Bloating, Brain Fog and Fatigue After Meals — What Your Gut Is Actually Telling You

The full transcript of this episode is below. Lightly edited for readability.

Kelly: Welcome to Wellness Simplified. I’m Kelly Nicholls, and this show is for busy people who care deeply about their health, but are drowning in conflicting advice and don’t know where to focus. Every episode, we simplify one area of health, one habit, one simple experiment, one clear next step that will actually fit into your life. Together, let’s optimise our health, one simple step at a time.

Kelly: Do you have bloating, brain fog, low energy after eating, or just a gut feeling that something’s off? Most people put up with these symptoms for years, assuming it’s just how they are. But it’s not. Your gut influences everything. Your energy, your mood, your hormones, your immune system, even how well you age. And most of us are unknowingly doing things every single day that are working against it.

Kelly: I’m Kelly Nicholls and this is Wellness Simplified, the podcast that gives you one clear habit every week so you can stop guessing and start feeling better. Today I’m joined by Natasha Sidoti, a naturopath, nutritionist and herbal medicine practitioner based on Sydney’s Northern Beaches. She’s going to give you simple practical steps that you can start right now to improve your gut health and how you feel overall. One habit at the end. Let’s get into it. Hey Tash, welcome to the show.

Natasha: Hi Kelly. Thanks for having me on. And I look forward to you sharing a bit more about that as we talk.

Kelly: Perfect. I could be the guinea pig, the example. Let’s do it. Before we jump in, I’d love to hear a bit about you and your life. How did you start your morning? How do you set yourself up?

Natasha: That’s a lovely start. I notice if I do exercise in the morning, I feel completely different in my mood and my mindset for the day. So I do typically start with some type of exercise — either yoga or Pilates. Yoga is definitely the best for the nervous system, but sometimes we need something a bit more vigorous as well. Today I started with Pilates and walked the dog, got one of the three kids ready for school. Very productive start to the day, probably too productive.

Kelly: I think a lot of women will be nodding their heads going, yeah, I know that. That window before the household wakes — that one hour is just so precious.

Natasha: I agree. The days I go straight into mum-and-organising-people mode, I just feel so frazzled. I hate it. Even just a tiny bit of time in the sun to do something for myself makes such a huge difference. And I actually don’t feel more tired for doing it. If you’re having a hormonal time of the month and you’re not up for movement — just listen to some music, have a cup of tea, curl up with a blanket. But that quiet time for yourself is precious. Whatever it looks like.

Kelly: I like that idea of bookending the days. Carve out some time at the start and the end, and the whole rest of the day can go to shit, but at least we’ve got something sorted.

Natasha: Yes. And I think that’s true.

Kelly: I’d love to hear about your story — how you came to naturopathy from a corporate and HR career.

Natasha: I was very much burning out with a high-functioning nervous system. I was really productive, really friendly, saying yes to anything asked of me — but that was still burnout internally. I was in my 20s working in corporate — the hotel industry, then advertising, in human resources, sales, and as an executive assistant. I started to experience periods of insomnia, gut health issues — bloating and discomfort. Feeling that much fatigue in your early 20s didn’t seem right. I then had a year backpacking, saved all my money, and fell pregnant. I was based in Prague where my family is from. When I came back to Australia, I reflected on what mattered most — and it was always health and wellbeing. My stepfather was an organic, Steiner-trained farmer — anthroposophical farming, working with elements and energies. Those seeds had been planted a long time ago. It took burnout and an unexpected child to make them sprout.

Kelly: It’s cool, those moments of reflection. And it’s interesting — the seeds were always there but we’re blind to them for a period, and it takes a radical change to bring us back to what’s true.

Natasha: If you ask most holistic health practitioners, there’s usually a backstory — some sort of health challenge, or someone close to them. When you yourself have had one, you know how all-consuming it is. And once you can solve it, you want to help other people.

Kelly: And we’re of the generation told we can do everything, be everything. I tried that and it was really tiring. I don’t want to do that anymore. Let’s jump into the gut. Most people have a rough sense of what it does — but could you talk them through how the different organs work together and where things start to go wrong?

