Habit Challenge: Improve your gut health

In today’s busy society, it is our lifestyles, nutrition and environment that hold us back and put negative strain on most of our body’s systems. The digestive system is one of these systems.

The goal of this habit is to simply create more awareness of how the food you eat impacts your overall health and daily well-being as there is a strong link between the gut biome and the brain and the impact on our overall health especially from a psychological point of view.

Over the next two week we are going to work on the awareness of health and nutritional from within the body and how looking after ourselves this way can have a huge impact both physically and emotionally.

The axis between the brain and the gut are so very intricately linked and so when we talk about that ‘gut feeling’ so often this is the marker for how we feel. If we feel bloated, empty, lethargic or low on energy we struggle with the focus to stay on track and so this can affect how we make decisions and can undo much of the hard work being done.

Remember form those new habits and ask yourself each day, how is it going, what am I learning and what can I improve on.

How your overall gut health can be impactive on the body:

Fatigue can be linked to an over-active immune system constantly being taxed by the consumption of intolerant foods. Fatigue can also be the first alert to a food intolerance.

Headaches Can become a recurring problem in those experiencing allergic reactions to food. These may range from mild right up to full-blown migraines that require medical treatment.

Skin reactions Common skin problems such as eczema, acne, or irritation may be reduced or prevented through elimination of intolerant foods.

Weight gain Food sensitivities can result in malnutrition, as the body no longer absorbs the nutrients correctly and expends more of them to keep up with the immune response. The body will naturally crave more food to replace the lost and expended nutrients, and with the over consumption of calories, we see subsequent weight gain.

If you want to maximise the performance of your gut and make it ‘bulletproof’, focusing on food allergies and sensitivities is a great place to start.

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is a common condition of the digestive system. It can cause bouts of stomach cramps, bloating, diarrhoea, and constipation. The exact cause of IBS is unknown, but most experts agree it is related to an increased sensitivity of the entire gut, which can be linked to a prior food-related illness. This may be caused by a change in your body’s ability to move food through your digestive system or may be due to you becoming more sensitive to pain from your gut.

Respiratory Disease There is medical research to suggest that food we eat can have an impact on airway conditions. Allergic airway disease may be due to food intolerance, moulds, and chemicals such as preservatives and food dyes, as well as airborne allergens. Typical problems are asthma, hay fever and sinusitis.

Hopefully, this has highlighted just how important the digestive system is, and how it can be linked to many common illnesses and symptoms. Today, think about how your own health has been or currently is being impacted by the food you eat.

It can be difficult to stay consistent with a habit if you have a lot going on in your life, or if you take a break from your normal routine.

The perfect example of this is the weekend. So let’s set you up to win this weekend. How? By doing an easy version of your habit for the weekend.

This should be so easy that it should require as much energy as brushing your teeth. Today, I want you to plan how you’ll stick to your habit challenge this weekend.

Here are a few factors that contribute to people experiencing an immune response to certain foods or food groups:

A hyperpermeable gut (leaky gut syndrome) Leaky gut can be triggered by a number of things, including inflamed gut lining, unbalanced bacteria levels, nutritional deficiencies, and underlying allergic conditions within the gut.

The source can typically be linked back to several lifestyle factors. A diet containing intolerant foods is the most common, but any food that has been shown to inflame the digestive tract can cause issues. Stress can also be a trigger as it can greatly reduce blood flow to your important digestive organs. A diet low in fibre can play a significant role too, as fibre keeps you regular, excreting dangerous com- pounds in the process.

Lastly, antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs will cause havoc in your gut and kill off good bacteria.

The detoxification system is the primary factor used to remove toxins from the body. If this is not operating efficiently, problems can arise. A slow detox may exist if the body’s detox system is already under strain – it finds it difficult to keep up with demand.

As a result, toxins (such as a food intolerance) remain in the body and cause an immune response to occur.

Detoxification enzyme deficiency makes it difficult or impossible for the body to break down a dietary toxin. This can be linked to a poor diet, as an optimal detox system requires adequate levels of the nutrients necessary for proper liver detoxification.

The liver is said to be the most hard-working organ in the body and conducts several important functions that are vital to life. It plays an important role in digestion (breaking down nutrients) and can be considered one of the most important organs for detoxification.

The liver neutralises a wide range of toxic chemicals, including those produced internally and externally of the body. When the liver is not functioning optimally, or our metabolic processes are disrupted, this neutralising effect is greatly reduced, leaving the body open to attack from toxins. This is becoming increasingly more common due to the rise of genetically modified foods and poor diets.

