How a little knowledge changes so much- See how this information on having a healthy gut changes you.
It aways impresses me how different life becomes with education. I know that doesn’t sound too profound, but it really is. When we learn something it changes our perspective and behavior exponentially. For example, I recently learned that eccentric exercises strengthen our muscles faster than concentric exercises. Well with this knowledge, why would I do dead lifts when I could be doing leg curls? 🙂 (“Do both Lisa, do both”) If I had only known this before, and known what I was doing to put myself in a situation where was causing a chronic injury. ….. More education would have changed things. And here is a bit of education on staying healthy.
Last week I was given the opportunity to share some knowledge and give a talk at Lazy Acres. First of all, I love teaching! I love being able to share what I know for the benefit of others. We talked about a healthy gut- the inside not the outside, because you have to make the inside healthy to have the outside look how you want.
I’ll give the talk again in a few months for those that missed it and want the information, but here are few things to think about for getting a healthy gut!
Having a healthy gut come in a few parts. First, we need healthy small intestines (SI) so we absorb our nutrients and are not susceptible to leaky gut and give ourselves food sensitivities or food allergies. All of this is multifaceted but not too complicated. A few things that stress the small intestines and make us prone to these chronics maladies are: improper digestion – eating too fast; OTC and prescription drugs; stress, sugar and processed foods. If these are any part of your daily life, you might want to keep reading…..
When we stress the inner lining of our SI with these things, we really just wear it down. Once compromised, it starts to allow food particles through, creating a mess of a situation in our blood and causing allergic responses. The process is really actually is a survival mechanism of our body but we compromise it with what and how we put things into our bodies. To protect this from happening we need to chew our food properly, allow the body time to digest food and not bombard the gut with toxins and non-food items such as processed food products. We can heal from the attacks we put on our gut, but it’s easier to just not put it under siege.
Unfortunately, so many people do not know how they are stressing their body and subjecting it to damage just by what and how they eat. But once you know, so many things can change.
The second part of a healthy gut is having healthy gut flora. Our gut flora is responsible for our cravings, our circadian rhythm, our moods, hormone productions, vitamin production, brain functions… and the more we study the flora the longer the list grows. As a matter of fact, next time you are grumpy you can blame your gut flora for the bad attitude. However, you can also manage your gut flora and grow the ones you want (the flora that makes you level headed and witty) and start to starve-out the flora that makes you crave ice cream and chocolate. Your choice. We manage gut flora by feeding the ones we want: i.e., feed the micro-biome that thrive off vegetable fiber and starve the ones that thrive on sugar. We also manage the micro-biome by adding diverse forms of microbiota from fermented foods, a variety of probiotics and being in nature. For every one of our cells, there are 10 of them. So take care of them by limiting your use of chemicals, not drinking out of heated plastics (even your coffee lid), and think about whats happening next time you are using antibiotics. Remember, you want the good one’s to thrive and bad ones to go.
Hopefully this little bit of knowledge empowers you to be even more healthy!
