It got to hangout on my counter for a couple days until I could deliver it to her.

Day 1 had me jump scared each time we lock eyes because all that separates us is a thin, transparent piece of plastic.

Day 2 and I'm wondering how wrecked my reputation would be online had my fellow gut health coaches see it knowing it’s for sure not organic, gluten or grain free.

Day 3 and I’m learning to live with it.

I decided to tickle the idea that didn’t cross my mind for 8 years prior… ‘I wonder if I could have bread again one day.’

And just a millisecond after a title wave of wellness-mental-chatter flooded my brain, I need a towel to wipe my palms, heart starts racing and gut starts gurgling.

All from the thought of eating one bite of one slice of a fcking loaf of sourdough bread.

My skin crawls with embarrassment of how visceral and immediate my response was to a silly slice of bread but remember, this was at the tail end of 8 years of deep dive gluten research rabbit holes accumulating so.much.proof that gluten was actually one of the most toxic things on earth.

I might as well have written a dissertation on gluten.

I grew on wonder bread, gluten filled cereal and 2 chocolate chip cookies every Sunday, one of which was completely raw dough.

There were even 7, 55 gallon bright blue barrels of wheat as food storage 20 feet from where I lay my head to sleep in my basement bedroom, which was also the laundry room, which was also the food storage room.

My relationship with the amber waves of grain was nothing but peaceful, joyous, light until I entered the rabbit hole of wellness where it became the gut demon I swore off for life.

I’m the last person who should be eating gluten.

My Dad had Celiac disease, so did his mom.

My Mom has an autoimmune disease.

My genes are ‘primed for it’.

Gluten gave me brain fog, pain, cramping, gas, gurgle guts and a flare I’d spend a week nursing.

Then every single food sensitivity test I got proved that to be true.

I didn’t just believe what I saw on social media about gluten, I studied this stuff while I got a Masters Degree in Nutrition (2017), nerded out on entire research papers on the 187 symptoms that non-celiac gluten sensitivity can cause, then proceeded to read even more books about this gluey, toxic, sludge of a grain.

So naturally, gluten was off the table, literally, for 8 years.

By 2021 I had expanded my diet from 2 foods in 2019 (cooked leafy greens + sprouted nuts and seeds, yes I was eating rabbit food) to eating everything that scared and flared me, except gluten.

I was finally, regularly eating all grains, fruit, real sugar, red meat, seafood, eggs, salt, oil, butter, cheese, milk, potatoes, tomatoes, corn, soy, beans, pineapple…

All things I at some point avoided religiously for 3-10 years.

Gluten was sitting solo on my ‘do not eat list’ and I was okay with that for years.

Or at least I acted like it because at that point, I couldn’t remember a single thing about the taste, texture or pleasure.

Real toast? Real cookies? Pancakes? Waffles? A burger WITH a bun? A vague memory in a past life of mine.

The sourdough boule I picked up for my mom started teasing a part of me who started to play with the possibility of baking real cookies again.

But at first the fear based wellness chatter was incessant, uncontrollable and loud.

The chatter inside my brain…no one with gut issues should have gluten. The glyphosate wrecks your gut microbiome. Zonulin. Grain Brain. Gluten is toxic. it showed up bright red on your food sensitivity test. inflammation!

but I started to give my newfound feisty, stubborn, wellness rule-breaking version of myself some space to explore.

And she had at it, hitting me with the logic underneath all the emotional gunk I had around gluten.

You used to have even the shittiest quality gluten all the time growing up with no symptoms.

Your gut symptoms didn’t go away with gluten, so gluten wasn’t to blame.

You’re not a victim of your genes, you’ve already proved that to be true!

Food sensitivity tests aren’t 100% reliable, they just show you what you couldn’t digest at the time, not forever.

Think of how expansive life would be with gluten in it.

Baking with real flour, real bread, real pasta, real tortillas instead of the fragile af grain free cassava ones.

Then something cool started to happen, like a switch flipped on in my brain.

I started to find proof of the possibility that I could have gluten again.

Random people online who had reactions to gluten who were now eating sourdough bread.

Research I stumbled upon that proved gluten was NOT to blame for the all over the board 187 symptoms.

I had a friend who was also on a similar quest repairing her relationship with bread and we chatted at length about it.

Then finally, on January 13th, 2023, after 8 years strictly gluten free, I ate ^ this teeny, tiny piece of bread.

I didn’t feel ready, I pushed through the slew of mental chatter and fear (now a bit quieter at that point) and I toasted it up, slathered it with butter and ate it with some chicken soup.

And one of the biggest mindfcks of my life happened because nothing happened.

Then 2 months later, April 2023 I had the guts to eat a whole sourdough pizza while traveling solo in Mexico.

I died and went to heaven eating this pizza (pictured above).

And again, nothing happened.

At first I still had strict rules around gluten….only eat it occasionally and it has to be sourdough, organic, or einkorn wheat only.

But after months of the occasional sourdough goodie, I was feeling incredible, my gut was happy and I started to get more brave.

A friend and I were at a brewery, she ordered one of those generic, basic af, probably frozen and reheated, pretzels.

She offered me a bite and I said yes.

And that’s when life really expanded around gluten and I started to explore.

I ate my first Philly cheesesteak in 2023.

I started baking chocolate chip cookies again without a single modification to the recipe…real flour, butter, sugar, and eggs in 2023 (first batch above was a FAIL).

I ate a real burrito with a real tortilla in 2024.

I tried my first ever real, butter croissant in 2024.

I ate more pizza in 2024.

I ordered a burger WITH the bun in 2024.

And since then it’s my mission to make up for all the years I ate my gluten free, sometimes grain free wannabe bread, muffins, cookies, tortillas, etc.

Now? One of my favorite hobbies is google map searching for bakeries near me.

I’m writing this in August of 2026 and these days I enjoy something filled with gluten just about every single day.

Yes I love sourdough but haven’t noticed any issues with the ‘shit’ quality stuff either.

I’m still in awe of how terrified I was of it, how long it took me to explore even the idea (!!!) of eating it again and how resilient my body has been to having it OFTEN.

Part of me knows I could have reintroduced gluten years prior to when I did.

My gut was in good shape for years prior to 2023, but my brain became a swirly soup of fear even teasing the idea.

All of this to say, I have nothing but hope you can eat and not only tolerate but enjoy every.single.food. that scared and flared you.

Because if this gluten free gut girlie who swore off gluten for life, spent 8 years demonizing it, who’s palms would sweat just at the thought of taking a bite of a boule can now eat real pizza, be a croissant connoisseur and bake real cookies again, you.can.too.

Cheers to questioning everything we’ve been told about food and reclaiming the pleasure that gluten really is,

-Madisen, The Gut Goddess

NOTE: content is for educational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making decisions about your health or making dietary changes.

This comes second to Christmas with the surge of excitement pulsing through my 14 yr old blood.

I can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve eaten buffet food.

I’m frozen with a case of decision fatigue…what do I eat first?

Mac and cheese? Fried chicken? Caesar salad? Roast beef? Frog eye salad? Tomato basil soup? Lo Mein noodles? Chile verde? Salad bar?

Then I remember I don’t have to choose. exhale

It’s the wild-west of dining and I’m putting a dollop of everything on my plate that even kinda, sorta looks good.

The variety, abundance and shear quantity of food shifts something primal in my brain chemistry (understandably so as someone who begged for seconds at dinner and was met with ‘there’s no more, have a piece of toast’.)

By the end I’ve gotten 3 new clean plates and there’s 67 different ingredients gurgling around my gut.

That’s before I taste a bite of the 7 dessert options too, we’re up to 105 now.

Then I act surprised when my pants need unbuttoning and I’m 100% convinced I won’t eat for another 5 days after this.

The problem here isn’t the food itself, it’s the abundance of it, the lack of boundaries around it and the gorging with no gaps of time to digest and metabolize all of it.

Now imagine living at Chuck-A-Rama and each meal is met with this same ravenous, deprived and primal appetite and you’re filling up your plate not just 3x per day, but every hour of every day.

It’s safe to predict that without limitations, boundaries and space between meals, you’re going to feel perma bloated, busting through even your sit down jeans and groggy from the post-meal coma.

We are living at a buffet, not of food, but health information.

Access is easier than ever, it lives in your pocket and you’re 1 click away from starving to instant buffet to peruse and potentially, gorge over.

