Gut health is all the rage these days. No wonder why! Your gut has been called your second brain. It affects everything from your mood to your weight and your overall well being. In my post 5 Ways You Can Restore Your Gut Health Naturally and Why It Matters, I go into more details about why your gut health matters. Rebuilding your gut flora is crucial. Here, I give you a simple five steps plan that you can start implementing today.
1- Eliminate Inflammatory Foods
Inflammation is linked to type 2 diabetes, obesity, cancer, digestive issues, and more. We call this type of inflammation chronic, low-grade, or systemic inflammation. Diet-induced inflammation is the key mechanism behind inflammation. That’s why I recommend the first step you take is to change your diet and start eliminating inflammatory foods. The Paleo Diet is a great place to start.
When you are starting, I suggest you avoid:
- Dairy
- Grains (or gluten at the very least)
- Excess sugar
- Excess alcohol
- Vegetable oil and soybean oil
Once you have eliminated the most inflammatory foods, you will start noticing an improved sense of well- being. After a few weeks, you will see apparent symptoms when you reintroduce foods you are sensitive to into your diet. If you are still not feeling your best, the next steps will help. Also, you can experiment with elimination diets. Each of us is unique. You will need to figure out what foods are affecting you.
2- Detoxify
How environmental toxins affect your gut health
Environmental toxins include heavy metals, mold, pesticides, BPA, and phthalates. These toxins have a direct impact on the gut microbiome. Not only that but your gut microbiome determines how your body handles environmental toxicity. It’s a bidirectional relationship.
Synthetical chemicals have contaminated the environment to a point where it is impossible to avoid them altogether. However, we can all make a few simple choices like avoiding plastic, toxic cleaning products, and cosmetics. Educate yourself and choose cleaner alternatives.
Rebuilding your gut flora through detoxification
Since you cannot completely avoid environmental toxins, it’s essential also to support your detoxification pathways. Learn more about why you need to detox and how you can detox naturally in this post. I list simple foods and strategies that can help you get started today.
Let me touch on a few natural remedies you can purchase to help your body get rid of the toxins:
- A probiotic that helps your body eliminate glyphosate.
- Marshmallow root to help cleanse the kidneys and the bladder.
- Clove to support the liver.
- Wormwood for gallbladder and liver support.
Check your sources when you purchase these herbal supplements. Look for high-quality organic products. Contact me for my recommendations.
3- Nourish
In step 1, we focused on eliminating inflammatory foods. In this step, you will learn how to nourish your body with the foods it needs.
Start focusing on consuming the following foods each day:
- fermented foods
- bone broth
- veggies and fruits, both cooked and raw
- resistant starch (like raw cashews, raw potato starch, slightly green bananas, and legumes)
4- Banish parasites
You don’t often hear about the connection between parasites and gut health, but it exists. Parasites can dramatically alter the gut microbiome. Alternatively, your gut flora affects how successfully parasites can colonize the gut.
Here are my main suggestions to banish parasites:
- Black walnut hull has antibacterial and antiparasitic properties.
- Neem is a natural pesticide.
- Olive leaf extract is an effective antiparasitic. It has been shown to some parasites more effectively than drugs.
5- Regenerate (rebuilding your gut flora)
After eliminating anti-inflammatory foods, detoxifying, nourishing your body, and banishing parasites, you can start rebuilding your gut flora. Of course, the foods that I recommend to nourish your body also help heal the gut. In this step, we are delving deeper in the proper way to start rebuilding your gut flora. You will notice that I haven’t even mentioned a probiotic yet (except for one that helps eliminate glyphosate from your bloodstream). Now, let’s talk about repopulating your microbiome.
How taking probiotics help
Probiotics include gut-friendly bacteria. These live micro-organisms may help repopulate your gut when consumed.
Why the kind of probiotics matters
It is commonly advised that you chose a probiotic that contains at least 1 billion colony forming units (CFUs). Different fermented foods and probiotics will include different strains of bacteria. You can experiment with various probiotics, but I particularly like the strain Bacillus coagulans because these bacteria go dormant in harsh conditions that may kill other strains. For example, it is able to withstand stomach acid.
How to take your probiotics
Try to take your probiotics 20 minutes after you eat first thing in the morning or right before bed. I like to do both when I am in the rebuilding phase. But in the end, anytime is better than nothing. Just make sure you take them!
