to cringe like maybe your relationship with food wasn't really healthy, or good. But I hear you you know the whole food thing because I'm a I'm a big foodie and I love to enjoy food and I love to cook food I love to entertain and I love to like I'm not entertaining cater like I like to really like literally like, create everything and serve it because it gives me pleasure to see other people enjoying the fruits of my labor.

 Janet Walker  07:43

Good. Nice. Me too. Me too.

 Felicia Stoler, MD  07:46

I just wanted people to get out of the notion of, you know, blaming their genes for their life and knowing that you can really, life is about choice. And there are a lot of choices that you can make, you can choose to, you know, choose different foods, for the most part, choose different beverages make better for you choices, you can choose to move or to set, you know, and even people that have mobility issues can find other ways to do exercise because it's not just about how you look, it's about what's good for your body. We know that the value of exercise is good for your mental health, it's good for your cardiopulmonary system, it's good for maintaining muscle mass and bone density, helping to lower cholesterol helping it actually helps with blood glucose levels over time because if you exercise regularly, it forces glucose into the cells in the absence of insulin so you don't require insulin as that gatekeeper into cellular health. And so again, like exercise is not i i like to tell people think about exercise like brushing your teeth, brushing your hair, showering, bathing you know, whatever it is that you do regularly for your body, you know, try to find a way to do something and it doesn't have to be in a gym it can be housecleaning, it can be doing gardening something as simple as even going for a walk I've been I just finished almost done reading Sanjay Gupta his book about the brain and Alzheimer's and aging and he talks about a lot about exercise so I just like skimmed through it because I know all that but you know especially with Alzheimer's you know you look at an you know, the aging brain and what is beneficial for for aging and being physically active. But I try to use physical activities that have exercise because the word physical activity is less threatening mentally and emotionally to people and a little bit more inviting. So I've learned over time, it's like how you use those vocabulary. You can either off or turn them on.

 Janet Walker  09:44

So talking about your your lifestyle plan in the book, is that customized based on someone's genetic makeup?

 Felicia Stoler, MD  09:54

Well, what I did in my book, which I actually would love to do an updated version of because I in my book, I was very special. cific about calorie ranges, I know some people still feel comfortable having calorie ranges, because they don't, they don't feel confident in their own ability to choose or to eyeball portions. But it was really specific about understanding your gender, your height, your weight, your goals, and what that means in terms of calories. And really, it wasn't so much about being so calorie restrictive. It's about understanding what type of portions from each of the food groups makes up a full day's worth of food, because most people don't even know what a portion is, you know, portion isn't what's served to at a restaurant. And if you're eating at a restaurant, you're not seeing a nutrition facts label to know how many servings are on that plate. And I can assure you, most restaurants serve super large portions, where you know, you're getting way more than you need. And so it was just about trying to teach people to be more aware of the choices that they make. So I think what I would do differently is be a little bit less prescriptive. Now, you know, as I've been doing this for another 10 years, of, of, you know, private practice and seeing where science is that, you know, people think science is a very black and white place. And what we know is that science evolves, and it evolves. And it's not that science changes drastically, it's that our understanding of science changes, if we'd been able to collect data and look at cause and effect if we'd been able to have like new equipment or, or testing modalities to be able to test and examine, review and look at things even on a cellular level better, you know. That's why people get confused about they feel like science flip flops, you know, fat would be an example of, you know, we told people not to eat fat, and it's okay to eat sad, and what fat should it be? And, you know, think about how many people went from butter to margarine, and then we saw rises in heart disease, and that really caused, you know, the scientists to go well, what is it that's different? What was it about the margarine versus the butter? That was different, and it was trans versus saturated fats. And then it's like up next thing, you know, in the 90s, trans fats had to come out of foods, because this manmade thing that was meant to keep liquid fat stable at room temperature or solid at room temperature, the human body couldn't break it down. And that's really what the problem was. So now trans fats are out and set fats are somewhat back in and, you know, people get confused. I mean, everybody can't be a food labels scientist and know exactly what they need. And that's where, you know, I teach people about label reading, but I don't want people to develop another form of OCD, where they just don't have that training. For me, I ended up going to a dietician and exercise physiologist because I was having struggles in my 20s. I read all these magazines and books. And but I and this woman literally said to me, Felicia, you don't understand how the human body works, you don't understand the physiology of the body, you read a lot, it makes sense. And then you go to the next thing, and you do the next extreme thing. And it just, it doesn't help.

