00:00
JJ
Stress destroyed my gut. And it might be the mysterious cause for your stubborn belly fat, your brain fog, indigestion, literally. The list goes on and on. Now here’s the truth most people miss. Your gut can get wrecked. Even when your diet is perfect. Stress is one of the fastest ways to damage your microbiome and break down your gut barrier, which means leaky gut. Hey, I’m JJ Virgin, PhD, dropout. Sorry mom. Turned four time New York Times bestselling author. As a certified nutrition specialist, fitness hall of Famer, and globally recognized leader in health, I’m driven to keep asking the tough questions and use my podcast to simplify the science of health into actionable strategies that help you thrive. I’d also love to hear your thoughts on the show. And here’s the fun part.

00:54
JJ
When you send me your review, I’ll reply to you using my on demand virtual me. That’s right, my team and I created a virtual JJ packed with my books, speeches and wisdom so I can personally connect with you. Here’s how you do it. Subscribe and leave an honest review of the podcast. Take a screenshot of your review. Text it to 813-565-2627. That’s 813-56526 to 7. My virtual JJ will reply directly. And trust me, this will make your day. So subscribe now@subscribeetojay.com and text me your review. Let’s keep thriving together now. I recently went through one of the most stressful periods of my life a few months ago and literally everything shifted because of stress. My microbiome became imbalanced, my stomach acid dropped, my gut became more permeable, and suddenly foods I’d been eating for years were triggering bloating, pain, inflammation.

02:01
JJ
I looked like I was nine months pregnant. There was no amount of Spanx or sucking it in that was helping. And I was really self conscious about it. Now what y’ all might be thinking at this point is, okay jj, so how did you fix it? Cause, I mean, literally. I wrote the book on food intolerances, the Virgin Diet on Leaky Gut. So I knew to pull out the most likely culprits. But there was something else going on. There was another trigger. So I dug deeper to see what else I might be reacting to. My answer was the FODMAP diet. Now I use this as a temporary reset to heal my gut, to calm everything down, and to rebuild my microbiome. And I know I’m not the only one who’s experienced some stress.

02:43
JJ
So today I’M going to walk you through exactly what happened to my gut. What the FODMAP diet actually is, what to eat, what to avoid and how long to stay on it and how to transition off it so you can get back to eating the foods you love without fear. Because after all, the virgin diet was never meant to be drop seven foods forever. It was to figure out which foods work for you and which foods don’t. Same with FODMAP. So let’s talk about what happened to my gut, and let’s start with the real culprit. Stress. Stress isn’t just a feeling. It actually changes your biology. And if you don’t believe me, stop watching this video right now and go watch my interview with Dr. Amy Opygian, the author of Biology of Trauma, and then come back.

03:23
JJ
So, so here’s what it did to my gut. It disrupted my microbiome, my good bacteria dropped, my opportunistic bacteria grew. My gut, whole environment became unbalanced. It started feeling like I had small intestinal bacterial overgrowth where I was like just bloaty all the time. It also lowered my stomach acid. Low stomach acid means trouble breaking down proteins, more bloating, more bacteria surviving into the small intestine. Again, where it should not go. And one of the ways I solved that, of course, was enzymes more on that. But it also increased that gut permeability, also known as leaky gut, which means food particles and inflammatory compounds pass through the gut lining and right below that is your immune system and it gets activated.

04:05
JJ
Now, it made me react to foods that had never bothered me and also a couple that used to bother me before I healed my gut. You know the seven I write about in the virgin diet. Now, if you’re struggling, pulling those seven foods out is always step one. Virgin diet’s always step one. But if it’s not enough, and it wasn’t enough for me because of the state my gut was in, here’s another thing to look at, and that is the low FODMAP diet. Now, this is not a lifestyle. You won’t be on this forever. It’s a therapeutic tool, short term, so you can calm everything down. Get out of that looking pregnant stage so that your body can start to repair. So if you’re feeling bloated, you’re inflamed, you’re suddenly reacting to healthy foods.

04:46
JJ
It doesn’t mean your gut’s gonna be messed up for the rest of your life. Means your gut just needs a reset. And again, sometimes that’s as simple as doing the virgin diet to figure out which foods work for you and which foods don’t. Virgin diet isn’t a one time thing. You can build up a food intolerance, create one at any time. Right. Could be fixing nutrient deficiencies and adding supplements that can help support and heal your gut, like collagen and fiber and enzymes and vitamin D3 and K2. You can learn all about that in my essential supplement guide for women 40 plus. I put the link in the description, but sometimes that’s just not enough. You gotta go deeper for relief. So let’s talk about the FODMAP diet, what it is, how it works, and what’s the weird name? Anyway, okay, here it is.

