#30 How to improve your gut health
On todays episode I am going to talk about habits and routines that you can work on to Improve your Gut Health
This is a part 2, in episode 28 we talked about what signs and symptoms you might be experiencing if your gut isn’t healthy. I recommend you listen to that episode first, before diving into this one.
After i started sharing, feeling like its all in your head. But lately, a lot of people have been starting to understand that poor internal health can lead to numerous health problems. One of the things we should look after is out gut health.
It is not in your head, but it is outside the scope of most GP’s to help you addres it. The factors that affect our gut health include diet, hygiene, stress and a lack of exercise. Basically, your gut is your body's second brain. As mentioned, it controls how you digest your food and creates essential nutrients your body needs. Basically, in order to take good care of your gut, you need to look into ALL your habits and routines and that can feel overwhelming
On todays episode we are going to cover what you can do, and where you can start to improve your own gut health. I wrote this episode like the advice that I would have wanted to hear when I was walking around with the feeling it was all in my head. I dove into reading about it, and found that these were the 5 most important thing that GENERALLY work to get your gut on track.
DISCLAIMER: this is general advice, about habits and routines that HELP with maintaining a healthy gut flora, but as I do not have the full picture of your symptoms nor am prescribing this for you specifically - then this does not substitute advice from a licenced professional.
How can I improve my gut health?
Keeping a Food Journal With Symptoms
Creating your own users manual, and writing down what foods irritate, cause symptoms and trigger you.
The first step is to write it down to start seeing patterns, the second step of this process is to eliminate the things that do irritate your gut. And sticking too it. §
Eat More OF helpful foods & supplements.
Hypothetically, the best way to maintain a healthy gut is to eat a range of fresh, whole & a lot of plant-based foods. And staying clear of heavily processed, fried, and fast food. Healthy food choices speed up gut health improvement because they increase the number of beneficial bacteria in our body.
This means that you can impact your gut health by eating certain types of foods. Typical foods that improve gut health include fibrous foods, non-starchy vegetables, olive oil. Fibrous foods promote good digestive function by promoting good bacteria in your gut. Non-starchy vegetables promote optimal immune function by providing nutrients for good bacteria and reducing inflammation in your body.
Pre & Probiotics help promote good bacteria through supplementing them with live cells. Plus, they provide various pre-digested nutrients to the good bacteria in your gut. Fermented ingredients such as kimchi, yoghurt culture etc. Vitamin tablet as you may not be efficiently digesting nutrients when your gut is struggling. You can make sure you include some of those foods in your regular diet and vitamin intake.
Exercise!
Cardio is great for both your heart & your gut? It’s been proven that regular cardio can help keep your gut healthy and even improve irregular bowel movements,”
While I know from my own experience that training with gut issues can be challenging there is always something we can do and it does not need to be super intense.
In fact, any type of activities that get you breathing heavy, and your blood pumping helps. You can simply climb up the stairs or grab a jump rope, scale back your expectations from a fitness glass and decideo just cuse and even just dance to your favourite song or simply just take a walk outside. These will help your gut.
Drink More Water.
I know I sound like a broken record at this pint but something as simple as it may sound, drink water! Don’t forget to hydrate.
Staying hydrated help your bodies in many ways, from making things run smoother in your digestive system, improving your metabolism to daily cognitive function. So make sure to get enough water in on daily basis.
Get Enough Sleep.
This is probably one of the more surprising thing that I found, as a sidefecct of working on my sleep, is that my guthealth improved. I now often find that if I sleep less, due to late night outing - I can start feeling the affects on my digestion the day after.
As we covered in episode 24, how sleep affects weight loss. Poor sleep can significantly impact your gut because poor sleep affects your food choices. People with poor sleep tend to make less ideal choices when it comes to food, feel less thirsty, more snacky. They are more prone to reach out to cookies & chips than fruits & vegetables. So, get the rest that you need and sleep plan for 7-8 hours in bed on daily basis.
SUMMARY
Allow me to say this one more time, it is not in your head, but I agnolish that your gut health is a affected by your habits and health routines. I would ot be talking about these 5 tips if it wasn’t something I believe will help you.
So I incurrange you to Prioritise your gut health and review these five tips, and plan at lease one you are going to implement over the next 10-14 days, to take care of our second brain - our guts
Let me know how it goes.
If you need support and someone to talk to and trouble shoot with on your gut healing journey then I would be happy to assist you. You can find more information about my remote coaching packages and offers on fitwitheki.com/services and if you have any further questions you can shoot me a message or book in for a 20-minute FREE consultation with me.
Bests,
Coach Eik