Just like the food buffet, the problem isn’t knowledge itself, it’s the abundance, endless options, pervasive access to it, lack of discernment for what to take in and what to leave off your plate and most importantly, no time, space and support to digest it.

If there ever was a slippery slope, this would be it and it’s one I slid down for 10 years…piling up my buffet plate with more, more, more health information.

Most of us start off researching health with good intentions, curiosity, genuine interest, a fire inside us to feel well.

Maybe your doc wrote you off, handed you a prescription, sent you on your way and something felt off about this. (this was me at 21 yrs old post colonoscopy/endoscopy!!)

Maybe you got some labs done, everything was normal but you surely didn’t feel normal, so you went digging for answers on the inter webs.

Maybe you did get a diagnosis and a food list to follow, but that felt vague, incomplete, so you pulled out your laptop to feel less alone and find more about wtf was going on.

You entered the wild-west buffet of wellness.

Late nights losing track of time down research reddit rabbit holes, binging YouTube videos, finding niche Facebook groups like “The IBS warriors girlies from Connecticut” and following self proclaimed (or maybe real) gurus online who’ve got some letters after their names.

Your hunger to learn and heal is innate, just like the hunger that urges you to eat.

You have a natural, normal desire to learn, grow, be validated in your health struggles and ultimately, solve a problem…figure out these mysterious gut issues that you’ve got impacting your life.

The thing about hunger and eating? There’s a physical cap, your leptin (a satiety hormone) won’t let you gorge out forever. There is physical, biochemical capacity, a stopping point that says NO MORE food thanks.

But with health information? This doesn’t exist. There is no innate, physiological, biochemical cap, there’s no chemical in your brain or stomach lining that says…okay we’ve consumed enough health information now, NO MORE.

Spent even 10 minutes on your lunch break on socials and you’re met with a buffet of health information…

Got gut issues?!

It’s SIBO. Histamine. Pots. IBS. MOLD. 5 things destroying your gut lining. GLYPHOSATE. Probiotics. Greens. Here’s my affiliate code. It’s your NERVOUS SYSTEM. Cortisol. Don’t eat after 5pm. Have a bedtime snack. Exercise but not too much. Not like that, like this. Your gut lining repairs itself in 3 days so you’re poisoning yourself. Try my sugar free, dairy free, grain free, refined sugar free cookie recipe. Dairy is inflammatory. Gluten is toxic. Heavy metals. Antibiotics are wrecking your gut. It’s your DOSHA. Meal combining. Organic. Lectins. GMOS. Eggs feed viruses. Take THIS food sensitivity test.

Just typing that was exhausting.

A whiplash you’ll need 10 years of daily chiropractic adjustments to correct.

10 minutes online can feel like you just ate an 8 course meal with15 different cuisines, now you’re bloated, busting out your enzymes and burping with information, swearing you’ll never eat again.

Your gut is gurgling with fear, conflicting advice, 10 more diagnosis, 50 things you’re doing wrong and yet other toxin that’s the one cause to your IBS your doctor never told you about.

With health information, there’s an insatiable appetite that has no boundaries, doesn’t know when to stop or when enough is enough.

You’ve got a ghrelin gremlin inside of you.

Ghrelin is the hormone that makes you hungry and when it comes to health information, this little guy doesn’t know when to stop. (understandably so because we have a unlimited buffet of wellness we’ve never had access to before. Your primal brain is still figuring out how to navigate so much to “eat”!)

So what started as a good intentioned, curious google search to figure out why you’re constantly bloated even though you took gluten, dairy and sugar out of your diet and eat healthier than ever, quickly turns into a endless, abundant, choose whatever kind of cuisine you want wellness buffet just a couple taps with your pointer finger away.

Leaving you Thanksgiving day 2 plates in stuffed and mentally mindfcked with more information than your primal brain has ever had access to and is not designed to digest at once.

Unlimited access, endless feasting, limited or no boundaries, no space for break down, assimilation and eliminating the shit that you don’t need.

This is not our fault! (but I do think it’s our responsibility to figure out how to navigate it healthfully)

Media, especially social media, is designed to reel you in and keep you hooked.

A scroll that literally is, infinite.

The average person spends 3 hours a day on just social media. That’s one full day out of the week. That’s not counting other non-social media sites.

My hunch is that number is higher if you’re really in the trenches of healing and trying to find some answers, hope and guidance online.

We were never meant to have access to so much (and to do this whole gut healing thing all alone!)

A single day of data creation today outweighs everything humanity produced before 2003.

90% of all the information that has ever existed was made in just the last two years. TWO.

Are we brain rotting in wellness content under the guise of self-development and healing?

What is the abundance of health information on social media doing to our brain?

• It alters how well we critically think: Critical thinking runs through the prefrontal cortex, the latter developed part of your brain responsible for higher-level critical thinking. That part of the brain fatigues with overwhelm = the brain defaults to snap judgments instead of careful analysis.

• It numbs us out: researchers describe a pattern from overconsuming low-quality, vague content as “brain rot”…emotional numbness, cognitive overload and a shakier sense of self, tied to scrolling and impaired memory, planning and decision-making.

• It tricks our brain to think fake stuff is real: repeated exposure to something false can make it actually, eventually, feel true. The brain loves familiarity, it uses familiar things as a shortcut for truth. “That sounds familiar, so it must be correct.” This is the illusory truth effect and it doesn’t mean you’re gullible. Keep seeing the same fear-mongering statement again and again, your brain can start to believe it must be true.

• Our brain clings to fear, not facts: Our brain is adaptive in nature, this is why something fearful, triggering, alarming is more likely to captivate and stick in the brain whereas something nuanced, factual and grounded doesn’t have that same stick effect. Unfortunately, fear sells and creators online know this…which is why hooks like ‘the ONE ingredient wrecking your gut’ or ‘exactly why gluten is the cause of your IBS’ tends to get more views, clicks, likes and shares than something with a more nuanced, calm and realistic take.

What is it doing to our nervous systems?

• HEALTH ANXIETY: The flood of unclear, contradictory information has been shown to accelerate real physical anxiety around health, a pattern researchers call cyberchondria, which creates panic, confusion, fear and real physical symptoms like

• LOWER CONFIDENCE: Fatigue from social media has been linked to a measurable drop in people’s confidence to manage their own health.

• NERVOUS SYSTEM HAVOC: Chronic low-grade nervous-system activation…worry, hypervigilance, scanning for the next threat, doesn’t stay in your head, it shows up in your body as anxious poops, constipation, muscle tension, fatigue, disrupted sleep, poor recovery.

• SHAME, GUILT, FEAR, OVERWHELM, NEVER ENOUGH-NESS: With the buffet of thousands of healing modalities, diets to do, detoxes to try, the requirements of what counts as ‘good enough’ to heal, won’t ever stop climbing. This is exactly how healing becomes a perpetual pursuit of purity, perfectionism, practitioners and protocols. There’s always more. Another toxin to avoid, modality to try out, test to get to show you your “true root cause”. You will never be doing enough to heal IF you try to do it all. Enough-ness doesn’t exist until you, yes YOU, define when enough is enough and exactly what that looks like.

• SKEWED EXPECTATIONS: You were never meant to know how Sally from rural Idaho away got rid of her bloat in 1 weekend. Sure, social media can provide validation, hopefulness, inspiration when it comes to our health AND make us feel less than, confused, angry that Sally was able to heal her bloat with some bloat tabs that we already tried that didn’t work. Social media health info can create unrealistic expectations of what healing looks like, feels like and how long it takes. Sometimes we forget, there’s a million ways to heal.