 Janet Walker  13:02

So talking about science, in our foods, how important our whole foods, and how important are organic foods?

 Felicia Stoler, MD  13:10

I am not? I am not somebody who insists that people eat organic. And the reason why is that I don't think people really understand a how food is made be what it means in terms of organic and see like organic foods do have other pesticides, and then they do have other antifungals. There are other things in there that are not as quote pure as people think. But that's okay. It's so that we don't end up with foodborne illnesses. You know, every time there's an Ecoli breakout from some organic food, it's because breaking news, folks, you know what, they use this fertilizer on organic farms, they use fecal waste from cows, usually, you know, and so that's what it is, for a lot of times fertilizer is poop, you know, not human poop, but we use animal poop. And that's what it that's where the nitrogen comes from. And that's, and that's okay. People have been doing that for 1000s of yours. But understanding that I have a lot I live in New Jersey, it's the Garden State. I've talked to a lot of local farmers. And they can't even afford to do the organic certifications because it's very expensive. Sometimes it's cost prohibitive for them in terms of labor and in terms of what is required, and they just don't have the manpower or the opportunity. And my one of my professors at Columbia, she was a leader. Her name is John Gastel. She was a leader in nutritional ecology in the 70s. She started talking about that. And she said it is more important to eat seasonal and regional, regional and local. And she really like burned this into our brains about the importance of it because and I say this to people all the time. I want to eat food for Local farmers so that those farms remain food producers, instead of becoming shopping centers. Right, right, the rise, you know, we are going to have a shortage of food and fresh water on this planet by 2050. So, Gary, you know, that's where some of these folks were asking me about the whole the whole you know, plant protein thing versus I said just get people to eat smaller portions, we still have an obesity problem in this world, folks, like, we're not starving and we don't want to get there but people should eat a little bit less, you know, have their portions and maybe eat like more things like nuts and seeds, right? Do you eat pieces pea protein or D pieces? The whole piece? Yeah, no, we think about proteins really hot and sexy right now. But I know lots of people's that won't eat peas because they thought they're too high in carbs. They're starchy carbs, you know, we used to, you know, make people crazy. Don't eat peas. Don't eat carrots, don't eat potatoes don't eat bananas. They're starch, their starch or starch? Where do you think all these proteins come in from plants, which are starch, starch is the starches and are and fibers which I know we want to talk about, are really the structure of plants. Right, we have bones, right, we have a matrix, we have bones that we got skin on the outside to keep everything in. And plants use fibrous, you know, starches, and, and fiber to basically be that structure of the plan to hold those cells intact, and all those yummy nutrients that we want to get.

 Janet Walker  16:35

Let's talk a little bit about fiber and digestive health. And then I also wanted to talk to you a little bit about a product called digestive three plus, that our sponsor life farm produces. Why is fiber so important in our diet?

 Felicia Stoler, MD  16:50

Well, I always say fiber is my other favorite F word after Felicia. So the reason why fiber is so important is well a if you're eating it, you're hopefully eating more plants. So we get back to the whole plant thing again, but really what we know about fiber, and I'm gonna tell you a little some facts here, the recommendation for fiber intake for adults is at least 25 to 30 grams of fiber a day. And the reality is that most people eat less than 10 grams of fiber a day. You don't get fiber in beef, chicken, poultry, or fish. It's only found in plants. Anything that came from a plant from the ground from a tree, you know, the fruit of something off of a vine, that is where fiber is found. So not only is it the structure plants, but what it is so great at is really helping our digestive tract because there's a lot of things going on in our digestive tract number one, you know, people talk about like this roughage and this idea of cleansing or you know, doing a cleanse or a detox those cells that have to come off the lining of our GI tract. I mean, fiber helps with that, number one, number two, it helps to remove cholesterol from our body. So it will bind to cholesterol that may be in our diet in a mixed meal. So that it is not allowed to permeate into the small intestine to go into the bloodstream. So some of that fat is going to go out what what fiber also does is it slows down digestion. So if you think about eating a mixed macronutrient meals and macronutrients are carbohydrates, protein, and fat. If you eat carbohydrates only without any fiber, like if you drink a glass of juice that has no Pope and oh five on it, it will go into your stomach and empty out of your stomach into your small intestine very rapidly. When you have protein when you have fat, and when you have fiber, it slows down that digestion process. So people talk about like a rapid uptake of blood sugar, this will help slow that process down. So it slows down a meal if you have more fiber in your diet. And what we also have learned, as scientists have spent more time looking at fiber is it does something really special, it feeds the good bacteria in our gut. So we have these good bugs in our belly that help with digestion and help us to maintain health, and they get hungry too. And they need to be fed and what they live on is fiber. So a lot of times people take probiotics, the whole idea of a probiotic. Working by itself it works most effectively with fiber present. So I'll give you a really easy analogy. Somebody explained this to me and I've been stealing it I don't even know who told me this in the first place. But think about fibers roll in digestion and health and probiotics like probiotics think of as seeds. Let's say I have seeds for plant and I put it on a glass table. No sunlight, no water. no nitrogen, how's it gonna grow? How's it gonna, it's gonna stay, right like think about easy thing to think about like, dried rice, right? You've got rice in your pantry, and it doesn't do anything, when there's no water, there's nothing, there's nothing going on with it. So, probiotics by themselves, that's how they act, they need to be fueled. So by taking probiotics with some fiber present, and available for uptake is the best way for that probiotic to be the most effective and efficient at doing what our body's needed to do.