05:27
JJ
You’ll know why they have an acronym because it stands for fermentable oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides and polyols. These are certain types of carbohydrates that are poorly digested or absorbed in the small intestine. And when they don’t get absorbed, well, you know what happens? They go into the large intestine where gut bacteria ferment them. And that means you’ll look pregnant producing gas, bringing a lot of water into the gut. And if you got anything going on, you’re a little sensitive. This can be bloating, pain, gas, diarrhea, constipation. Nothing more fun than having both of those. So the deal with these foods, you’re going to hear them and go, oh, they’re not inherently bad. And that’s what’s really important for you to understand. In fact, many FODMAPS come from really healthy foods.

06:10
JJ
And when I looked at my diet, I was like, oh, these are all my favorite foods are high FODMAPS. Oligosaccharides include things like fructans and galactooligosaccharides which are found in foods like wheat. Well, I don’t eat wheat, but I eat onions and garlic and legumes. Disaccharides refer to lactose, to sugar and milk and some dairy products. And monosaccharides refer to excess fructose. So apples, apple juice, pears, mangoes, honey, and then polyols. And those are sugar alcohols like sorbitol and mannitol, but also in foods like stone fruits and mushrooms, which are like my favorite food on the planet. And then also in some of the sweeteners and some of the sugar free products. So here’s what makes this whole thing tricky. It’s not the foods themselves. It’s how your individual gut handles them.

06:57
JJ
Some people digest these carbs just fine, I know I did for years. While others get significant symptoms, Especially if you’ve been diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome, small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, or your gut’s inflamed or you are stressed. So that’s why this low FODMAP approach is not a forever diet. It’s a short term strategy to calm symptoms, identify triggers, and then slowly reintroduce food as the gut heals and tolerance improves. Here’s the big takeaway. FODMAPs are not the enemy. They’re simply fermentable carbs that can cause symptoms in a compromised gut. And the goal isn’t long term restriction, it’s understanding, it’s personalizing and eventually expanding your diet so you can get back to having all the foods that you love. Which again, I’m gonna walk through it and tell you, like, these are some of my most favorite foods.

07:44
JJ
So I went on this low FODMAP diet. It was like overnight improvement. I went from looking nine months pregnant to back to normal. And thankfully I just stopped all that crampy, bloaty feeling that I had. Now what’s good news is animal protein, lean animal protein is low FODMAP. So I was like, okay, I can do this. The vegetables were a little rough. Like vegetable low FODMAPS are parsnips and turnips and zucchini and carrots and greens. Really not many of my faves. My favorites are all the high FODMAP ones. Mushrooms, garlic, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, artichokes. I was like, oh, all right. Back to what you can’t eat. Berries. Yay. Because I ate a lot of blueberries, eggs, gluten free grains, quinoa, wild rice, lactose free dairy. I found a killer lactose free Faye Greek style yogurt. 2% fat. Amazing.

08:36
JJ
And then healthy fats, thankfully, like avocado and olives. But again, the biggest things that I was eating so much of, I mean, we would literally sit down at dinner and have roasted broccolini with garlic. And then I would have onions and mushrooms. That’s what I was eating so much of. I don’t eat a lot of apples and pears and mangoes. These tend to be higher fructose fruits. I’ve always found that they kind of mess with my blood sugar. The other things that I don’t tend to eat much of are wheat and rye, but those can be Problematic as well. Legumes. Now, you can eat little bits of lentils, little bits of these things here and there. But if you’re eating a lot of legumes can get you into trouble. And again, I mentioned mushrooms and cauliflower. You know, I’m a cauliflower.

09:15
JJ
If you’ve been around my world. Cauliflower pizza crust, cauliflower rice, cauliflower mash. I put cauliflower in everything. I was even playing around putting it in smoothies. And then some of the soft cheeses, which be the only cheeses that I would ever really eat. Feta and goat and then sweeteners. Again, some of the different sugar alcohols, which I pretty much have dumped those in favor of allulose, monk fruit and stevia. But again, my favorite vegetables. I considered just pulling Carnivore for a while and I think this is probably why Carnivore helps people in the short term. But here’s the cool thing. Unlike the virgin diet, where when you pull those seven foods out, you have to keep them out 100%. With these little sneaks in here or there, it’s not going to be a problem. It’s really the amount.

09:54
JJ
And I was like overloading high FODMAP foods. All right, so I pulled it out. I felt much better. How long do you need to stay on it? Cause this is not a forever diet. It’s really much more of a reset. And what I found was right away I felt a lot better. I’ve been reintroducing things here and there and really haven’t noticed any real problems. But I’m not overloading like I was before. I mean, I was just like going crazy with this. Also look at what else might be going on and start to heal your gut. Collagen is so good. My bone broth protein shake or my collagen peptides are great for healing and sealing. That fiber is super important for the microbiome enzymes. D3K2. Maybe you took some antibiotics and you didn’t follow up with enough probiotics.