What is doing to our behavior? Welp, it essentially can bleed into everything we do…

• Grocery store shopping becomes a threat detection zone and time suck as you hyper-analyze every ingredient list

• Prepping every meal from scratch (separate from who you live with even) since something not made by you could contain questionable ingredients

• Saying no to eating out if it feels like like a safer option than risking the Sysco, seed oil slop fest (they are somehow able to enjoy without nursing a 1 week flare)

• Elimination of entire food groups…gluten, grains, dairy, ‘refined-sugar’, non-organic produce, lectins, nightshades, eggs that were fed soy/corn feed, nuts that aren’t sprouted, oats that aren’t gluten free

• Food fear that swirls through your brain the moment you try to eat a meal off plan

• Time spent filtering through conflicting advice, finding a new doctor or practitioner, health related appointments, reading research papers, listening to health + nutrition podcasts while you get your 10k steps in

• Time NOT spent doing the things you love that have nothing to do with health…hobbies, going to art galleries, playing an instrument, baking cookies with your kids, staying up late with Indian takeout watching a nostalgic movie

• Money spent on health products, supplement stacks, expensive testing not covered by insurance and alternative healing modalities (also probably not covered by insurance)

• Postponing traveling, vacations, weekends at the lake with the girls, even having kids or pursuing career goals due to fear, potential toxin exposure, lack of mental bandwidth and worries about how it might impact your healing

• Anxiety around scenarios outside of your control…airports, restaurants, your in-laws house with those glade plug ins they love

• Skewed perceptions and high expectations of what healing looks like, what our plates consist of, what our bodies look like, morning supplement stacks should consist of, morning routines, night routines, nervous system ‘tools’ we should/shouldn’t use…

• Feelings of guilt, shame, anxiety, low-self-worth due to not “eating clean enough”, sourcing our food, living toxin free,

It’s safe to say, health information consumption isn’t passive, harmless, relaxing or entirely productive (for most of us anyways unless you’ve really curated your media consumption).

It lives in our brain, body and shows up in our day to day behaviors.

For many of us, it becomes one of our biggest sources of stress…the food fear, guilt, shame, confusion, overwhelm, never-enough-ness.

I’ve been coaching in the health + wellness + nutrition industry for 9 years and the terrain has drastically changed even since I was spending all my free time ‘learning’ about health aka binging unlimited health content at the wellness buffet online.

Each year I spend more and more time with clients dispelling outrageous health myths they’ve accumulated from social media, discussing the harmful impact of health information consumption, supporting them set boundaries on how much they learn and who they learn it from and strategizing tools to think more critically and avoid the overwhelming buffet of options.

Knowledge is no longer power, it can be disempowering, overwhelming and even, debilitating for many of us.

Phew.

So now what? What’s the solution? What we need more of? What do we need less of? How do we healthfully use social media for good without getting swallowed up in the algorithm of health noise and gorging our hungry brains that are just trying to help us find a solution to a really important problem that’s impacting the way we feel and poop?

The alternative? Swap the buffet and start fine dining.

I am a newbie to fine dining.

I didn’t go out to eat for a decade (yes because I was worried about anything I didn’t personally cook from scratch).

And since I’ve been in my Eat Everything Era the last 5 years, I’ve become a foodie and finally have the food freedom to have experienced a handful of incredible 3+ hour dinner dates.

Fine dining is a highly curated, luxurious experience “defined by exceptional food quality, meticulous culinary artistry, polished and attentive service, and an elegant ambiance. It treats a meal as a complete sensory event rather than just basic sustenance”

Luckily for this analogy, creating a fine dining type experience with the health side of social media does not require money, a 3 week away reservation or a silky black dress and kitten heels to enjoy.

First, there is always a *vibe*.

Fine dining is curated af.

Moody artwork, incandescent soft lighting, soothing jazz music in the background, someone to take your coat before you sit down, every detail down to the fresh flowers on the table to the font they use on the menu is curated to ensure you don’t just eat there, you have an incredible experience.

You leave feeling way more than just full, you feel inspired, calm, expansive, a little tipsy and like you escaped your real life for a couple hours.

So what does this mean for how you consume health information??

You get to choose and curate your social media vibe.

This is FUN but this requires you to get hyper-clear on what type of experience you’d like online especially when it comes to health stuff…

• Where are you consuming most of your health info?

• Who from? What initially brought you to their page?

• How do you feel after you consume their health info?

• Is it the vibe you’re after these days?

• How would you like to feel after your 10 minute post lunch scroll or pre-bedtime sesh?

• Inspired? Curious? Expansive? Lighter?

• And most importantly, now what are you going to do about it?

• Is it time for a mass unfollowing?

• Is it time to detox from the detox people?!

• Is it time to say goodbye to health modalities you no longer vibe with?

• Is it time to follow some accounts that have nothing to do with health?

I’ve spent the last 5 years on social media curating a playful, expansive, curious vibe so whenever I open my phone and scroll my feed, I actually feel inspired, calm, and get the occasional LOL.

I actually really enjoy most days on social media, ONLY BECAUSE I’ve done this.

I’ve recently discovered a whole new side to instagram…crocheting tutorials, needle felting, and intricate miniature house tours.

Second is clear, defined and intentional boundaries.

You look at fine dining and there are LOTS of boundaries to protect and curate the experience.

They only take a certain number of people per night. Sometimes the waitlist is booked out 3 weeks.

They only serve a hyper-specific type of cuisine, realizing that less choice is actually better.

Many of them don’t allow for any modifications to the menu whatsoever.

Some don’t even have salt or pepper at the table.

Their workers have strict dress code and are attentive, thorough and kind.

They have systems in place to ensure you leave anticipating the next occasion you can come back.

Each of these boundaries are rigid, serve a specific purpose and creates an amazing experience for those who choose to splurge there for their 7th wedding anniversary.

This is wildly different than the buffet model.

A buffet allows you to consume unlimited quantities of dishes from 19 different cuisines in ONE spot…dinner could be mac and cheese, sushi rolls, chicken enchiladas and pumpkin cheesecake.

A buffet has tons of seating and some people spend just 10 minutes there.

Abundance, variety, endless choice feels nice, but creates a chaotic experience. There’s a reason it’s $10.99 all you can eat.

Sounds like a deal but you pay for it in gut gurgles later.

What does this mean for health information consumption?

It’s simple, have more boundaries, get clear and intentional.

There’s a big difference between saying “I want to spend less time on social media” vs. “I only allow myself to be on socials consuming information for 25 minutes after dinnertime, that’s it.”

Social media loves to keep you lingering, passively consuming, munching on your lunch while you munch on some content but then we know 5 minutes can turn into 30 and you’re metaphorically unbuttoning your pants wondering why you’re feeling so bleh.

The more clear I’ve gotten with my boundaries around health information, the better I’ve stuck to them.

Set boundaries on days and times you’ll consume, no more going to the buffet 18x a day.

Utilize your screen time controls on your phone, put your social apps somewhere where your finger has to dig to find the app so you don’t end up mindlessly clicking and wondering how you got there.

Schedule time for the scroll, no seriously.

I had an incredible psychology professor who helped me when I was struggling with biting my nails.

He told me to schedule time to do it because this makes it intentional, it brings awareness to it vs. it being passive and unconscious.

And if you’re feeling like it’s really becoming a stressor in your life, fast from it entirely :)

Read a book, listen to a podcast for FUN, swap health info consumption for that crochet hobby you’ve been meaning to take up.

Third, there is so much time to digest.

I walk out of these fine dining experiences wondering how 3 or more hours has passed and also why I feel deeply nourished, full, fed and satisfied, not needing to lie down for 24 hours on the couch after.

A wildly different experience than my Chuck-A-Rama days as a kid.

The portions are small and space is intentionally left between each course so you can actually digest it all.

“Digestion” in this sense could look like literally giving your brain a break with time, space, room to settle on what you just consumed.

It could look like talking it through with someone you trust to look at it more critically.

It could look like taking certain health advice you’ve seen to a mentor or coach to decipher through and decide if avoiding gluten, dairy, sugar, soy, corn, grains, eating out is actually something that applies to your specific symptoms right now.

Cheers to graduating from the buffet of wellness insanity and fine dining instead…thoughtful courses, properly spaced, fully savored, no gurgle guts after.

xo Madisen, The Gut Goddess

I never, ever, thought I would write this.

Maybe in my secret fuzzy pink journal with a lock, but surely not publicly to live on the internet ethers.

I was so sure, for 28 years, without a doubt, that my life would forever orbit around mormonism, and here I am 34, ex-mormon, unmarried, childless, being a boss babe who cusses online, with a sleeve of tattoos and 18 piercings, writing about mormonism from outside the cage.

The 2019 version of me is shriving up in shame for the 2026 version of me, I’m everything I was terrified of.

You’ll see why soon.

And why my mormon roots have everything to do with my decade long pursuit of gut healing.

I was the epitome of a good, actually no, perfect mormon girl.