Today take the time to consider the new habit of how you think about your gut health. Sunday is a great day to reflect on the week gone and moving forward into the second week.

How has it been, have I made the changes, have I been able to achieve what I set out to do. What is next week looking like as I move forward and reward yourself by pushing on to being awesome.

If all went well last week, and you did not struggle or skip the habit for more than a day, I recommend that you lengthen the habit this week. If you have struggled, keep it the same as last week or make it even easier.

For example, if you have successfully eliminated a certain food or food group, then consider any other problematic foods that you could reduce for this week too.

Never make too big an adjustment so that it becomes too difficult. This slow change process of expanding the habit a little at a time helps overcome the resistance of the mind to change and discomfort. Each step is not difficult, so your mind doesn’t rebel much. Gradually the habit becomes your new normal and you can expand a bit more, pushing your comfort zone a little at a time

This is how your digestive system work: Close your eyes. Now imagine your favourite meal sat before you. The smell of it fills the air and you can already feel that first bite on your tongue.

The brain kick-started your digestive system before you even got your first bite. If you were to eat that meal, you would take a bite and start chewing. This chewing will increase the surface area of the food, while the salivary glands start releasing an enzyme called amylase to breakdown carbohydrates.

After being in the stomach for 1-3 hours, the stomach contents are passed along to the small intestine.

Most digestion and absorption takes place as food reaches the first section of the small intestine, the duodenum.

The result of this process:

1. The carbohydrates you ate have been turned from larger sugars to single sugar units like glucose, fructose and galactose. These will act as the primary energy source for the body, or stored as fat
2. The proteins you ate have been broken down into their smallest units – amino acids and small peptides. These serve as the building blocks to the body
3. The fats you ate have been broken down to fatty acid chains, which will be used for energy and absorption of vitamins and minerals All this is the fundamental reason for the digestive process: so, the body can obtain simple sugars, amino acids and fatty acids from the food you eat.

Probiotics are live bacteria and yeasts promoted as having various health benefits. They’re usually added to yoghurts or taken as food supplements and are often described as “good” or “friendly” bacteria.

Probiotics are thought to help restore the natural balance of bacteria in your gut (including your stomach and intestines) when it’s been disrupted by an illness or treatment.

There’s some evidence that probiotics may be helpful in some cases, such as helping prevent diarrhoea when taking antibiotics, and helping to ease some symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).

But for most people, probiotics appear to be safe. If you want to try them, and you have a healthy immune system, they shouldn’t cause any unpleasant side effects.

Probiotics are generally classed as food rather than medicine, which means they don’t go through the rigorous testing medicines do. The top probiotic foods to improve the healthy bacteria in the gut are live , kefir (a fermented probiotic milk drink), sauerkraut and Tempeh a fermented soyabean product.

The bacteria that are present in our gut benefit far beyond just the gut itself, playing a role in our immune system and even our mental health. We have all heard of the benefit of prebiotics and probiotics in our diets, but do we really understand what these are and the differences between them?

A good way to explain prebiotics is by thinking of them as fertilisers in our gardens, to help feed and grow all our plants. By adding a prebiotic to our diet, we can similarly feed and help our gut bacteria grow strong to benefit our overall ecosystem.

Many plant foods contain different types of prebiotics. Artichokes, asparagus, bananas, berries, tomatoes, garlic, onions, legumes, green vegetables, and wholegrain cereals are some examples. Prebiotics can also be manufactured artificially and added into foods or supplementsz.

We’re almost at the end of the ‘improve your gut’ habit challenge.

The gradual change of your diet sometimes means letting go of bad habit and moving forward with new ones and gut health is one of those things that will improve greatly with new habits. We have all heard of the say ‘the gut feeling’ well it is absolutely true. If we feel right on the inside we feel energised, less stressed, we are able to focus and concentrate better as we have that spring in our step. This shows how close the connection between the brain and the gut biome is, the axis, that gut brain pathway that gives us an improved communication between the two giving us overall better health.

Over the last two weeks you’ve completed the ‘improve your gut’ habit challenge – awesome well done.

Today, take a minute after practicing your habit to reflect again on the past week of doing the habit. What has the habit been like and how have you done?

What have you learned?

What parts or how much of this habit will you continue to do?

Consider writing a short journal entry about these reflections, to solidify your learning. Treat habit formation as a learning process, to learn about yourself, your mind, mindfulness, resistance and more.