10:36
JJ
Maybe some ultra processed foods or some gluten are sneaking in that are causing problems. So really look and see what could be causing some of the issues and then all of the things that you need to do to heal. But for me, what it really meant is I had to take a serious look at my commitments because what threw me over the edge was my next book, which I’m really excited about, the metabolism fix, but the deadline was too tight and I was like so stressed out that my eyes started Twitching and got all of these red bloody things. And I mean, just bad stuff was happening, you know, Kind of ridiculous when you think about it. I’m writing a book on how to fix your metabolism while trashing my metabolism.

11:12
JJ
So the biggest way I fixed my gut here was to push the book deadline out and then really take a hard look at myself. Like, you know, I’m like my own boss. What am I doing? Stop taking on so much. And I just mentioned this in case you’re finding your to do list is stressing you out and things are feeling insurmountable or out of control. You know, I kept saying, oh, you can pull this off. I’ve faced more challenging things than this. But, you know, my body was like, no, you can’t. And I’m going to just show you can’t. So please don’t wait and have your body do all the things it was telling me to do. Like, you know, if you start to check in with this and notice, like, chill it.

11:47
JJ
But again, the FODMAPS diet is really just to help you get out of the extreme. Ow. Right. And the bloat so that you can make the lifestyle changes, heal your gut, and then start reintroducing foods again. So that’s what’s coming next, is how to heal, how to transition back. Because once your symptoms improve, this is where you’re healing, you’re rebuilding your microbiome and you want to reintroduce your foods in the right order. Because here’s the reality. You want to be able to do things like fermented foods. Again, they’re so good. So first thing is all the things that really help heal your gut, like collagen, bone broth, protein powder, freshly ground flaxseed meal, good white fish. Those do. Careful with the fermented foods. Start playing around with those. They’re really good for your gut microbiome, but they can trigger a lot of this.

12:31
JJ
Use digestive enzymes. I’ve been using my protein digestive enzymes all the way along to help support stomach acid. Of course, I’m a maniac for sleep, but it may be that you have to look at what else is going on in your life that you might need to cool it with. As far as fiber goes, as, you know, it’s really important for your gut bacteria, but you generally will have to take it down a little bit and then start to bring it back up, see how you do. And then I’ve just been doing little bits of FODMAP foods, like I’m not going back to my let’s just have some cauliflower rice with lentils and mushrooms and onions and garlic for dinner. Like I just adding a little bit in and I’m just checking in to see how I feel.

13:11
JJ
And that’s one of the things I had you do in the Virgin Diet is you kept a food log so you could really connect those dots. You can now do that on the app. So you can use the Cronometer app, keep a food log because you want to be able to connect those dots between what you’re eating and how you feel. And remember you’re still supporting even as you start to feel better. Don’t like go oh I’m good bye. No no. Continue to support your gut integrity and digestion. I gotten a little laughs with my protein digestive enzymes bad on me but not on my collagen. I’m really consistent with that. But again, the goal here is not to restrict your life. The goal is to rebuild your gut so you can live this amazing full out life right?

13:50
JJ
Oh, one more piece to this dealing with that stress that caused it in the first place. Like I was able to push my book launch out, but sometimes you can’t take it out. So sometimes you just got a very stressful situation. So what can you do to improve your stress resilience? Maybe it’s Dr. Joe Dispenza’s meditations. Maybe it’s some breath work. Maybe it’s hanging out with your dogs where your kids figure out what it is. But the bottom line is, and here’s the takeaway, stress can break down your gut, but you can also rebuild it. The Low FODMAP diet is a short term tool to calm inflammation, stabilize your digestion and give your microbiome space to heal. Use it for a few weeks, repair your gut lining, then transition back to a diverse, nourishing way of eating.

14:32
JJ
Now if you found this helpful hit, subscribe Share this video with someone who’s struggling with gut issues. And just a reminder that I added my essential supplement guide for women 40+ in the description below and feel free to send it to a friend too. It’ completely free. Be sure to join me next time for more tools, tips and techniques you can use to look and feel your best and be built to last. Also, I’d love to connect with you and hear your thoughts on the podcast. Here’s how. First, subscribe to the podcast and leave an honest review. Second, take a screenshot of your review and third, text it to 813-565-2627. That’s 813-565-2627. When you do, I’ll reply using my brand new Virtual jj.

15:29
JJ
It’s my on demand virtual self built from my books, talks and years of experience so I can interact with you directly quickly. You’ll make my day and I can’t wait to hear from you. Thanks for tuning in and I’ll catch you on the next episode. Hey JJ here. And just a reminder that the well Beyond 40 podcast offers health, wellness, fitness and nutritional information that’s designed for educational and entertainment purposes only. You should not rely on this information as a substitute for, nor does it replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you have any concerns or questions about your health, you should always consult with a physician or other healthcare professional.

16:10
JJ
Make sure that you do not disregard, avoid or delay obtaining medical or health related advice from your healthcare professional because of something you may have heard on the show or read in our show notes. The use of any information provided on the show is solely at your own risk.

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