Every day I hear about issues related to the stomach… “I have IBS,” “I have Leaky Gut Syndrome,” “I can’t eat this – or I can’t eat that,” and soooo many more. Can I take you on a short trip? Teach you a bit before we discuss this much further?
School has taught me a LOT about what it means to be healthy and how to get there. Our country as a whole is so very unhealthy. We eat fast foods, processed foods, foods that were never meant to be eaten, which has caused an internal struggle with our digestive track.
Our mouth and digestive track is where we bring external things into contact with our internal being. We have billions of bacteria internally. In order to feed them appropriately – and in turn feed ourselves – we must understand how they work and why. I’ll try to make this as easy to follow as I can.
First, understand that some of the information I provide here will seem “off” as we have been taught certain “truths” based on what the food industry wants you to believe. Example: Grains are good for your body. Do some research and understand where grains (grasses) come from and how they negatively affect your digestive track. Another example: Margarine is better for you than butter. Go take a look at how margarine is made.
Take a look at what you are eating. If you are following the FDA’s food pyramid or the food plate, you are going to remain sick. You should be focused on natural carbohydrates (fruits and vegetables of all colors), natural fats (not vegetable oils / not margarine / not trans fats), water and green / herbal teas, and natural proteins (nuts / seeds / legumes / organic meats). You will notice some things are missing from this list, on purpose.
Take a look at how often you are eating. You should be eating no more than three meals a day and fasting for 12 – 16 hours each day. This allows your body to process foods and then heal the body as needed.
Ensure that you are eating a salad each day filled with all colors of vegetables. This provides your body with the needed fiber to feed the gut bacteria which help you digest your foods.
Do you need to reset your gut’s biome? Start by eating some type of beans every day – hummus or any BEAN will do. These reset the bacteria in your colon that will initiate the reset. Use probiotics daily – yogurt, kefir, kombucha and anything pickled. These help grow the proper bacteria in your gut.
Do you want to get healthy? You don’t have to make all these changes today, but you do need to make a start and continue to take the appropriate steps to heal yourself.
If you are on medication, designed to help your stomach, it likely is causing more issues than it is fixing. Talk to a holistic nutritionist or a Naturopathic doctor to help get you away from the drugs and allow your body to heal itself naturally.
I’ve always said – ask the why. You know your body better than anyone else and just because someone has a medical certificate does NOT mean they know more than you do. Understand the why. Before I took either of my girls to the doctor, I would do a LOT of research and more than 75% of the time, the doctor had no idea what the problem was. That is quite disheartening.
I’ll be diving into each of these parts more and more to reveal how to help you get healthy naturally.
Blessings – E