I grew up in the ‘covenant’ as the mormons call it, meaning I was born mormon.

I am the youngest of 9 kids, yes, all from the same parents.

I love my big family. I’ve got 19 nieces and nephews and counting.

I grew up in a safe, innocent, happy mormon bubble just outside of Salt Lake City Utah and as a kid and even a teen, couldn’t fathom a reality outside of mormonism.

Being mormon wasn’t just 3 hour church on Sundays, it was a part time job you didn’t get paid for, in fact, you paid 10% of your income for.

Mormonism isn’t a religion where you attend a meeting 2x a year and call yourself ‘saved’.

Here’s what the hard core, true believing mormons do…(which I did for 28 years).

I attended 3 hour church every Sunday, for 28 years of my life, not even missing church while on vacation.

Sundays were the Lords day, which in our house meant no movies, no friends, no spending money, calm gospel music, church books only, my parents would stay in their ‘church clothes’ all day out of reverence and respect.

Then Monday night was family night.

This was where you read more scriptures, someone teaches a lesson (maybe about faith, God, patience, repentance) then if you’re lucky and you a part of a fun mormon family, you play a game and eat treats after.

Don’t forget about Wednesdays.

Wednesday night was called mutual, where all the young girls ages 12-18 got together to do activities…sometimes it was learning how to bake cookies (essential life skills right?), other times it was writing a letter to our future husbands telling them how proud we were of them being good missionaries (spending 2 yrs of their precious prime 18-21 yr old lives knocking door to door) and church goers.

Early mornings before school (elementary, junior AND high school) were spent studying scriptures with my parents and siblings that my just got out of bed brain could barely comprehend.

1 hr seminary M-F every year of junior high, high school and college aka church at school.

Think your summers are free? LOL.

More church activities…each summer I attended girls camp for those ages 12-18, a youth 3 day church camp most summers called E.F.Y. (especially for youth) and the most insane and iconic?

TREK, a weekend where you dress up like your pioneer mormon ancestors (bonnets and long skirts required) and literally trek through the wilderness in Utah pulling a handcart replica, sleeping under the stars with all your belongings in a 5 gallon bucket.

I can’t make this shit up, it was brutal.

Luckily it only happened once every 4 years.

We were encouraged to attend temples on weekends to perform sacred ceremonies, but you can only do this if you’re worthy enough to enter.

The mormon temples don’t allow everyone in, your entry requires getting interviewed by a man, answering 15 questions correctly to receive a written recommend to go inside.

Questions like, do you pay a full tithe aka 10% of your income to the church? Do you keep the word of wisdom? (you don’t drink coffee or drink alcohol or smoke weed) Do you obey the law of chastity? (aka you and your boyfriend only give pecks on the lips, nothing more)

My family even took a roadtrip across the country all the way to New York to visit old church sites.

Mormonism didn’t just dictate what I did, it was imbedded into every crevasse of who I was.

Every.single.decision was made through the lens of mormonism.

• how to dress (modest is hottest they told us, don’t show your midriff, no short shorts, no spaghetti straps or tank tops, no cleavage, etc)

• my life goals (mother, home-maker, church leader, ‘worthy’ temple goer)

• my career goals (or lack thereof)

• how many ear piercings I was allowed to have (only one piercing is allowed, I’ve got 18 now, oh and of course no tattoos)

• how I spoke (no cussing, speak kindly, don’t talk too loud or disturb the peace)

• the friends I associated most with (kids not mormon were seen as ‘bad influences’)

• what music to listen to and movies to watch (no cussing, ‘clean’ topics only, no rated R)

• who and when to date (you have to be 16 yrs old and you can only date someone you’d married aka someone else who’s mormon and the opposite sex of you)

• what underwear I would wear one day (garments, find a pic below)

• what I prioritized in my free time (church activities, developing life skills my husband would benefit from)

• what I drank (no coffee, tea, alcohol, smoking, drinking)

Here’s the catch, these are rules, requirements, not recommendations.

They’re rigid and your obedience is what qualifies you to enter the temple, perform sacred and required rituals and earns your place in the afterlife…‘eternal salvation’.

and if you don’t follow the rules?

You’re overcome with so much shame you’re convinced everyone else can see your sins as clearly as a big red sauce pasta stain on a white tee.

You go confess to an old man 3x your age in a suit in a cold, crusty office about it. Sometimes he’s kind, but sometimes he makes your skin crawl as you tell him about the ‘bad’ stuff you did.

If you’ve been a really bad girl, you get your temple recommend revoked, you can’t take the Sunday sacrament (the blessed bread + water, which happens in public, so you know everyone is going to side-eye you if you pass it along without partaking), you might even have to postpone your marriage in the temple because you had a little too much fun with your soon to be husband.

You repent to God, you swear to never break the rules again, you recommit yourself to him.

You do better, read more scriptures, pray more devoutly, ‘clean’ up your life and become more obedient to the rules you ‘broke’.

The deeper layers of what Mormonism taught me outside of how short my shorts could be:

• Don’t question authority, follow the prophet, he is the speaker for God

  • We were told ‘doubt your doubts before you doubt your belief’

• Anything not pro-mormon literature is anti-mormon literature

  • Which is why I was terrified to google search anything related to mormonism that didn’t confirm my beliefs

• My worthiness was earned through obedience to rules.

• My virtue was precious, fragile and deeply attached to my worth

  • and that ‘losing’ my virtue was equivalent to being a chewed piece of gum

• No one who lives outside of the church experiences ‘real joy’ (what a mind fuck here)

• “Bad” emotions are from Satan, “good” emotions are from God

• Conflict and contention is of the devil

• There’s someone called the Holy Ghost or the Spirit who is with you to guide you (but only if you’re obeying all the rules)

  • that warm fuzzy feeling you experience at church while everyone is singing hymns, the gut feeling that guides you, that’s him. I thought only mormons experienced this elated experience and internal guidance, turns out you can feel this exact same gut feeling, elated sensation when you’re at a live concert too

• There is only one true church, this one.

• My purpose as a woman was to marry a ‘worthy’ returned missionary, have babies, be a home-maker and be a devout member of the church for life.

The decision to leave was the hardest decision I’ve ever made, and the one I’m the most proud of.

Mormons love to pretend that leaving mormonism is the easy way out but most of them won’t ask you why you left because they are discouraged to, or they think they know already.

The church tells them (I know this because I was told this about people who left) that you wanted to sin, satan got a hold of you, you got offended by someone at church or you just never truly believed in the first place.

There couldn’t be anything further from the truth.

There’s wasn’t a single moment that made me leave, it was more like a ball of yarn I slowly started to tug out of curiosity, until one day it was completely unraveled.

I didn’t want to leave, I gripped so tightly onto mormonism and convinced myself to stay thousands of times. I spent years living half in, half out, teetering back and forth over a crack in the asphalt splitting even wider, so I eventually had to choose a side.

In short, I left for my mental health, my sanity, my bodily autonomy, my freedom, for the latte I drink every single day and the occasional gin and tonic.

It was the hardest decision of my life because…

• I lost my entire community overnight

• The identity I built my life around shattered in a second

• Uncertainty became my new baseline, I had to sit with questions that someone else answered for me my whole life…what is my purpose? where am I going? what do I believe? who do I believe in? what’s the point of all this?

• I had no idea who I truly was outside of Mormon Madi, was that really even me?

• I felt like a teen again…wildly unprepared for normal life outside of my curated, safe, innocent mormon bubble

• I felt like a foreigner in my own body, scared of feeling certain emotions, disconnected with my own sexuality, squirmy when I wore a spaghetti strap in public or drank a sip of alcohol

• I spent years wrestling with shame, guilt, doubt, fear, unworthiness

Leaving was just the first step, then came years of deconstructing, reclaiming and sloppy stumbling through experiences I was having at 28 that most people have at 14.

I left Mormonism in 2020 but it never left me.

People who are still mormon express their frustrations with “ex-mormon” content online, the phrase they often use is…you left mormonism so why can’t you just leave it alone?

My answer: because that’s exactly what you want me to do…be quiet, sit down and keep the peace.

The better question is why can’t it leave me alone?

• It shows up in the shame I used to feel kissing a guy a little too passionately or drinking a cup of coffee

• It showed up in the hesitation I have when I say shit out loud

• It showed up in the glitch and pause when I go to take a bite of food and haven’t said a prayer first

I’ve made huge strides deconstructing thanks to friends, therapy, a spirituality coach, podcasts, YouTube videos and my own willingness to dig all of this up.

