What They Didn’t Tell You: From Core to Floor

Gut Health & Hormones: The Secret Link to Your Mood, Energy & Cycle

• Millie Schweky • Season 2 • Episode 5

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Your gut isn’t just about digestion, it’s the key to your mood, hormones, and overall health! In this powerful conversation, Dr. Millie Schweky sits down with Dr. Yardena Bauer (PhD, dietitian, and hormone nutrition expert) to unpack the surprising connection between gut health, hormone balance, and emotional well-being.

Discover how your microbiome impacts serotonin, why “period poops” happen, and practical ways to support your body with fiber, probiotics, and nourishing foods. From daily bowel health and detox to the science of seed cycling, this episode blends research, soul connection, and actionable tips to help you feel your best.

Whether you struggle with IBS, hormone shifts, or just want to understand your body better, this episode will give you the tools (and confidence!) to support your gut and trust your intuition.


Links:

Connect with Yardena: @Yardena Instagram
Follow Millie:  @milliedpt
Join the Core to Floor community:  https://millie-schweky.mykajabi.com/intimacy

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: [00:00:00] Hey sis, and welcome back to the What they didn't tell You from Core of Floor. I'm your girl, Dr. Millie, your favorite pelvic floor physical therapist, and I'm here with Dr. Yardena Bauer a PhD and highly qualified dietician with an impressive academic background and expertise in the fields of psychology, physiology, dietetics, nutrition, neuroscience, and endocrinology.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: Her focus is on hormone nutrition, including PCOS, fertility and endometriosis.

 Yardena, welcome back to the studio. Good to be with you again. We're talking about gut health today. Can you tell us about the gut and why it's important for hormone balance? 

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Oh, I love this. Okay, so, um, trendy but true is gut health microbiome.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: It's, they've done great research on this and I think this is a really important show for your IBD inflammatory bowel disease, Crohn's Colitis for your IBS Irritable bowel syndrome. Such a great term. Irritable, just like an irritable bowel, bowel being our gut. Um, this is also [00:01:00] very important for, um.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: People who have depression or a tendency towards like low mood and anxiety, why is it that I'm, I'm saying this, so our gut actually makes 95% of serotonin. So it, we have a very, very strong connection between our brain and our gut, and we wanna be optimizing the brain gut connect. So one of the ways we can do this is through our microbiome.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: That is by eating prebiotics and probiotics, especially across our cycle. If we were to look at, you know, we once spoke about cycle sinking and the preborn probiotics are especially important actually in the luteal phase because a lot of women. When the progesterone is high, we actually have a lot of loose stools and that some women actually get it when all the hormones drop completely.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Um, so irritable bowel syndrome and IBD symptoms are often worse in late luteal and during our periods. 

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: Is there something we could do to make our period poop better or is it just like a [00:02:00] natural part of the process? Like, okay, like when you're on your period, you have. A hormone fluctuation. And so your poops are gonna be different.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: You, 

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: we wanna, so we wanna be eating lots of good fiber. We wanna be having, if you are someone who has that, we wanna be having, um, good cruciferous vegetables, broccoli, cauliflower, grannys, Brussels sprouts because it's gonna get rid of the, the bad estrogen and it's gonna help balance our hormones. Um, we wanna be having the prebiotics and the probiotics and we actually wanna be, um, very aligned.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Um, with who we are in like soul body connection and not negating who we are, but you know, just loving ourselves. 

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: I was going to get to that in the next question actually, because it's been discovered that the gut has, I think, as many or more neurons compared to the brain, something crazy going on. Like when we have our intuitive feelings of, oh, this is not a good idea.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: Or, or, I knew that was gonna happen. That's your gut speaking to you. And the reason why we have these feelings of intuition. Is because there's so many nerves. The gut, and if our gut's [00:03:00] not healthy, we're not supporting its ability to do that. 

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Exactly. So the, the gut feeling is we have a gut feeling and we need to be, um, we need to be trusting ourselves.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Um, and if you're not sure, have a friend, have a confidant that you can go and say, I'm, I'm in conflict. I want to, you know, understand what's going on in me. Also realizing how we should be going to. To, we should be going to the toilet every day. We need to be, uh, passing stools. They shouldn't be too hard.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: They shouldn't be too soft. They should just, you know, banana, banana. Um, they should look like a banana if you didn't get that. Um, well, and, and it's so important because obviously we are not talking about our poop of, of coffee with our friends. Um, unless you're friends with me, unless you're friends with you.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Um, and it's very indicative of what's going on inside us and we need to get rid of the waste. And, you know, sometimes there's a big connection between, you know, often I, I often have like kids and they're like constipated and the parents come to me and they're like, what must I do with my kids constipated?