Natasha: I like to visualise a garden of microbes — different bacteria, all worlds in themselves. They produce waste, they produce energy, they’re little planets living within us, on us, and in us. That is a pulsating ecosystem constantly talking to our organs and our functional structure. They’re inextricably connected — one cannot survive without the other. We are the host, and without the microbes we would have no immune system at all. Think logically from north to south. If things up north are sluggish, deficient, it will snowball down south. So the most important thing when reviewing gut health: how am I digesting my food? How am I chewing? How is the stomach working — do I have enough hydrochloric acid to break food down and absorb B12, iron, other Bs, magnesium? If we don’t have functioning stomach acid, we’re stuffed. Reflux is acid that’s dysregulated — it’s good to have it, but it’s not coming at the right time. Taking a proton pump inhibitor just blocks it — but then how are we breaking down our food? It all starts in the mouth, where there’s actually a microbiome. Saliva kickstarts stomach acid production, which signals to the pancreas, gallbladder, and liver. The pancreas releases enzymes into the small intestine. The gallbladder and liver produce bile to emulsify fats. If those juices aren’t working, you might not actually absorb what you’re eating. And one of the key systems that needs to be a companion through all of this is your nervous system.

Kelly: Isn’t that fascinating. You can tick all the boxes — eat the perfect food — but unless you’re actually focusing on your nervous system when you’re eating, it’s not going to have the impact you want. And I imagine people taking lots of supplements — if digestion isn’t working optimally, those are probably expensive things just flushing away.

Natasha: Yes, especially if they’re tablets — you might not be breaking them down. Mind-body awareness is a skill: am I contracting? Is my tummy soft? Am I breathing high in the chest? Do I have my laptop next to my plate? Am I multitasking and eating? Those things matter. Then as food moves into the small intestine, that’s where most of our nutrition absorption happens — vitamins and minerals get across into our bloodstream. We are what we eat and what we absorb. The large bowel has a higher concentration of gut microbes, and that’s where resistant starches and undigestible fibres become fuel for those bugs. In return they give us short-chain fatty acids, neurotransmitters. They help us. So it’s really important they have the right fuel.

Kelly: You mentioned it starts in the mouth — there’s probably things people are doing that seem positive but are actually harmful. Like mouthwash — I subsequently learned that can be detrimental to your oral microbiome.

Natasha: Yes — standard mouthwash, often with ethanol and preservatives, depletes your oral microbiome. However, there are probiotic mouthwashes now. There’s an oral microbiome probiotic sachet I like to give people with gum issues — it’s called Biome Dental by Activated Probiotics. You just swish it around so it sits there for a while. There’s also a probiotic mouthwash by Blooms that has a similar strain. Other beneficial ways to support your oral microbiome include fresh herbs like parsley — parsley is fantastic for it.

Kelly: I’ve had problems historically digesting iron. Even taking different iron supplements, it hasn’t worked. One thing I found working with a naturopath was problems with the acidic balance in my stomach. Do you have recommendations for people in terms of food or supplements?

Natasha: Yes. Did you also check for Helicobacter pylori — H. pylori? Because that can sequester iron and B12 and make the stomach environment very alkaline. If you have chronic deficiencies and you’re not responding to supplementation as a female, we’ve got to check your menstrual cycle, your nutrition, H. pylori. And if all of those seem okay, then yes — focus on acidity. There are some very simple, old-school ways to support that — traditional bitters. From your local herbalist, get some drop-dose bitters — about 20 drops in room temperature water, 10 minutes before you eat. Or as you’re preparing food, just sip on it. It’s just signalling to your stomach to get started, telling the pancreas and gallbladder: come on line, let’s get our juices flowing. If you find the herbal tincture too strong, you can do apple cider vinegar — 5ml in room temperature water. Not if you have histamine sensitivities. And try foods with a bitter taste profile: radish, radicchio, mesclun, rocket, cruciferous vegetables. They stimulate digestive juices too.

Kelly: I’ve had some of those bitters. You really have to get around the taste. But I tell my kids — if it doesn’t taste good, it’s probably good for you.

Natasha: Bitters make your life sweet — they reset many things in the body, including insulin sensitivity, and they stimulate a really healthy immune system. Very inexpensive approach to supporting your digestive tract.

Kelly: I’ve also read a lot about the gut’s role in ovarian ageing. Can you speak to that?

Natasha: The gut interfaces with every part of our physical body. They even thought the uterine environment was sterile for the baby — it’s not. There’s a microbiome within the womb. Gut microbiome goes through vertical transmission through the placenta to the baby. Our ovaries and eggs are very sensitive to oxidative stress — any form of toxicity. If the gut microbiome can’t hold balance, we have higher levels of toxins and oxidative stress. That puts pressure on the mitochondria within the egg. You see signs of ovarian ageing that way. The other mechanism is through the estrobolome — parts of the gut microbiome responsible for whether oestrogen recirculates in the body or is excreted. People with trouble excreting end up with too much oestrogen, which can look like very heavy periods, significant PMS, adenomyosis, endometriosis. And interestingly, those bitters we talked about for stomach acid are also useful for oestrogen clearance.

