Resilience Is More Than a Mindset – How Gut Health, Grit, and Plants Can Make You Unstoppable
- Brainz Magazine
- Oct 2
- 5 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
Lauren Callahan is nutrition coach, ultra endurance athlete, and doctoral student. As the founder of Ultra Nutrition, she helps athletes go from injured and tired to resilient and unstoppable with gut health, plants, and peptides.
When most people talk about resilience, the conversation usually circles back to mindset. We’re told to reframe challenges as opportunities, think positively, or adopt a growth perspective so we can bounce back stronger. And while mindset truly is powerful, it can only take you so far.
Maybe you are a leader under constant pressure at work, or you’ve carried trauma that shapes the way you respond to stress, or you’re an everyday athlete consistently pushing your limits. No matter your story, resilience is about more than what happens in your head. Because if your body and energy are breaking down, no positive thought will carry you to the finish line.
The question is, how do you become the kind of person who bounces back again and again, not burned out, not chronically injured, not mentally exhausted, but actually stronger?
The answer comes down to three things that have nothing to do with your mindset. They’re not hacks or quick fixes. They’re habits that rebuild resilience from the inside out, gut health, grit, and plants.
1. Gut health: Your second brain
Scientists are calling your gut the "second brain," and for good reason. Your gut microbiome is connected to your sleep quality, immune system, hormones, stress response, inflammation, energy levels, and even your mood. When your gut is struggling, so is your ability to recover, adapt, and thrive.
I personally discovered the power of gut health after struggling for four years to complete a marathon. No matter how hard I trained, I couldn’t cross that finish line. My body was constantly inflamed, my energy tanked, and my recovery was miserable.
It wasn’t until I shifted my focus to healing my gut that everything changed. After six months of focusing on gut-healthy nutrition, improving my digestion, and lowering inflammation, I finally ran my first marathon. And that was only the beginning.
Within one year, I went on to run a 50-mile ultramarathon, finish my first Ironman, and then push through another 50-miler, a second Ironman, and a 100K run. My training didn’t suddenly become easier, my body finally had the foundation to support the stress I was putting on it. My sleep improved, my mood was steadier, and my recovery time shortened dramatically.
Today, I am passionate about helping my clients at Ultra Nutrition improve their gut health because of the absolute transformation it brings, especially for folks who are tired of hearing from their doctor, "Everything’s fine," when they know everything is not fine.
Resilience starts in the gut. Without it, your body can’t regulate stress or fuel endurance. With it, you have the biological capacity to take on challenges without falling apart.
2. Grit: Doing the thing anyway
Now, let’s be honest, even with a strong gut, there will be days when your mindset feels like garbage. You’re exhausted, sore, and overwhelmed. This is where the second ingredient for resilience comes in, grit.
Grit isn’t about feeling motivated. It’s perseverance and passion. It’s relentless forward motion. It’s taking action, no matter what your head is telling you.
I learned this lesson at mile 80 of that first Ironman I finished. I was hurting. Cyclists were flying past me. My brain was shouting, “You don’t belong here. These people are stronger, faster, better trained.” Imposter syndrome was crushing me, and I didn’t have the energy to argue with it.
And here’s the key, I didn’t try. I didn’t stop to fix my mindset or give myself a pep talk. Instead, I accepted the thought that maybe I don’t belong here. But that was exactly why I needed to keep doing the thing, because if you want to grow, you have to keep showing up in the places that feel too big for you. Horrible imposter syndrome mindset and all, I kept doing the thing, and I eventually crossed that finish line.
The same thing happened in a 100K ultramarathon in Vermont. With one mile left, I nearly collapsed onto the trail, ready to die, or at least ready to give up. My mindset was completely gone. But my legs weren’t, and I stood back up, did the thing, and finished.
That’s grit. Not glamorous, not inspirational in the moment. It’s not fixing your mindset or talking yourself out of your emotions, it’s taking action and simply doing the thing that you set out to do. And the more often you do it, the more your resilience muscles grow.
3. Plants: Nature’s recovery system
After my big year of endurance events, I hit a wall. I was in my mid-40s, and despite all the work I had done for my gut, I felt exhausted, inflamed, and hormonally and metabolically out of balance. My recovery lagged, my mood shifted, and sleep was the worst.
The change that finally brought me back? Plants. Lots of them.
I made the decision, one I never thought I’d make, to shift to an exclusively plant-based diet. Within two weeks, I noticed the difference. At four weeks, I felt like myself again. And at six weeks, I felt better than myself, I felt like I could do anything. My energy returned, my recovery accelerated, and I was even able to triple my training load.
The science backs this up, eating more plants lowers inflammation, reduces cortisol, and taps into your body’s natural ability to self-heal. It’s not about restriction; it’s about fueling resilience with foods that give your body the tools it needs to repair and grow stronger.
For me, the shift to plants wasn’t about losing weight or chasing performance, it was about reclaiming energy, balance, and resilience so I could keep doing the things I love. And it worked.
From tired to unstoppable
Mindset will always matter. But when resilience is framed as a mindset alone, we miss the full picture. True resilience requires a body that can support stress, a will that pushes through regardless of doubt, and fuel that keeps inflammation at bay.
Gut health, grit, and plants. Together, they transform resilience from a buzzword into a lived experience.
Whether you’re an athlete, a leader, or someone simply trying to get through life’s challenges with more strength and less burnout, gut health, grit, and plants give you the power to move from tired to unstoppable.
Read more from Lauren Callahan
Lauren Callahan, Ultra Endurance Athlete Nutrition Coach
Ultra endurance athlete, nutrition coach, and doctoral student, Lauren Callahan is using science-based nutrition, compassionate coaching, and plant-forward strategies to transform endurance athletes from injured and tired to resilient and unstoppable. Passionate about gut health, plants, and peptides, she guides endurance athletes to use nutrition to improve their health, mood, performance, hormones, and recovery.