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: And I'm like, what are they holding onto? What are they [00:04:00] scared to let go of? And we need to be, I mean, there's exercises we can do, you know, lying on your back, cycling. That helps the gut move. We wanna have lots of fiber seeds. I, you, you know about 

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: the ILU massage? 

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: No. Oh yeah. Yeah. That's great. Lots of seeds, you know, you know what I mean?

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Seeds, um, lots of fiber. Um, but we, we, we, I don't think I, I know that, I think it's so important not to disconnect our souls from our, from our bodies. And I totally 

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: agree. When I was getting trained, I mean, I won't publicize this, but I guess I'm doing it now. I'm trained in energy work only. Um, I don't work on clients, I just work on myself, my immediate family.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: Um, but after I did the training, I couldn't pass a bound movement and I determined that I was holding on to something. And once I was able to let go of whatever boulder I was moving at the time, everything just kind of like clicked back into normal. But I was like eating all these foods and getting massages, doing reflexology.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: Like I've never been backed up in my entire life until I did. This [00:05:00] energy healing where you're really moving boulders and using your gut and using your intuition. My body was something that I didn't wanna let go of, and until I emotionally let go of it, my body was like, okay, make it go to the bathroom again.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: E. 

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Exactly. And you know, I like calling what I do and people ask me what I am. I say, you know, I'm an endocrine dietician. But what I really wanna tell people is that I'm a, I do soul science. I do the science that your soul needs so that it can heal your body by itself. 

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: I love that. Um, on that note, 'cause going to the bathroom for a bowel movement is basically a detox.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: Like it's your body's natural way of detoxing you. And our liver is the organ in our body that's most responsible for detox. Can, can food alone support liver detox or. Is there something that we can do to support it from another angle? Okay, 

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: so detox. The word detox, very trendy. Um, and our [00:06:00] bodies are brilliant at detox.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: That's what the, the whole job of the liver and the kidney is to detox, is to get rid of waste and keep what's good. Yes, there is stuff that we can do because we need our liver, we need our kidney. Um, so I also studied, um, visceral manipulation, which the idea is if our organs are not in the correct alignment, they can't function optimally.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: So we want to work on each organ, um, almost like a physiotherapy for your organs to get them into the right axi so that they can be, they can work their their best. Um, then we also look at how to do detox by ourselves for our bodies. First, best way of detox. What am I gonna say, milli? What's Shut your phone.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: So that you can, no. Yeah, so 

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: you can 

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: go 

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: to sleep. Go to sleep, visit your brain. Detox, like really bad chemicals. I think I read a study, I mean, I don't think I read a study that Alzheimer's disease was linked to something [00:07:00] called amyloid plaques in the brain. And your brain filters amyloid plaques when you are sleeping.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: So if you don't get enough sleep, those amyloid plaques build up in the neurons. I hope I'm saying this right. Yes. And. It makes you at a higher risk of developing Alzheimer's later in life. 

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: So everyone's waking up and having all these green juices, um, in the morning to detox, but really it's 

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: stripping the vegetable of its fiber, 

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: no fiber in those juices.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: And then also, also if you've just gone to sleep earlier. Then the body is going to detox its own hormones, get rid of all the bad hormones, get all rid of all the waste, um, and rejuvenate by itself. Other things we can do. So number one is good sleep, good sleeping, good quality, sleeping, go to going to bed before 12.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: I like actually saying like before 11. Mm-hmm. So you actually can be in sleep, um, to get the sleep correct from 11 onwards. Um, so sleep. Quality, good quality. Sleep is the most important for detox. And the next thing we can do is drink water. Um, [00:08:00] we, we don't drink enough water. We like drinking everything else around water.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Our urine should be light yellow, pale. That's how you know you're drinking enough. There's a great, um, thing from gun pep pizza. Have zello. 

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: Oh, I love that. 

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Pipi pi. 

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: Oh, I love that. That which is, 

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: um, yellow, not good. Um, white. Fantastic. That's so cute. So, um, so the way to be doing it, to get your, you know, lavan is we need to be drinking water.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Sparkling water is also fine, not as great for our bones, but just, just drink water. It's gonna help the kidneys do their detox. Um, then for the liver, the liver, um, is like our ultimate detox machine. Um, and it's really also important for hormone production. Um. And the liver. We need to be eating, um, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: We need to be avoiding, um, process. Are these, are 

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: these foods that bind to excess [00:09:00] estrogen? Correct. Cool. So, 

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: okay, so it's called the Estro Blow. Um, they take, that's from the microbiome, but they also work in the liver to take out any estrogen in the body that we don't need anymore. We want the, they're three different types of estrogen and we want the good estrogen and we wanna get rid of any estrogen that we don't need and we want the estradiol, so.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: I read cilantro was good for this. Great. Yeah. There's some people 

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: who can't eat cilantro. 