Kelly: The good thing about looking at things naturally is you often support more than one thing at once. I think these things can feel complex, but often the actual solutions are simple.

Natasha: Fully agree. Your gut microbiome needs a big variety — like different types of ecosystems, the different species hold each other in check. I work both generally and specifically — if clients have chronic issues, I use a QPCR stool test, a five-page report called the Complete Microbiome Map. It’s DNA sequencing of your gut microbiome. For example, someone might be overgrown in Klebsiella species — they produce histamine, beta-glucuronidase, which can make you more oestrogen dominant, and make you crave sugars. So we have a target. And vice versa — they might be super low on friendly bacteria that regulate the immune system or control bowel transit time. Test, don’t guess — when something’s been bothering you for quite some time.

Kelly: The most common signs that the gut is in dysfunction — what are those?

Natasha: The most obvious is bloating. Particularly from women — I see a lot who feel it just under the breast area, almost like they’re pregnant. A good check: do your jeans feel more uncomfortable towards the end of the day? But then comfortable again in the morning after your overnight fast? Fatigue after eating is a really big sign. Food should be energising, not fatiguing. And regularity of bowel movements — I don’t think people look at their poo enough. You need to look in the toilet, see what’s going on. It’s your report card. It should be at least once a day, really well formed, without much effort. If you have allergies, skin issues, autoimmune issues, hormonal imbalances — those are all signs your gut needs attention. The gut is the mediator between all our other body systems.

Kelly: What are the biggest drivers of gut dysfunction?

Natasha: Stress. Hands down, first. I’d put it above poor diet. And I don’t mean it generally — really think about all the more pervasive forms of stress. Not just the obvious headless chook who’s got too many things to do. There are a lot of high-functioning people who are actually profoundly stressed — they still get through their day, they’re still friendly to talk to, they’re not catatonic on the couch. But it’s subtle and cumulatively erosive. That’s by far number one. Number two is processed food, even when we think it’s not — even in the health food aisle, packaged foods contain seed oils. Even a ‘healthy’ hummus has canola oil. Then there are environmental toxins — microplastics, heavy metals, pesticides on food. Cleaning products and pesticides are basically antibiotics on your gut flora. And then pharmaceuticals — not just antibiotics. The contraceptive pill, stomach acid blockers — every medication interacts with your gut microbiome. If pharmaceuticals are in the picture for whatever reason they need to be, please support your gut alongside.

Kelly: What are some simple nervous system practices you recommend to clients?

Natasha: If they’re really overwhelmed, absolutely nothing to begin with. I just support their nervous system — some herbs for their adrenals, a couple of simple lifestyle changes. Then the next visit, I ask them to just observe their diet. Not a judgment thing — just data gathering. For a week, just watch what you’re doing and what you’re not doing. Often people find they do one or two meals pretty well, but there’s one that goes by the wayside — typically lunch when people are swept up in their day. Find the meal where you need to give it more attention. Then if your digestive system can tolerate fibre, think: what are a couple of extra things I can add to at least two of my meals? Two tablespoons of chia seeds with oats. Six types of vegetables with dinner — lots of grated carrot. The gut loves carrot. Radish, sesame seeds, cruciferous veggies. Keep what you’re eating — just beef it up. That’s where I’d start.

Kelly: Candida — something really common that I’ve had on and off. Could you talk about how it presents and what actually works in treating it?

Natasha: It’s not a bad guy in and of itself — it’s an opportunist. The goal is not eradication, it’s bringing it back into check. It’s part of our oral, gut, and vaginal microbiome, our skin. We just need it balanced with other species, particularly Lactobacilli and Bifidobacterium, which hold it in check. Candida loves stress, sugar, and alcohol. Also consider your sexual partner — I’ve had women with repeat candida infections where we’d clear it but it would return after sex because of their partner’s microbiome. Oil of oregano is a good tool for short bursts — strong and will deplete some friendly bugs too, so use it with respect. And Saccharomyces boulardii — a probiotic yeast that competes with candida and gets it out of there. It’s only in transit in the gut, doesn’t produce spores. It can also be inserted vaginally as a probiotic pessary for vaginal thrush. Sometimes that’s all you need — a little control-delete-reset.

Kelly: What about parasites? I see things about 21-day parasite cleanses — seems a bit extreme without testing first.

Natasha: Fully agree. We can live with them — we need some of them. Blastocystis hominis used to be considered a pathogen, now GPs don’t test for it because it’s considered a commensal — a friendly local resident. For chronic issues, the Complete Microbiome Map is worthwhile. If that’s not financially accessible, there’s a PCR parasitology you can do through Medicare with a GP. The two most common on the Eastern coastline of Australia are Dientamoeba fragilis and Blastocystis hominis. Some people have no symptoms because the rest of their microbiome holds everything in balance. The goal for most parasites is not eradication — it’s just reduction. If someone’s highly symptomatic, I’ll treat with stronger herbs for a short time, then nourish the terrain.