 Janet Walker  20:36

Interesting, you know, I never really considered how important fiber was in our diet, you know, I say, Oh, that's a really old people, they need to, you know, take fiber,

 Felicia Stoler, MD  20:45

go to the people and think about fiber in terms of bowel movements. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And there's a lot to be said for that, because people that, you know, okay, so if you look at food and relationship between disease, right, we know that people that eat higher fiber have lower cholesterol, we know that people that eat higher fiber, have less incidence of colon cancer, you know, which is a very dominant cancer. And so you think about why there is cancer. So fiber does create bulk to the fecal mass, which is, you know, the, it's, it's the results of, you know, everything you eat, what goes in must come out, and you know, how it comes out. Hopefully, it's formed and solid, you know, people laugh, I like often will pull up poop charts and talk to people about it's a weird thing in the United States, we don't like to talk about it. But in like Asia, it's a very big deal to look at, for moms to look in the toilet and see how their children's bowel movements look, because you know, you and I were talking about food and getting pleasure from food and enjoyment. Well, in some cultures, people, parents get enjoyment, knowing that their kid had a good bowel movement, like it's a well formed bowel movement, you know, you think about problems that people have, as a result of not going regularly, I mean, diarrhea is like, and other things like Crohn's and Colitis are totally separate topics that I don't think we're gonna have time to get into. But just looking at regular digestive health, if fecal mass is stuck in your colon, which is the end of the gastrointestinal tract for a long time, then that stuff is spending a lot of time in contact with the cells there. And it's not great to be there for days at a time. You know, that's why it's important that you go at least once a day to the bathroom and have a bowel movement. And people don't like to talk about that. But it's so important. So having more fiber allows you to do it. It's not just fiber by itself, you need to have adequate water too. Because if you just take a whole lot of fiber supplements, and you don't take a lot of water, you can end up with a bowel obstruction.

Janet Walker  22:44

Eight years ago, or so my husband had some serious health challenges, and he ended up with a kidney transplant. And so he had to meet with the nutritionist afterwards. And of course, there are certain things that he can't eat, because they could introduce bacteria into the system. But the most important thing for his diet was a high fiber diet. And so and I found that so interesting, you know, that high fiber would have been something that was that important for a transplant patient above everything else.

 Felicia Stoler, MD  23:20

Yeah, well, sometimes people will talk to me about fiber and go, I don't have any problems, go to the bathroom. I'm like, I get it. But like fibers an important part of keeping your body healthy. I mean, it's, it should be as important to people as protein. You know, we were talking before about high protein diets, and people just really take that for granted. So that's where, you know, I try to look for foods that are higher in fiber. And that's really where I want people to look at food labels. For foods that should have fiber, you could look at different pastas. I mean, I think it's wonderful, all these other pastas that are now being made or these other grains or other things like beans or vegetables that are being added to pasta like I remember as a kid my mom would buy green pasta, spinach, pasta, and I thought it was such a treat, you know, to eat it but now they have pasta made out of beans, you know chickpeas, red beans, black beans, I mean, those things to me are like super colon blow. I mean, you could look at you look at fiber in cereals. I mean, those are places where people get it. Often people look at things like white rice versus brown rice me rice in general is negligible, like traditional rice has negligible fiber so white rice compared to brown rice and we're talking about a half a gram of fiber compared to zero grams of fiber that's not the best source of fiber but, you know, some cereals that are out there, you know, that are higher in fiber, you know, look, that's where I think like looking at food labels are really important and I want to stress, you know, yes, you should get more of it from food, but there are times where taking a fiber supplement can just help you because, you know, day to day there may be so much variability in in your diet, you may not be able to predict all the fiber you're going to eat. So that's where I think supplementation really comes into play. And why I'm a huge fan of supplementation, yes, I believe you should get as many of your nutrients from food as you can. But the truth is to get clinically significant levels to maintain or improve health, sometimes you need to add supplements to your diet. And that's why I do recommend them.

