If you have over-indulged in sugary foods, all-day grazing with one meal merging into the next and a constant liquid intake of water and other beverages, your digestive system, microbiome and overall health might have taken a hit. We talked to three wellbeing experts in Jervis Bay about some simple tips to reset your gut health and establish some good patterns for the rest of the year.
Katie Choice, Naturopath: It’s about when you drink water, not just how much
After the party is over, naturopath Katie Choice recommends that we re-establish meal times, add colour and variety to our ingredients, and restrict liquid intake either side of meals to allow our digestive juices to do their job.
“Remember, it’s a balance between self-discipline but also self-compassion and kindness,” Katie advises about a reset. “Try to approach it from a place of ‘I want to take the best care of myself’ rather than a rigid ‘should’.”
Katie says tuning into what’s impacting our energy levels during the summer heat is important. “First of all, just check in, do I need to hydrate? what is this craving? Am I fatigued? Am I just hungry? Have I had enough protein? Before you reach for a sweet treat, without being too rigid, look at the other yummy summer things that you can have that are still delicious and a little bit sweet, your fruits that will still hydrate you, salads with a variety and diversity of different colors, adding a bit of legumes or seeds or a colorful quinoa will then feed diversity in your microbiome as well.”
She says we can make deciding what to eat a bit more fun in summer, “Bringing a little bit of play helps to make a sustainable change rather than a short term new-year [resolution].”
Balance is the key. “Get fibre through some diverse healthy grains, if they agree with you maybe some fermented foods. The protein factor is helpful because it’s coming back to that blood sugar balance, making sure we’ve got some foods that will be a sustainable release.”
Over-indulgence can lead to other issues such as indigestion or heartburn, as well as an imbalanced microbiome, and Katie says, “A big key to that is trying not to overeat in one meal, pulling your portion size back in. Sometimes in the summer holidays, lunch can go into a snack plate with cheese and bikkies and then dinner’s on. We’re eating socially.
It’s important to give space between meals, think about portion size and tune into how hungry you really are.”
When it comes to hydration, Katie says, when we drink water is just as important as how much.
“If you’re having a lot to drink, [try to] stop drinking about 30 minutes before a meal, if you can, other than a bit of sipping, and then 45 minutes after. Otherwise that fluid in the belly is going to mean that your gastric acid [is diluted], food’s swimming around in so much fluid and not enough acid and enzymes to digest.
“Stopping drinking liquids 30 minutes before a meal gives your gastric juices enough time to concentrate so they can digest your food properly, rather than just having this all day grazing and drinking, which is diluting your body’s ability to process the food properly.”
Pia Winberg, PhycoHealth: The Gut-brain Axis is Real
Move over fad diets and “protein-everything”, Dr Pia Winberg from PhycoHealth says the complexity of the human gut, and life on this planet in general, cannot be fixed with a silver bullet. “There’s not one silver bullet for good health in any part of our lives. It’s not just omega 3. It’s not just protein. It’s not just fiber. And it’s not just one fiber, it’s many.”
She says the modern food system has significantly lost the role of fibre. “It’s not just wholemeal bread, it’s not just roughage, it’s soluble fibers, it’s a diversity of fibers,” she says. “This is the key to the microbes and the ecosystem that is your gut. It’s such a complex system.”
Pia says she understands the urge to over-simplify health and nutrition, “even for me as a scientist in human life and planetary life, it’s overwhelming. All I know when I do research is how little I know. And that’s where you see the over-simplification of nutrition has been pretty scary for the health of us as a species. We really need to go back to embracing real diversity in food.
“Eat your protein, but do not forget your fibre and your vitamins, and the best way to do that is focus on a plant-rich diet and lots of different types, and add the seaweed in there as a top-up to cover all bases.”
Seaweed is “the king of fibre”, says Pia. “Seaweed fibres are pretty unique and amazing, and every human civilisation on Earth, except the modern industrialised one, has had seaweed as part of the diet The Stone Age civilisations from all over the world have residue of seaweed molecules in their teeth. You don’t need a lot of it, but every civilisation of humans on Earth has evolved with it, so we shouldn’t be cutting out something that we’ve been evolved to eat.”