Kelly: And for women in perimenopause — this becomes more challenging because of microbiome changes. What specifically do you recommend for women in that stage?

Natasha: Really good information is coming through. From around our mid-40s, things are changing even if we still have a regular cycle. The term ‘estrobolome’ refers to the bugs involved in what happens with our hormones, particularly oestrogen. As oestrogen declines, we get more dysbiosis and a dominance of more pro-inflammatory bacteria. We’re more sensitive to fluctuations, more prone to brain fog. Oestrogen isn’t just about bone density and reproduction — it has a huge role in vitality, cognition, mood. So it’s a really good idea to start feeding the Bifidobacterium and Lactobacilli that can balance things and reduce inflammation. Low doses of a good prebiotic — if you’re sensitive, start with partially hydrolysed guar gum, which doesn’t tend to cause bloating. After three months, you could start playing with resistant starches and other probiotics. But menopause isn’t a pathology — it’s a rite of passage. Exercise also matters — a more sedentary lifestyle is associated with more dysbiosis. Through the menopausal phase, less cardio (which boosts cortisol and depletes you), and more strength, mobility, stability, and regularity.

Kelly: Could you talk through what a gut-friendly life looks like across food, lifestyle, and supplementation?

Natasha: I’d love it if we all had a gut first-aid kit at home — like a medicine cabinet, but for the gut. Digestive bitters on hand if needed. A bottle of digestive enzymes for travel. A prebiotic powder you know you tolerate. A general probiotic you know you tolerate. Just have it handy. And the day-to-day gut-friendly life: how many vegetables have I had this week? We’re trying to get to about 30 different types a week — which is actually quite hard. Aim high, and even if you get to 15, that’s a win. A gut-friendly life also means: do I care about myself enough to sit down and eat my meal with peace, with space, with gratitude? And do I care for my nervous system? Am I a guardian of my adrenal and nervous system health, or is that last in line? And if you do need an antibiotic — make sure you really need it. But then have that gut first-aid kit ready, with a specific probiotic right next to the antibiotics, so you’re supporting your gut immediately.

Kelly: I love the gut first-aid kit idea. So from everything we’ve talked about — if someone has time to do just one thing, where would you say to start?

Natasha: Be honest with yourself about whether your number one blind spot is nutrition, or your nervous system. Figure that out first, because your answer determines what your one thing will be. If you’re pretty good with self-care and nervous system regulation — the one thing for nutrition, hands down, is fibre. Not bread and rice — beautiful vegetables, brightly coloured fruit and veggies, sweet potatoes, oats, legumes. Beautiful fuel for your gut. If those interventions make you feel worse, we’ve got a longer conversation around imbalances and sensitivities — I’d recommend seeing a naturopath for three to five consultations. If the answer is my food’s all right but it’s probably the nervous system — that’s harder and often cheaper, but harder to address. Reflect on how often you bookend the day. Do you do that? And why not? Why is everything else more important? There’s a window in your life for calming down the nervous system. For me it’s yoga, the ocean, and my dog — my dog is my best therapist. For others it might be playing an instrument, poetry, a book, music. Whatever gets you present in your body and at ease.

Kelly: Beautiful. I’ll put both of our social media links in the show notes — we both love chatting so come chat with us there. Can you tell people how they can find your work?

Natasha: My website is natashasidoti.com. I do one-on-one consultations either online or in the Northern Beaches of Sydney. I’m also part of Beyond Fertility Frontiers — a fertility association we’ve formed this year where we’re upskilling health professionals from midwives and gynaecologists through to naturopaths and GPs on how to best care for people through the fertility journey. And that includes so much gut microbiome work.

Kelly: Thank you so much for your time. I’ve loved the conversation. I had tons more questions — so we should definitely do a follow-up. Here’s an idea: why don’t I come to you, we do the test on me, you give me a protocol, I follow it, write a blog about it, and then we come back and share it with everyone.

Natasha: I love it. Let’s do it.

Kelly: Bye everyone. Now it’s your turn. Take what you’ve learned today and put it into action. Try the habit, run the experiment, and track how you go. I’ll be doing it right alongside you and sharing on socials. Links are in the show notes. Tell me what’s working, what isn’t, and what questions are coming up. I genuinely want to know. And if today’s episode helped, share it with someone who needs it. Hit subscribe and I’ll see you next week.