I no longer feel shame for wearing a tank top.

I’ve got a full sleeve of plant tattoos now.

I got my ears and nose pierced.

I can swear freely without stumbling over the word.

I have befriended my uncertainty, shame, perfectionism, worthiness, fear, doubt, authority figures and I’ve been getting really, reallyyyyy good at breaking rules.

I trust myself, I finally feel free.

but there are still micro moments in my days of proof that mormonism is tangled into the neural networks of my brain, beliefs and behaviors.

It’s still there, hiding out in the dusty corners of my psyche and has imbedded itself into the myelin sheath of my nervous system.

What does mormonism have to do with gut healing? everything.

Mormonism bled into every aspect of my gut healing, and leaving was a big part of why I healed too.

I spent 2013-2019 spinning my wheels in the holistic world becoming the picture perfect wellness girlie on paper.

But in real life my brain was always swirling around with thoughts like ‘am I doing enough to heal?’ I was scared of fruit, hauling glass Tupperware everywhere I went, setting timers on my phone to take supplements, calling my health research in my free time “fun”, living in stretchy leggings and always keeping my eye out for the bathroom.

IBS, chronic bloat, deathly gas, pain, cramping, constipation, SIBO 3x, dysbiosis, thyroid issues, fatigue, cystic acne, anxiety, panic attacks, rosacea.

I had tried every diet from vegan to carnivore.

10 years avoiding refined sugar, processed foods, seed oils, corn, soy, eating out.

9 years avoiding meat.

8 years avoiding gluten and eating 100% organic.

3 years avoiding eggs, grains, beans, dairy, fruit, carbs.

I eventually was down to eating 2 foods, steamed leafy greens and sprouted nuts/seeds.

My supplement graveyard filled up an entire black garbage bag once I threw them out in 2020.

I easily spent over 45k+ on testing, practitioners, protocols (functional, naturopathic, chiropractors, traditional Chinese medicine, food sensitivity testing, bio-resonance scans, stool tests, acupuncture)

My life was squeaky clean toxin free, no plastics, a custom wool couch I paid too much for from Europe, homemade laundry soap, shampoo, conditioner and makeup from arrowroot powder and cocoa.

There was nothing left for me to detox from, kill off, source better, supplement with, or avoid more strictly.

I was doing gut healing the exact same way I was doing mormonism.

I kept looking to authorities for direction which made my self-trust muscle atrophy.

I micromanaged sensations, emotions and thoughts, until I felt like a foreigner in my own body.

I was obsessed with ‘doing it right’.

I made decisions out of fear, avoidance, obligation, shame vs. desire, trust, autonomy.

I was terrified of breaking rules and getting in trouble.

I was scared of my sexuality and pleasure.

I never felt the relief of ‘enoughness’.

I was always chasing improvements, ways to optimize.

I was comfy living in binary extremes.

I made healing hard because to worthiness wasn’t inherent, it was earned by obedience.

I was playing out all my mormon patterns in how I was trying to heal.

Instead of worshipping a prophet, I was worshipping health gurus.

Instead of following strict religious rules, I was following insane wellness rules.

Instead of micromanaging naughty thoughts, I was micromanaging every bite on my fork.

Instead of proving my worth by obedience to religious rules, I was proving my health by obedience to wellness rules.

Instead of feeling shame for wearing short shorts, I felt shame for eating a real cookie.

Gut healing happened once I let my perfect mormon, crunchy, squeaky-clean self die.

I had to break rules and brace for the aftermath to see what actually stuck, what didn’t.

I had to decide that I was doing MORE than enough to heal, realizing that enough isn’t a destination, it’s a decision.

I had to learn to live in the grey area, middle ground, instead of perpetually riding the pendulum swing of extremes.

I had to learn to trust my body again through teeny tiny trusting action vs. waiting around.

I stopped avoiding things, I expanded my diet.

I stopped taking supplements, I went off my routines on purpose.

I had to challenge and critique everything I thought I knew about health, healing, food, diets, supplements, wellness.

I had to learn to trust my own intuition over prophets, gurus and practitioners with lots of letters after their names.

I had to confront and untangle all my deepest held beliefs about worth, perfectionism, shame.

I stopped revolving every spare moment around health research rabbit holes.

I ate things I ‘shouldn’t’, flared up, but chose to not make it mean anything about me, kept going.

I learned to see the wisdom and story in my symptoms, why I had chronic gut issues vs. blaming my genes, what my parents fed me, toxins or lack of discipline.

I stopped waiting around for someone to tell me when I was healed enough to do the things I wanted and did them scared anyways.

I took practical steps…I ate more calories, I ate more rhythmically throughout the day, I slowed tf down, I found some supportive supplements, I quit my 9-5 health coaching job, I left and deconstructed mormonism, I spent so much solo time in the mountains, I supported my nervous system without knowing what that even meant at the time

I took perceptual steps…healed my relationship with my body, pleasure, nourishment, worth, learning to be with all emotions, building back my self-trust, confidence, self-worth.

And my decade long digestive symptoms slowly faded away on their own while I was doing less for my health than ever, eating everything that scared and flared me and living the most free I had in 10 years. I was utterly shocked, I was having perfect poops…

Without sacrificing my mental health.

Without knowing what my ‘root cause’ was.

Without a separate protocol for each symptom.

Without declaring war on my gut bugs.

Without taking 15 supplements throughout the day.

Without tiptoeing around air fresheners, EMFs and plastic.

Without micromanaging how organic, local, biodynamic, and clean every bite I took was.

Without the fear, shame, control, never-ending rules I was told were ‘required’.

Now? This is the work I’m here to facilitate.

Not the ‘here’s what’s wrong with you, do this diet and protocol perfectly or it won’t work, avoid this other scary toxic’ type of gut healing. Been there, done that.

No one I have worked with is ex-mormon, but every one sees themselves in my story…the shame, the control, the rigidity, the lack of trust, the never-ending rules, the outsourcing answers to numbers on labs or someone in a matching linen set who smell like essential oils.

Sometimes gut healing is about fibermaxxing, probiotics, colonoscopies and being gluten free.

But most of the time it’s this…multifaceted, messy, nuanced, identity altering and life shattering in the most beautiful, expansive way.

It really is that deep.

Xo

-Madisen, The Gut Goddess

$65.95 for a 30-day supply of probiotics.

“high-potency, multi-strain probiotic containing 112.5 billion colony-forming units per capsule”

Sounds fancy, promising, peculiar…112.5 is so hyper specific.

Long story really short: They did nothing, I haven’t taken a probiotic since and you might not after this.

It’s not even that taking probiotic pills are wrong, bad or worthless, it’s that some bacteria, isolated and shoved into a gelatin capsule that you swallow with your green smoothie is equivalent to pouring a cup of water into the ocean and expecting the tide to rise.

The microbiome is a living, breathing, ever changing ecosystem containing trillions of microbes.

If a probiotic supplement has helped you, I love that. I’m not denying their impact, I’m zooming out and offering some other ways to support our guts for those of us who’ve had zero or even negative side effects from them.

Think of probiotic pills like your mother in law who’s visiting town and staying with you for the weekend.

She’s not moving in and she’s not redecorating the place either (hopefully not unless you like her style). She’s passing through.

But "just visiting" also doesn't mean "does nothing."

Probiotics are like transient tourists who can still leave things behind…some probiotic strains produce compounds, compete for resources or interact with your immune system in ways that outlast their stay but most people think that taking a probiotic ‘repopulates’ the gut, it doesn’t.

We’re nerding out on all things microbiome in this one, enjoy.

There’s a hell of a lot of things that shift your gut microbiome that have nada to do with that viral probiotic.

You are carrying around a lush, diverse, rainforest inside a tube (your digestive system) that’s been evolving since you were birthed.

There’s so many factors that have and will impact your unique microbiome…

From the past…how you were born, your mommas microbiome, if you were breastfed, what you ate as a kid, what meds you took, how stressful life was, where you grew up, who you lived with, whether or not you had pets, how sterile your environment was.

And right now too…what you eat, how much fiber you eat, how much you eat, how much stress you experience, how you exercise, where you live, how much dirt is underneath your fingernails, who you live with, what pets you have even down to who you smooch.