Janet Walker  25:27

So with regard to supplements, let's talk a little bit about digestive three plus, because you mentioned that combining a probiotic with a fiber is a good thing to do. Absolutely. So okay, so tell me about digestive three plus,

Felicia Stoler, MD  25:44

yes. So what I think is very cool about digestive free plus, is that it's got its, you know, it's got a prebiotic blend of various fibers that come from not just one source, but a few sources, and that they also have enzymes added to it, in addition to the probiotic. And another reason why these enzymes are helpful, it's especially as we age, our body's organs, that produce digestive enzymes, sometimes slow down production, so we just don't produce as much as we used to. And the enzymes are necessary to help not only break down food, but to allow the nutrients or the specific ingredients in those foods like carbohydrates, for example, or fat to actually get pulled from the small intestine, into through through the, through the barrier of the intestinal tract through the blood stream to go into the liver so the body can use it. So it's like an assistive device that helps to carry specific nutrients on a cellular level, into the body. So that's why I think, you know, the product is so cool, because it's not just a probiotic, and it's not just a probiotic, and a fiber, it was prebiotic, that's what we talked about prebiotic fibers. But I love the fact that it also has the enzyme blend that's added to it. And I think that's what makes it a completely unique product compared to other products that are in the marketplace. Now,

Janet Walker  27:14

I said it's capsule form.

Felicia Stoler, MD  27:16

And it's a capsule form. So very easy to take. And again, I want to recommend that people should even though it's a capsule, and it seems small, definitely want to consume adequate water, I'd say at least one ounce glass of water should be sufficient with that,

Janet Walker  27:30

is there a better time of day to take probiotics and take fiber supplements, morning, evening with meals,

 Felicia Stoler, MD  27:37

I do believe for most folks that taking it like, early in the day, and again, it depends on the person is better for you, because it's sort of getting the getting the good bacteria sort of primed, you know, it's like, it's like people want to know about like fueling exercise, whether or not they should eat before they exercise. You know, sometimes they need to and sometimes they don't really depends. But this is a great way to make sure that you're pretty much waking up the bacteria in your belly, making sure that they're basically like fuel to get ready for the nutrients that are to come in going to come in throughout the day. And sort of keep them going. So that would be a reason why but like sometimes some people may want it at night. In this particular products example, maybe not for that purpose. But some people have constipation issues where taking fiber is incredibly important for bowel movements. So not that you want to do it when you go to sleep. But you may want to do it when you wake up. So it allows that amount of hours for it to basically go through your system to stimulate your GI tract so that you can have a bowel movement in the morning.

 Janet Walker  28:51

One thing that's interesting to me with probiotics, and this product doesn't like highlight how many billions and billions of bacteria but you see that on store shelves all the time. This one has 10 billion, this one has 50 billion this one has 100 billion. What what, what is that? And should people pay attention to that?

Felicia Stoler, MD  29:09

You know, a lot of it is just again, it's sort of like created by the industry trying to create a demand. I think it also can confuses consumers. You know, I don't even as much as I'm an expert in digestive health. I mean, there I have colleagues that are just specific experts in probiotics like I admittedly don't know all the finite details in the minutiae, I have to know a lot about a lot of things. And that isn't something that I've chosen to focus on because it's really not that important at the end of the day for what I do in terms of educating people. What is really cool about this product is that it's a particular blend instead of saying it's got 20 different varieties of probiotics, which sometimes like and I get it like people make these products There are reasons why somebody might want to use it in their brand. And a lot of times brands are creating it to create their own unique selling points. And having vast diversity of probiotic strains does not always work well for people. In fact, for some people, it can create situations where they ended up with diarrhea. And they ended up having other unintended consequences of consuming too many probiotics, with out all the other stuff that goes along with it, which again, is why just popping lots of probiotics all the time isn't great. And another reason why people take pro Well, I think people should take probiotics and prebiotic fiber all the time. So that should be a daily ritual. But for folks that end up for example, taking an antibiotic, so think about that word antibiotic, right, that helps to kill germs. Right. And bacteria, well, guess what, it kills the good ones, too, which is why people or doctors or pharmacists will often recommend with certain probe with some antibiotics that you take probiotics and just help the body reestablish the club, the gut flora, or the good bacteria that belong in your belly.

