into tissues throughout the body, causing them to inflame.
What causes a leaky gut?
Inflammation in the gut lining causes the microvilli filters that act as the barrier between our gut and our bloodstream to be swallowed up. The microvilli are like very fine hairs that protect the delicate gut wall from bigger undigested food molecules. If part of the microvilli are aggravated and inflamed, then those food molecules can get through the lining and become a toxin in the bloodstream.
This can be caused by:
A. Diet: refined sugars, processed foods, preservatives and refined flours. Too many toxins in the gut over many years means that the gut becomes inflamed as it just can’t keep up.
B. Stress: stress almost always results in a suppressed immune system. A weakened immune system cannot handle doing its normal job and gets overrun more quickly, causing inflammation.
C. Bad bacteria: if the bacterial balance in your gut is wrong, the ‘bad’ bacteria can take over and lead to inflammation.
How do you know if you have a leaky gut?
Instead of or as well as gut-health problems (stomach cramps, bloating, diarrhoea) you may get:
Multiple food sensitivities
Frequent colds and illnesses
Skin complaints such as eczema and rashes
Headaches, brain fog and fatigue
THE BOTTOM LINE
Your gut-health problems, aches and pains and food intolerances could all be intrinsically linked. Let’s start at the root of the problem, your gut, and see if we can understand it better. If we understand it and acquire the tools to fix it, then we can control and reduce the other symptoms too.
This 28-day plan is just the start. If you’ve been eating processed foods, refined flours and excessive sugar for twenty, thirty or forty plus years, then we can’t fix the gut in one go. But we can take some huge, positive steps in the right direction and get you feeling better right now.
HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR GUT HEALTH
The 28-Day Gut-Health Plan is unique in its aim to dramatically improve the state of your gut in just 28 days. How does it do this? There are three practical and effective ways in which we tackle the health of your gut.
3 STEPS TO BETTER GUT HEALTH
1. Resting your gut
‘Like a detox but with food.’
The Gut-Health Plan is not about starving yourself and eating less food. You will eat less, but this will be because of changes in your gut that will result in a reduction in cravings and choosing foods which will keep you fuller for longer. For the first week of the plan, called the Rest and Restore phase, you will remove the five most common trigger foods for a sensitive digestion. These foods are harder for your body to digest, so stay in your gut for longer, causing problems along the way.
The foods that you will eat in the Rest and Restore phase may seem quite restrictive, but you will notice an improvement relatively quickly. Essentially, by sticking to easily digested foods for at least a week, your digestive system doesn’t need to work anywhere near as hard. It’s a relaxing time for your digestion and it will reduce digestive stress. If the gut is not constantly working to digest food, it starts to recover and rebuild. This is a simple yet crucial part in the jigsaw of good gut health.
2. Reducing inflammation
Certain foods can cause the gut wall to react in a negative way. It can make the gut lining swollen, inflamed and extra sensitive. Now, the food triggers that cause inflammation are different for each person. But if we cut out ALL the common triggers during the Rest and Restore phase, then your gut lining has the best chance of getting back to normal. The gut cannot heal when it is inflamed.
3. Introducing good bacteria
The third crucial phase is to improve the balance of bacteria in our gut. We do this more quickly by adding probiotics to our diet for the duration of the programme. Of course, following the programme and reducing processed foods and wheat will slowly improve the bacterial balance anyway, but we are going to give it a helping hand. The best probiotics contain several different strains of bacteria as well as a high concentration of them. Improving bacterial balance means that the food you eat is better digested, which is important for gut health.
THE POWER OF GOOD BACTERIA
Your gut is chock-full of bacteria, good and bad. We can supplement our diet with probiotics (good bacteria) to help reverse the damage caused by years of junk-food overload. Probiotics are found naturally in some foods, particularly yogurt. But to really have an impact on our digestive systems, a probiotic supplement is the best way to ensure we have enough good bacteria to balance the gut effectively.
The good bacteria in a probiotic supplement will:
Aid the digestion of complex foods and/or foods which you cannot currently digest
Compete for space and nutrition with harmful bacteria, reducing their numbers and reducing stomach complaints
Prevent toxins moving from the gut into the blood
Unfortunately, the popular probiotic drinks and enhanced foods don’t really cut the mustard when it comes to supplementing. To get any real benefit, you need a probiotic tablet or powder. The number of different bacterial strains, together with the concentration of bacteria, is most important for success.
The most proven and the one now being prescribed by specialists for IBS and similar illnesses is a brand of probiotic called VSL3 (www.vsl3.co.uk). This brand contains the most strains of good bacteria and has 450 billion bacteria per sachet. But it is expensive and needs to be kept refrigerated.
THE BLOATING PROBLEM
Probiotics plus more fibre can lead to extra bloating in the first week of the programme. When you start taking probiotics you could get more bloated not less. But if you care about improving your gut health, it’s a really important step. And in a strange way, it shows that the probiotics have started to do their job. They’ve started the battle and are breaking down foods that your body normally doesn’t digest, producing more gas. Give the probiotics a week during the Rest and Restore phase and you’ll see the bloating reduce. At the end of the week, your waist size and bloating will have reduced and be back to normal. You might even have lost weight and an inch or two round your tummy.
The more traumatized your gut the worse this will be. Give it a week. It will get better. And it means that a change for the better has begun. Don’t start the Introducing phases until it is resolved.
FIBRE VS INTOLERANCE
One of the key tenets of improving your gut health and soothing your bowel symptoms is keeping levels of both soluble and insoluble fibre high.