Your microbiome is not stagnant.

It’s adaptive, ever shifting, evolving moment by moment based on inputs that go way beyond a pill you have on subscription from Amazon.

The old stats said you're 90% microbes, turns out it's closer to 50/50.

But bacteria are way smaller than human cells, so even at near-equal numbers they only make up a small fraction of total body mass and their genetic material vastly outweighs the human genome in diversity.

What’s the point of basically being half human, half bugs?

The trillions of bacteria that live on and in your body are actively looking out for you.

#1 Your microbiome creates vitamins and minerals you can make on your own.

#2 They digest things you can’t. (like fermentable fiber and turns it into fuel for your gut lining)

#3 They protect you from the outside world (your microbiome isn’t just in your gut either)

You have a unique, highly specific microbiome in every organ that interacts with the outside world, not just in your digestive tract. (your mouth, nose, sinuses, skin, lungs, vagina, eyes, and the one everyone knows about, your gut)

These bugs are like body guards at every entry point.

#4 Your bugs and your brain are besties, chatting constantly via the vagus nerve.

This is part of why gut disruption (like during a stomach bug or after antibiotics) can affect mood and mental clarity, and why chronic stress can measurably lower gut bacterial diversity within just days.

#5 They make neurotransmitters, but not in the ‘most of your serotonin is made in your gut therefore your gut is what’s making you happy’ way.

Neurotransmitters like serotonin, GABA, and dopamine made in the gut can’t actually cross the blood-brain barrier.

The brain makes its own supply from scratch, locally.

So gut-produced neurotransmitters aren’t traveling up to your brain and boosting your mood directly.

The gut does still influence your brain, just indirectly. It sends the raw materials up to the brain to build its own neurotransmitters.

The neurotransmitters your gut bacteria help create are used locally, right in the gut impacting motility aka movement, circulation, sensation and secretions of digestive enzymes and juices.

Serotonin = impacts motility, secretions and sensations in the gut

GABA = impacts pain sensitivity, motility

Dopamine = impacts motility and blood flow, how dilated the blood vessels are, how strong your gut muscles contract

Acetylecholine = impacts glands to secrete digestive juices, muscles to contract to move food through the 22 ft that is your gut

Norepinephrine = counteracts acetylcholine, slows things down in the gut

The reason the gut has been called the second brain is because it has its own has its own semi-independent nervous system: the enteric nervous system.

The microbiome is pure MAGIC. Did you know…

#1 Your microbiome is as unique as your fingerprint.

Except it’s always adapting…shape shifting with changes in your diet, environment, and daily exposures to the outside world.

Your gut ecosystem right now is a combination no one else on Earth exactly shares.

#2 All your gut bacteria together weigh as much as a mango.

The total human microbiota weighs less than 500 grams and the gut microbiota specifically weighs around 200 grams, the equivalent of a mango.

#3 You’re not just bacteria, you're archaea, viruses, fungi, and protozoa.

You contain every domain of life, including methanogens: archaea known for surviving in some of the most hostile environments on Earth, like deep-sea vents and acidic hot springs (cool!!!).

#4 Your appendix serves as a ‘memory’ of your unique gut microbiome.

Got the runs? Bout of food poisoning? Antibiotics?

Beneficial bacteria live in this tiny little pouch the size of your pinky, your appendix. This narrow, hard-to-reach pocket connected to your colon, can survive and recolonize the rest of your gut afterward a big blow to your microbiome.

#5 Who you kiss impacts your microbiome.

Couples who kiss intimately at least 9 times a day were found to have significantly shared salivary microbiota, meaning long-term partners are, quite literally, building a shared oral ecosystem over time.

#6 A change in your diet can shift your microbiome in as fast as 24 hrs.

#7 95 - 99% of your gut microbiome lives in your colon, aka your large intestine.

#8 30-40% of your poop is microbes, dead AND ALIVE.

8 ways to feed your gut that don't come in a capsule

1. Eat probiotic rich foods.

   Obvious, but worth saying: splurge on the ones in the fridge, not the shelf. Cold = live and active cultures (heat-processed, shelf-stable versions are usually dead on arrival, taste yum but zero live bacteria).

   Fermented foods you know about/some you don’t:

   Kefir, kombucha, tepache, rejuvelac, jun tea, natto, tempeh, unpasteurized miso, traditional gochujang, doenjang, fermented fish sauce (unpasteurized), preserved lemons, barrel-aged fermented hot sauce, brined capers, skyr, labneh, traditional cultured buttermilk, raw milk cheese, brine-cured green olives, yogurt (specifying live/active cultures on the label), kimchi, sauerkraut, lacto-fermented vegetables and pickles.

   p.s. a little goes a long way and homemade batches tend to have more diverse strains than store-bought.

   DIY Fermentation books I love: The Art Of Fermentation & Wild Fermentation by Sandor Katz (the GOAT of fermentation)

2. Let your rice (& other starchy carbs) chill overnight

   Starchy carbohydrate sources like rice, oats, potatoes, pasta that are cooked, then cooled, increase resistant starch = food for your gut bugs.

   Cooling rearranges the starch molecules into a tighter structure your digestive enzymes can't break down, so it survives digestion longer (yes even if you heat it up again) and reaches the colon intact. It feeds butyrate-producing bacteria, which make the fatty acids your colon cells thrive on.

   Green (unripe) bananas and plantains, raw potato starch, lentils, chickpeas, black beans, kidney beans, white beans, cashews, green peas, barley, sorghum, and millet are all naturally rich in resistant starch without needing to be cooked and cooled first.

3. Eat your polyphenols.

   Polyphenols are compounds that give plants their color, bitterness, and defense system. They selectively feed beneficial bacteria (like Akkermansia, Bifidobacterium, and Lactobacillus species.) They pass through your gut undigested and end up in your colon, where specific gut bacteria break them down into smaller, bioactive compounds your body can actually use.

   Food sources? berries, 70%+ dark chocolate, cocoa powder, persimmons, matcha, olive oil, apples, onions, grapes, pomegranate, purple sweet potato, capers, red cabbage, artichokes, black beans, black lentils, chestnuts, pecans, pomegranate, red wine, olives, plums, prunes, cherries (especially tart cherries), elderberries, buckwheat, chicory root.

4. Get herby and spicy.

   Herbs and spices are the single most concentrated polyphenol source in your entire kitchen. More polyphol maxxing here…

   Herbs: peppermint, oregano, thyme, rosemary, parsley, basil, cilantro/coriander

   Spices: cloves, saffron, sumac, ginger, turmeric, cinnamon, star anise, black pepper

   Teas: black tea, hibiscus tea, rooibos tea, green tea, matcha

   p.s. the myth is that fresh herbs are “healthier” than dried, but polyphenols don't degrade much with drying, they actually get concentrated as the water evaporates, so dried herbs often pack more polyphenols per gram than their fresh counterparts.

5. Mind your cortisol.

   Bring in all your nervous system tools here because chronic high cortisol thins your gut lining's mucus layer and shifts which bacteria thrive, favoring less-friendly species.

6. Move dat bod.

   Studies on athletes and active people consistently show higher microbial diversity than sedentary folks and it holds even when diet is controlled for.

   Exercise increases blood flow to the gut and boosts short-chain fatty acid production (fuel for your colon).

7. Get outside and even better, get dirty.

   Dirt, plants, animals, soil… all contain ecosystems of bacteria humans have interacted with for a really really long time, all of it seeds new bacterial exposure your gut wouldn't otherwise get. Over-sanitizing does the opposite: it narrows your exposure and your gut resilience too.

8. Drink more coffee at cute coffee shops.

   Coffee drinkers tend to have a specific bacterium in their gut called Lawsonibacter asaccharolyticus at 6–8x higher levels than non-drinkers. Even in those who are decaf drinkers, so it's the polyphenols in the coffee bean doing the work, not the caffeine.

   Coffee is actually one of the largest single sources of dietary polyphenols in the average diet.

Did I convince you to cancel your probiotic subscription yet?

Cheers to microbiome maxxing,

-Madisen, The Gut Goddess

NOTE: content is for educational and informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making decisions about your health.

The question is, ‘why don’t you trust yourself enough to?’

I spent every.single.day in summer at the swimming pool.