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: I know. It tastes like soap to them. It's genetic. So 

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: weird. Um, but yes, if you got it, go for it. Um, and we wanna be with our liver. We wanna be avoiding processed food. We wanna be avoiding non non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, which we're seeing a lot of.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Um, so we need to be avoiding the, the sugars and the white flowers. Um, and anything that is really like processed, um, if it's cheap and nasty, it's cheap and nasty. 

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: Okay. You kind of get what you pay for these days. Like unfortunately, the way society bills is that healthier foods cost more processed foods are processed, and so they're cheap.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: Exactly. And readily available. 

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: So are we going to, what you're bringing up is a really thing about, um. [00:10:00] The food environment we live in. This also comes into a lot about the people who are the anti GLP one, um, the Ozempic. Those are people who are anti them, are saying We, the problem isn't, it's not people's fault, it's the food industry.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: It's the food marketing that is making, um, heavily processed sugar loaded foods really cheaply available. Um, and our bodies will always want sugar will always be amazing. Sugar will always increase serotonin and we will always want more. Um, so what we, we are talking about is making our food environment serve us better.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: And you don't go to a vending machine and get salmon, you know, there's no salmon in a vending machine and salmon's never cheap. That's how we know it's good for us. And anything that can't, you can always say almost like anything that's gonna be in a vending machine is not gonna be good for 

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: us. I concur.

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: And that brings me into the next question I have for you, which is your thoughts on seed cycling is this, science is a placebo. Can it [00:11:00] work? Oh, 

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: so seed cycling, eating, um, different seeds across the cycle. So it's so interesting because I look at it from a different way. I say, okay, what is going on physiologically in our bodies across the cycle?

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Oh. Oh, okay. So during the menstrual phase when we are bleeding, we are going through an inflammatory process from the lining shedding. Okay, so if I'm in inflammation, I need anti-inflammatories. What do we get in anti-inflammatories? Oh, we get chia seeds and flax seeds. Let's eat more of those. Because I need more anti-inflammatories when I'm in the menstrual phase.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: So yes. And then when I'm in the teal phase, for example. I'm now feeling a little, I've got high progesterone, which is giving me less serotonin. I'm feeling a little bit down and anxious and angry, and irritable. Hmm. I need a bit more comfort. I need something that's gonna make me feel better about myself and who I am.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: I'm going to eat pumpkin. And, and sesame seeds to give me zinc and magnesium. So [00:12:00] if we actually think about the physiology of what we are going through, the, the seeds fall beautifully into place. 

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: They're supporting all of our needs. That's, it's pretty cool. So basically the benefit would be. Letting you feel the, how do you wanna say it?

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: Like encouraging you to feel good during different parts of your cycle that you may not be prone to feeling good during. 

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: So seeds are, seeds are really great because they've got good fibers in them. They've, um, 

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: but I'm saying bottom line, like what are, if I eat seeds, what will I see happen to my life? 

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Um, if you eat seeds, you will, you should have, um, feel calmer.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: And you, some of the seeds, you're not, you'll be able to poop better. Mm-hmm. But some of the effects you're not gonna see because it's going to have an anti-inflammatory impact. If you feel pain. Pain can be an inflammatory response with the cytokines. It will, it'll take your pain or it can lessen your pain.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: Um, it can, you might not get the flu, like for example, the zinc in the zinc in the seeds and, um, sesame seeds like tini, you [00:13:00] won't necessarily, it can help boost your immune system. So some things are very subtle. We often wanting to see the results straight away. 

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: Yeah. Do these things work right away or do we need to do we need to do them for a few cycles before we see anything?

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: The seeds will have an effect straight away on your poop. And they'll have an effect. They should have an effect straight away on, I'm keeping you a bit calmer because of the magnesium. Um, and then the other things are just, you have to keep it. You have to keep it up. And also not to counter the effects by saying, oh, I've had the seeds.

[Dr. Yardena Bauer]: I can now have a Coke and you know, the sugar will balance out because I've got all this fiber. 

[Dr. Millie Schweky]:: Seed cycle responsibly, folks, you already do first. All right, Ana, thank you so much for your time. I hope people start to incorporate more seeds into their diets, maybe some more gut friendly food, and we'll see you next time.