Restoring your gut health should always be top priority. Having bloating, heartburn, gas, constipation or diarrhea might not just be from the foods you are eating. These symptoms can come from bacteria and imbalances in your gut, which affects your overall health. Here are some tips to restore your gut health.
Probiotics
Including probiotics into your diet is always important for gut health, but even more so if you’re are dealing with gut issues. Probiotics come in the form of supplements you can take daily, or in the foods you eat. Depending on the issues you have and their severity, you might want to introduce both of them for a while. Some foods with probiotics include fermented foods like kombucha, certain types of yogurt, kefir, and dark chocolate.
Diet
Aside from adding in more probiotic foods, adding prebiotic foods is also helpful since they help feed the probiotics. Foods like artichokes, garlic, onions, dandelion greens, asparagus and bananas are considered prebiotics.
It is also a good idea to remove some of the unhealthy foods in your diet. Eating a well-balanced diet is crucial if you want to restore your gut health. Start by removing processed and unrefined foods from your diet, which are typically packaged and frozen foods, with the exception of frozen vegetables. Try to eat more whole, clean, organic and grass fed fresh foods, cooking more meals at home.
Removing dairy from your diet is often recommended for gut health, which means no more butter, milk, cream, or cheese. Some people can have a modified dairy-free diet where you switch to ghee instead of butter and can have some types of cheese.
Gluten is another food that’s recommended to remove for gut health as it contributes to Leaky Gut and a whole other list of chronic symptoms.
It is also good to add in some healthier fats to your diet, which provide excellent omega 3 fatty acids which are great for your gut health. Think about coconut oil and olive oil as good fats.
Consider Intermittent Fasting
The next lifestyle change you can make that will help to restore gut health is to try intermittent fasting. Intermittent fasting changes when you eat during the day. You will typically reduce your eating period each day to a certain number of hours, then the remainder of the day will be in a fasted state. Many people start by fasting for 16 hours, including overnight, then eat for 8 hours during the day. Over time, you can extend the fasted period and eat over a shorter period of time.
Why intermittent fasting? Studies have shown that when you reduce how often you eat, you are able to reduce inflammation and increase the good gut bacteria in your body.