Sun-kissed cheeks, stringy hair, permanent rosey red rings around my eyes from the goggles my mom tightened a wee too tight.

The kind of swimming that means a new swimsuit purchase every year since the one I lived in from May - August was transparent from the hours spent soaked in chlorine.

I can swim as good as I can walk.

I’ll effortlessly tread water for hours on end.

Why am I talking about swimming?

because if you’re in the health, wellness, healing space at all, you have to learn to swim in the pool of nutrition noise.

an olympic size pool of opinions, hot takes, diets, detoxes, cleanses and new buzz words every day.

Most of us aren’t floating, swimming or enjoying it at all, we’re DROWNING in it.

Heads barely above water, gasping for air, arms flailing, exerting all our energy to just stay afloat.

If you’ve had gut issues, you probably started to care about what you ate with really good intentions.

you ‘cleaned up your diet’, stayed away from the big baddies (gluten, dairy, sugar, coffee, processed franken foods) avoided some others that aggravated your symptoms and haven’t touched a GMO in years.

But the nature of nutrition noise these days has your attempts to eat healthy quickly spiral into:

micromanaging and optimizing every bite

watching your safe food list shrink

food fear as the side to most meals

a flood of questions every time you sit down to eat…is this clean enough? should I be eating this? is this going to give me symptoms?

eating healthier than you ever have while people who eat McDonalds and have zero bloat and don’t know what IBS stands for.

then maybe, eventually, (hopefully not unless you really want to) moving to the country side to raise your own chickens, milk your own Jersey cow and grown your own garden because the food at the local supermarket isn’t ‘clean enough’.

Most attempts we take to effortlessly swim in the nutrition noise actually shove us down further because they take us away from our power, our intuition.

They don’t teach us the skills we need to swim on our own.

A meal plan feels comforting at first, then you realize you panic without the structure of someone telling you what to eat.

A good/bad food list gives us clarity, then you realize all of your favorite foods as a kid are no longer “allowed” and eating out is off the table (forever).

Another food to avoid feels promising, then you wake up one day so stressed about whether or not you should eat bananas in the winter that you’d rather not eat at all.

A diet to follow gives us a hefty dose of structure, rules and rigidity (we need seasons of this) until what you really need is flexibility when you’re hangry, day 26 luteal, work was a shit show and the last thing you want to do is make a home-cooked gluten, dairy, sugar, egg free, low-histamine meal from scratch.

I’ve done every gut healing diet out there.

(Low Fodmap, gluten, dairy, sugar free, vegan, vegetarian, AIP, SIBO, SCD, Keto, Carnivore and more until I was down to eating 2 safe foods…steamed leafy greens and sprouted nuts and seeds #rabbitfood)

And yes, gut healing diets give us clarity, structure, an ease of symptoms and promise miraculous healing (and ya sometimes they do deliver).

but they also leave us with food fear, health anxiety, rigidity around food and require perpetual avoidance of foods to “manage” symptoms.

They threw you a floaty, then took it away the second you stopped their diet and there you are, drowning yet again in the nutrition noise.

You end your 3 month SIBO protocol either have no idea what it would look like to eat whatever you want OR you do, but now you’re further away from trusting it because no diet has given you the chance to explore food, build back your self-trust, find flexibility and tap into your intuition when it comes to food.

The solution? Eat whatever you want.

Yes I’m serious, even as someone who does this for a living, has a Masters Degree in Nutrition, is obsessed with food and has been a nutritionist the last 9 years.

Here’s the nuance first.

Sometimes, we are so disconnected with food we have zero idea of what our baseline of nourishment is. Years of under-eating calories, restricting nutrients, avoiding entire food groups and ignoring internal cues can disrupt our appetite, hunger/fullness, metabolism and how well our body digests food.

Before I started really, truly, eating everything I wanted, I needed to re-learn what my baseline of nourishment look and FELT like.

This looked like expanding what I ate to eat my TDEE (total daily energy expenditure aka the calories you need to eat daily considering your weight, height, activity) after a decade or more of eating < 1,000 calories, re-learning how to balance my meals with all the macros included (carbs were a biggie that I avoided), establishing regular, rhythmic eating routine vs. skipping breakfast, fasting for 8 hrs between meals and more.

All of these foundational nutritional shifts make it 1000x easier to truly, intuitive eat.

But none of this means you need to wait forever to start to practice what it would look and feel like to eat whatever you want.

My guess is that if you’re reading this, you already know a bit about proper gut supportive meal timing/spacing, eating at your TDEE or more, balanced blood sugar etc.

Back to eating whatever you want….

What would it look like to eat whatever you want? not someday, not when you feel ready, not in a year from now, not once you’ve avoided X long enough, TODAY.

For me, the idea felt reckless, irresponsible, chaotic and indulgent.

Fill in the blank….eating whatever I want feels __________.

what thoughts flood your mind when you think about eating whatever you want?

“I could never eat what I want”

“If I ate whatever I want, I’d eat dessert all day”

“I can’t eat what I want and heal”

“I don’t even know what I want to eat anymore”

“What I want to eat isn’t gut healing though”

Here’s my invitation to explore…

why does listening to your own intuition, hunger, cravings, or fullness feel [fill in the blank from above] in the first place?

Why don’t we trust ourselves to eat whatever we want??

There’s entire books on this topic, but in short…diet culture started it and then wellness culture made it worse.

It’s not your fault you feel disconnected from how to nourish yourself without referencing a saved instagram post first, you are the product of your programming, upbringing, culture and every single nutrition advice you’ve ever learned.

You’ve been swimming in the nutrition noise olympic size pool since you were born.

Everything you currently hold to be true about food is made up, malleable, you learned it somewhere, from someone.

This is the most exciting news ever because what this means, it can all be unlearned.

Eating whatever you want isn’t the reward once you’ve eaten clean enough.

It’s not earned, it’s learned.

Eating whatever you want isn’t the sparkly wrapped present that shows up on your doorstep in a bow once you’ve eaten clean enough, long enough, perfectly enough.

In fact, waiting for that ‘reward’ to come, ensures it never does.

It’s built in the teeny tiniest micro moments of today.

Just like you grow a muscle thats atrophied, learn how to crochet or start to trust someone you matched with on hinge last week.

Here’s how I see this play out with clients…

I give my clients permission to eat what they want.

Yes, we talk about macros, micros, meal timing, spacing, cravings, etc.

We create some structure around how much, what types of foods, how often to eat to ensure they’re meeting those baseline, nutrition goals.

BUT when it comes to the nitty gritty details of every bite they put on their plate, I stay out of it.

I’m not dictating whether or not their eggs are organic, pasture raised, locally sourced because that’s exactly the type of approach that’s deprived them from the experiences needed to re-build trust in themselves to eat whatever they want in the first place.

Most of the time ‘whatever they want’ ends up being home-cooked, balanced, simple, nourishing meals anyways.

And sometimes it’s Indian takeout and ice cream for dinner.

Regardless, they are learning to swim on their own, to trust, to nourish themselves for sometimes, the first time in their lives.

The only way to re-build enough trust in yourself to eat whatever you want one day...is to practice eating whatever you want (even if it is one bite) today.

You do not randomly start trusting a food you perpetually avoid.

You do not stumble upon food freedom once you’ve eaten ‘clean enough’

You do not wake up one day with the resilience to eat everything again.

You can create, build, embody all of this TODAY.

Throw someone a floaty and they’ll never learn to swim.

Cheers to swimming effortlessly in the sea of nutrition noise,

xoxo Madisen, The Gut Goddess

NOTE: content is for educational and informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making decisions about your health.

Like luscious locks, beach wavey, down to my buttox, mermaid vibes goals.

The type that has strangers coming up to you asking ‘excuse me what’s your haircare routine?’.

I’m not there yet because well...

My hair is finally recovering from being ruined by henna (yes I dyed it myself because it was more “natural” and it did NOT go well)

then dyed it wayyyy too much over the course of 3 years that it was almost black (you color theory folks would die because I’m a soft autumn)

then cut to my shoulders from damage.

and the last 2 years I’ve been nursing it back to normal.

Here’s what I’m doing to reach my luscious locks mermaid hair goals...

I’m eating like a woman.

(2,300 cals + because that’s how much fuel I need at a BARE minimum to thrive)

If you think about it, hair isn’t necessary, it’s where resources go when there’s excess.