PhycoHealth has developed – and continues to develop – a range of foods incorporating seaweed that are much more appealing to a contemporary diet, “you don’t have to be a wakami salad Asian chef to eat seaweed. You can eat it in your pasta, we’ve got it in the muesli, we’ve got it in low gluten foods like the fibre that you’ve got in your smoothies and you can bake cookies with it. There’s no limit to what foods you can put it into.”
Beyond the digestive system, fibre is known to play a significant role in the gut-brain axis. She says: “Fibre is so complex because some of it isn’t absorbed directly into your body as a nutrient. It is there as a base of an ecosystem, and it creates small molecules itself, things like butyrate or acetic acid. These acids, when they get down to your bowel, and fibre can break down into these products in your bowel, they talk directly to your liver, they regulate cholesterol, all of the things in your metabolism, hormones, estrogen, they are all connected to and regulated by your gut.
“The vagus nerve and the gut-brain axis is a real thing. We have some preclinical studies running now with some partners at the Australian Catholic University looking at how certain proteins in the brain, they are called ‘sirtuin proteins’, are important for regulating prevention of Alzheimer’s, and how your gut communication from fibre triggers these proteins in your brain.
“There are so many really wacky links between eating food and a chain of events that ends up communicating with your brain, it communicates with your hormones, it communicates with your glucose metabolism, and we really need to respect that we will never be able to control and understand all the complexity of it, but to appreciate that that complexity is there, and that what we put in our guts is going to have consequences on every part of our body, from our heart to our brain to our reproductive system and to our feelings.”
Liza Merriment, Naturopath and Nutritionist: Try Fasting to Reset the Microbiome
A 24-hour fast can reset your gut biome, especially after the silly season or after abig weekend, says Liza Merriment, naturopath and keto nutritionist at Jervis Bay Naturopathy, who says going from dinner to dinner or lunch to lunch – while keeping yourself busy – can allow an extended period of rest and repair.
“When you’re not eating, and when you’re sleeping, that’s when your organs are doing their rest and repair cycles and fasting is basically an extended version of that, giving your gut a rest,” she says. “The microbiome has good and bad gut bugs and a lot of them will die off because they’re not being fed with food. Basically it clears out a lot of your gut microbiome, the good and the bad.”
After the clear-out, it’s time to rebuild, says Liza. “The important thing to do after your 24 hour fast is to start building up the good gut bugs again. You do that by breaking your fast with a bit of salt or some bone broth, a little bit of protein and then after an hour or so, have some probiotics such as fermented vegetables like sauerkraut, kimchi, maybe some milk keffir, that’ll help get those good gut bugs revved up.
Then bring in some prebiotics, things like onion, garlic, asparagus, banana, oats, dandelion leaves. It’s like getting a fresh start.”
During the fast, Liza recommends drinking water, herbal tea, and up to a teaspoon of salt. But try to avoid coffee if you can, and any mixed electrolyte drinks or diet drinks, keeping it as clean as you can.
Liza makes her own tea blends, including one that stimulates autophagy, which is when your cells do their turnover and clean house, which has ingredients like bergamot and cinnamon and green tea. But she says pretty much any herbal tea will be fine.
When to fast, is a matter of personal preference, but Liza says, “I find it’s best when you’re really busy, a day that you’re running around doing errands and then the time goes really quickly. If you’re sitting at a desk while everyone around you is eating lollies, that’s not ideal. If you’ve got to cook dinner for your family and you’re not eating, that’s a bit hard.”
She says that first-time fasters can start with 18 or 20 hours, and build up to it. “It gets easier, it’s like a muscle you’ve got to exercise. One thing to remember is that if you have a feeling lightheaded or anything like that just stop the fast. Don’t just force yourself to keep going.”
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: The information presented in this article is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Seek advice from your doctor before trying any new therapy.
