She’s got the number one aid for going number two.
Nutritionist and certified personal trainer Gianna has taken to TikTok to share the trio of morning rituals that she swears by to support gut health — and one, in particular, should get things in motion.
It should be done immediately upon rising and can be performed in under a minute — with no special ingredients.
“Number one is drinking warm water on an empty stomach.”
Gianna drinks roughly 32 ounces of warm water and maintains that the benefits are myriad.
“Not only will it hydrate you and make you feel good, but it will also help restore your natural fluid balance and help your digestion just by getting things moving again and releasing toxins,” Gianna says.
She adds that adding electrolyte powder, Himalayan salt, lemon juice or apple cider vinegar to that warm water can amplify the effects.
Her advice echoes that of French biochemist and bestselling author Jessie Inchauspé, also known as the Glucose Goddess, who recently extolled the virtues of chugging vinegar water for weight management and energy boosts.
Gianna’s morning prescription is also remarkably less odious than other recent water hacks, which include the chia seed-based, Gen-Z favorite tadpole water and “nature’s lube,” aka okra water, aka a shot of snot.
What are other ways to balance your hormones and improve your gut health first thing? According to Gianna, we should never do one typical morning ritual9 without eating first.
“We are no longer drinking coffee on an empty stomach. This is one of the worst things you could be doing if you’re trying to balance out your hormones,” she states. “Not only are you overloading your adrenals, but you’re also sending a cortisol spike throughout your body.”
Cortisol is the body’s main stress hormone — it’s produced by the adrenal glands and released into the bloodstream during times of stress.
It affects sleep, mood and energy levels and also combats inflammation, controls blood pressure, and regulates blood sugar, among other important functions.
Gianna urges viewers to eat a well-balanced breakfast before or alongside their first cup of coffee.
In a separate TikTok, nutritional therapist Oliva Hedlund also weighed in with cautions about coffee, saying it “is not only acidic, so it’s hard on our stomach in the morning, but it literally causes our bodies to go into a stress response, to shoot out cortisol, and to put us in kind of a fight-or-flight state.
“It’s because your body is stressed out. Have something small before you have a coffee. Make it your goal. I promise you will notice a difference.”
Number three in Gianna’s holy trinity wakeup routine: Rising and shining with an AM workout.
“Getting some sort of movement in the morning will immediately help your digestion. Your body needs some movement after sleeping all night to get some blood flow circulating,” she explains. “That way, you can kick-start your digestion and have a good bowel movement in the morning.”
Other ways to aid and abet number two? A high-fiber diet and a bit of poop yoga, the latter a toilet trick that a surgeon claims could improve your pit stops.