These luscious locks aren’t going to build themselves out of cortisol and greens powders.

I’m eating more carbs.

Like 250+ g of carbs.

(most of you who think you’re eating carbs aren’t actually lol, you’re eating veggies)

your hair follicles THRIVE and grow with carbs.

my favs: sourdough bread, white rice, white potatoes, FRUIT, fresh watermelon juice, orange juice, honey, chocolate chip cookies, croissants.

I’m eating my protein and taking my collagen more consistently.

I’ve been at a steady 120+ grams of protein per day for years, it’s easy peasy for me now.

Most of my protein comes from: beef, chicken, tuna, greek yogurt, cottage cheese, milk, whey protein, sushi nights out.

Collagen is a bonus here. This is the only “supplement” I’m taking and I’ve been taking it on and off for the last 3 years.

There’s 60 servings in one jug that I love HERE.

(gutgoddess10 at checkout gets you my discount. p.s. this is the only affiliate code I have after receiving a daily DM for some brand to get me to shill their products, I’m picky af)

I’m swapping my shampoo/conditioner.

I got a sample from a lady who I got a facial from and noticed less shedding after I shower.

It’s not the “cleanest” but it’s fragrance free and I like it right now.

and maybe the occasional hair oil and scalp massage.

We know the scalp needs blood flow and who doesn’t love a scalp massage?!

that’s it.

What does this have to do with gut healing Madisen?

cough, EVERYTHING.

I can’t help think about gut healing related to this endeavor because as I do, connect two seemingly unrelated things :)

gut healing is just like growing out your hair, here’s how:

#1 altering ONE variable at a time lets you know exactly what’s working and what’s not.

I’m not switching up a ton with my haircare.

I’m easing things in slowly and sure as hell not going ham on everything all at once.

why?

because say I buy a $78 rosemary hair oil and also start eating more carbs.

if my hair grows and feels better, then how will I know what helped?

taking things SLOWWWW it’s the hardest thing to do if you’re used to diving deep into some extreme gut healing protocol, but it’s the thing that will help you know exactly what works and what doesn’t.

slow down to speed things up.

because if you can grow out your hair (& heal your gut) without $$$$$ worth of products, why wouldn’t you?

#2 control the inputs, the outputs will take care of themselves.

I know my responsibility here.

Give my body what it needs to do what it already knows how to do.

I’m not doing the hair growing, my body is.

gut healing is the same.

wayyy too many people get into the nitty gritty details of gut healing.

they decide on some random Tuesday to detox parasites.

or kill off all the “bad” bacteria in their gut then try to “feed” the good guys.

or eliminate 15 different foods suddenly after one fear-mongering video online and actually starve their body of the nutrients they need to heal.

the body hates to be micromanaged.

micromanaging = distrust.

Most have lost the plot when it comes to what their job is when it comes to growing their hair or gut healing.

take shit out that’s getting in the way, put in what the body needs, and then sit back and let your body HEAL.

focus on the inputs and the outputs take care of themselves.

your bodys gotcha back.

#3 clenching to the timeline does nothing but slow the process down.

you ever watched paint dry, a pot boil or your hair grow?

go live your life, control the inputs and you’ll wake up one day like wow...look how much my hair has been growing.

It takes time, like months or years, not weeks.

Just about everything in my gut healing (& honestly life!!) changed for me when I started thinking in terms of months, years, decades instead of days and months.

Cheers to growing luscious locks and gut healing,

xoxo Madisen, The Gut Goddess

NOTE: content is for educational and informational purposes only. Always consult a qualified healthcare provider before making decisions about your health.

I haven’t always had a lot to say, in fact, I’ve spent most of my life with hardly anything to say.

My report card in elementary school said “Madisen doesn’t talk enough. I’d like her to raise her hand and ask one question a week”.

I’ve slithered quietly in the background most of my life, minding my own business, protecting the peace, making sure others feels seen, listening 1000x more than I talk, following strict religious/wellness rules, doing what I was told and keeping to myself.

Now, look at me, writing rebellious, controversial and vulnerable stuff on the inter webs for anyone and everyone to read.

I’d be lying if I said starting this feels easy.

It really feels like I just gave you the key to unlock my fuzzy pink diary bursting with all my deepest, truest thoughts inside.

It also feels freeing as fuck.

Like a reclamation of my voice I think I shoved down my whole life (& got called shy for it). A place to give myself what I’ve always been good at giving so unconditionally to others…a safe spot to share their deepest inner worries, thoughts, knowings and dreams.

Obviously I'm going to be writing about gut healing, hence GUT GODDESS.

But not in the ‘here take this probiotic, look at what I eat in a day, do this gut cleanse but don’t forget to use my code shityourself10’ type of way.

But in the ‘wtf feels good to you, maybe this wasn’t just about gluten, here’s what worked for me and my clients so try it out, lets see how this gut healing thing could feel 10x more expansive’ type way.

As you’ll soon read, I spent most of my life identifying as the girl with a sensitive gut.

(I had IBS, SIBO 3x, chronic 9 months prego bloat, smelly gas, constipation, gut dysbiosis, urgency, pain, cramping, reflux, undigested food in my poop, I forgot what a ‘normal’ poop felt like for over a decade)

And I hustled so hard to heal. Started with a colonoscopy and endoscopy at age 21 while all my college buds were finding themselves (I was finding myself sitting on the toilet #iykyk).

I walked out of my GI docs office when he handed me meds with zero idea what was next.

Then I found myself for years obsessed with all the wellness stuff (a whole post on this soon) that did nothing but drain my savings, suck all my free-time, ease my symptoms temporarily, but made me miserable with food, a ball of health anxiety and looking for another protocol to try 3 months later.

Surprise, I made it out, I’m healing from healing and am living with the best gut health I’ve ever had (& now I help others too).

Gut healing had very little to do with eating clean, eliminating foods, living toxin free, rigid routines, doing my daily lymph massages and taking my greens and probiotics.

It ended up being catalyst to the self-development journey I kicked and screamed through, I surely didn’t want, but I desperately needed.

I’d like to think I blend the best of both sides of the pendulum swing here when it comes to gut healing.

I nerd out on nutrition, macro/micronutrients, biology, physiology, sciency stuff AND psychology, sociology, culture, what shapes us, why we do what we do, how our beliefs create our reality, energetics, all the woo too.

I’m hope to be the breath of fresh air I desperately needed from the insanity of the wellness world (clients and followers words, not mine).

To highlight the harms no one speaks up about, critique the trends, offer other perspectives to chew on and show you what’s possible, no matter how small your safe food list is right now or how long your guts been “off”.

why here? why now?

I’m building for longevity and because I am, I’m creating a place for my work to compound and carry impact without me being “on” all the time, that’s here.

Instagram is my main hub, but it’s so short lived, shifting fast and lacks depth.

I want a space to go off and give you all the nitty gritty details and nuance without getting cut off by the caption character count police.

I want a place to connect with you all deeper.

what you will find here…

At least 1x per week an easy to digest piece to read…

I’m sharing:

• messy moments from my decade long gut healing saga

• permission slips to do gut healing your way

• critiques of stuff I see swirling around in the wellness space

• cool conversations I’m having with clients

• how I’m healing from healing and now LIVING

• places that I fucked up in my healing so you don’t have to

• lessons learned, hot takes, medium takes

• tips, guidance, direction, analogies, simplifying tf out of things, oh and action items so you can go do something with all of this

• occasional sciency deep dives on health topics but in everyday language

all written in a way that I’d actually say them to you, like we’re conversing while we sip our coffee and a get messy with a flaky af croissant.

what you won’t find here…

Educational content with no soul. Health jargon that makes you confused. AI slop soup. Generic advice. Binary extremes. Fear-mongering about bread, or whatever other ToXiC thing the wellness world is obsessing over this week. Extremes.

here are the only rules…

#1 don’t put me on a pedestal.

#2 take everything I say with a grain of sea salt.

#3 be kind, I'm not perfect, I’m learning, I’m doing it messy, I’m not “right”.

I cannot wait to share all the gut healing things I wish someone shared with me…embarrassing moments, hard pills to swallow, massive realizations and timeless truths, with a side of grammatical errors, cuss words and lots of poop puns.

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Cheers to gut healing and doing things that scare us shitless (literally),

xo Madisen, The Gut Goddess