Janet Walker  32:22

Excellent. And then, so aside from natural fiber, and in from plants and vegetables, and this product, which is wonderful product and capsule form, there, there is another supplement form of fiber,

Felicia Stoler, MD  32:38

right. The other way to get fiber is to get it as a powder. So people may be familiar with products like Fenichel, or Metamucil. There's another ingredient called Sun fiber. And I used to do work with that company. And I helped create a product called regular girl, which is all about helping people be regular. And it was really an opportunity to really put together fiber in a way that was convenient for people. I like the whole Grab and Go aspect, which is why I also like, you know, the life farm product, and that it's a capsule, people are always buying these tubs of things. And you know, tubs are not easy to travel with tubs are not things, you know, how often is somebody going to take that that product and maybe put it in a Ziploc bag or a little container and take it to work with them or take it when they're traveling. So convenience is really important. And, you know, part of why we know I helped work on this other product again, like digestive health is so key and critical to what I do. And I believe in it, you know, because there's science supporting it. And because of what I do for a living, it's important part of of health and well being. But you know, I wanted to sort of have like a whole little play on words, because, as we talked about before, we don't like to talk about things like that in this country. Nobody wants to talk about their stomach problems, or if they have problems going to the bathroom, you know, and you know, my kids are like, Mom, it always ends up having toilet conversation. You know, or people will say to me, oh my God, I didn't mean to talk to you about that. I'm so embarrassed. I'm like, No, I talk about it all the time. That's why the whole idea of calling something right, you know, like a regular girl is, you know, women talk about the stuff more than men do. And women because of hormonal reasons, and aging and things that go on during aging process and how our hormone hormone levels change over time. It does impact us and also think about stress in the stomach and that gut. And that gut brain relationship. You know, women carry a lot of our emotions in our stomach. I don't know why we just do and you're nodding your head and you get it like we do so. You know, but and that's a that's a non flavored product and then you know, things like Metamucil and benecol, they're playing that those are different types of fibers like those fibers gel up in water if you don't like consume them quickly, you may not want to consume them at all, you know, so, you know, different different there's literally like different strokes for different folks. And you know, so I understand why those fibers are there those are personally that fibers that I necessarily encourage because I don't like the sweeteners and the flavoring that go into it.

 Janet Walker  35:09

So can someone combine the products and have the the capsule with probiotics and in the digestive three plus and also the regular girl? Fiber?

 Felicia Stoler, MD  35:18

Absolutely. And if they want to have Metamucil or benecol, they could do that too. Or other you know, I know that there's some other, you know, products. I've seen some other products that are corn based fibers. I mean, look, I'm not I'm not a fiber snob, whatever you can do to get more fiber in your diet is important, you know, and, but I think what's important is if you want probiotics with fiber, and again, like understanding some people who have IBS, and they have issues with digestive health, which, you know, we don't have time to talk about, but like people sometimes need to use a low FODMAP diet as a as a therapeutic diet. So there are very specific fibers and, and carbohydrates and other nutrients that are contraindicated when somebody is trying to determine what their food sensitivity is. So, you know, that's why I say different strokes for different folks.

 Janet Walker  36:07

First, I want to say Dr. Stoller, thank you so much for being with us and spending so much time talking to us today. I really, really appreciate it. You're just a wealth of knowledge. Thank you. I appreciate that. And listeners if you want advice to overcome genetics that might be holding back your weight management and good health by making good nutrition and lifestyle choices. You can get a copy of Dr. Stoller, his book, Living skinny and fat genes the healthy way to lose weight and feel great through Amazon or Barnes and Noble. In the book you'll also find quick and easy recipes for nutritious meals. And you may even want to take your copy to the grocery store for its list of food substitutions, best sources of proteins and superfoods. Thanks so much for listening to healthy cells healthy you with me, your host Janet Walker. You can find us on Apple podcasts I Heart Radio, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, subscribe and tell your friends together we'll build healthy cells and healthy