10 Gut Health Resolutions for 2024
As we step into a new year, it's time to focus in on one of our most vital yet often neglected aspects of health: our gut. In today's world, where health is more important than ever, nurturing your gut health is not just a resolution; it's a pathway to a healthier, happier life.
This year, let's look beyond the usual 'eat better' and 'join a gym' resolutions. Let’s dig into practical strategies designed to heal and maintain a healthy gut.
The health of our gut is linked to so many aspects of our well-being, from immune function and hormone balance to mental health and avoiding chronic disease. These resolutions aren't just about short-term fixes; they're about making lasting changes that will benefit you for years to come.
But where to start? From elimination diets and a proper sleep routine, to identifying the root-cause and trying a natural healing protocol, here’s a list of 10 gut health resolutions that will put you on the right path for the year ahead.
1. Try a real food or elimination diet
We all know that nutrition has a massive impact on our overall health. The quality of foods we choose to fuel our body with impacts the quality of our microbiome - the collection of microorganisms in our gut that breakdown and absorb nutrition, synthesise vitamins, support our immune system and protect us from bad bugs. When we eat real, whole and nutrient-dense food, we are giving our body access to the fibers, vitamins, minerals and nutrients that our microbiome needs to thrive.
So what do I mean by ‘real, whole and nutrient-dense’? I mean vegetables, fruits, fish, poultry, meat, herbs, spices, healthy fats and fermented foods to begin with. While foods like eggs, grains, nuts, seeds, beans, legumes and dairy are tolerated by some, these are the foods that should be the focus of a basic elimination diet. Why? Because they are foods that are most likely to cause you issues if you have a compromized digestive system. Eliminate for 2-4 weeks and notice how you feel. Then, re-introduce one food group at a time and take note of any symptoms that you experience. Instead of eating processed foods, try to add in more protein, healthy fats, fruits and vegetables as a way of crowding out the empty calories you may have been eating before.
Be careful not to become reliant on overly restrictive elimination diets for symptom management though, as this can have longer term impacts on our microbiome. Read: 5 signs you’ve been on an IBS elimination diet for too long
2. Incorporate fermented foods
Probiotic-rich foods are a great way to help repopulate the gut and improve the balance of beneficial species in your microbiome. Good quality organic and additive-free yoghurt, sauerkraut, kefir, kombucha, miso, microalgae such as spirulina and chlorella, tempeh and kimchi are a few examples of fermented foods that we use with our clients, and that are now gaining popularity in the health community. Try to incorporate a small amount of at least one type of fermented food each day, if you haven’t tried them before, to boost your gut health.
Remember to start with small quantities of fermented foods, as many people with sensitive tummies experience bloating or gas initially when introducing fermented foods. Slow and steady wins the race here.
3. Work on a proper sleep routine
Sleep is completely underrated when it comes to gut health and healing. We should be working towards closed eyes by around 10pm and 7-8 hours of good quality sleep each night. Why? Because physical repair and regeneration of the body, and especially the gut, happens while we are asleep. Have you ever gone to bed with a bloated stomach or pains and woken in the morning with neither? That is the healing power of rest.
Setting up a sleep schedule where you limit screen time and blue light exposure at least an hour before bed is a great place to start. Create a bedtime routine that helps you to relax, clear your mind and get to sleep quickly. You might like to try reading, listening to calming music, journaling or meditation. Then finally, ensure your room is really comfortable, cool, dark and quiet. This is the perfect recipe for gut-healing sleep - read more sleep tips HERE.
4. Adjust exercise to match where you’re at with your gut health
Exercise is a tricky topic when it comes to gut healing, so we’ve written an entire blog post about the effects of exercise on gut health and healing here. The summarised version of that blog is this; if you are trying to heal your damaged gut, exercise ONLY works if it is not an added stressor. This means exercise should make you feel energised, not exhausted afterwards. So, if you are working on healing your gut, try moderate exercise - the stuff that will improve gut-function, according to science.
Moderate exercise can be walking, swimming, pilates and yoga (try THESE postures for better digestion) practices that focus more on stretching, breathing and postural control. But really the best thing you can do is listen to your body and not overdo it with exercise.
5. Incorporate stress-management strategies daily
If you have plans to work on your gut health, it is usually because you have frustrating or embarrassing symptoms like bloating, gas, constipation, diarrhea or reflux for example that can be really stressful. Poor gut health can also bring about brain-symptoms like worry, low-mood and anxiety. For this reason it is important to incorporate stress-management techniques into your day. Options that our clients like to use are meditation, deep breathing, journaling, watching a funny or uplifting movie, listening to music you love or EFT (emotional freedom technique). The trick is finding an option for stress management that works for you and your lifestyle.
These techniques move the body away from the sympathetic nervous system stress response of fight, flight or freeze, to the parasympathetic nervous system response, allowing you to rest, digest and heal.
6. Reduce your exposure to environmental toxins
Toxins from our environment can contribute to gut dysfunction. They irritate the gut lining, which acts like a second skin inside the body and stops harmful toxins entering our bloodstream. This means that limiting your exposure to things like mercury, pesticides, BPA and fluoride, as well as pain relievers with Aspirin, Acetaminophen or Ibuprofen can reduce the overall toxic load on your gut and give you space to heal.
Eating organic foods where you can to reduce pesticide exposure is a really good place to start. Focus in on removing the ‘Dirty Dozen’ first as these are the foods with the highest levels of residual pesticides.
And if you’re really up for a challenge, swapping all of your personal care and home cleaning products to natural options is another massive change you can make on the way to limiting your exposure to toxins, and ultimately healing your gut.
7. Only use antibiotics as a last resort and focus on building your immunity
Antibiotics are a lifesaver - a genuine last resort, emergency, life saver. But the overuse of antibiotics is having a devastating impact on our gut health. I was no exception. The year my gut health really deteriorated, I filled six antibiotic prescriptions (without any thought to rebuilding my good gut bacteria) and paid the price.
Antibiotics not only target bad bacteria, they also often have a damaging effect on the number and diversity of good gut bacteria. This can cause serious problems because of the important role that a balanced microbiome plays in the proper functioning of our immune system and overall health. There is a growing body of science that links a lack of diversity in gut-friendly bacteria to conditions like IBD, asthma, obesity, allergies, leaky gut, depression, autoimmunity and countless others.
So this year (more than ever!) focus on building your immunity so that you aren’t so susceptible to infection and consider natural alternatives for low-grade infections before jumping straight to the big guns and potentially setting your gut health back another year.
8. Stop taking poor quality supplements - they don’t work
I’ve read many articles saying natural supplements don’t work, including probiotics. What people often fail to realize is that the problem is most commonly brand-specific. What I mean is, specific probiotic strains are extremely well researched and evidence-based, but the generic, cheap brand you bought at the supermarket probably wasn’t.
In a market that is not very well regulated, it’s even more important to use brands trusted by your practitioner. You get what you pay for, so don’t let some clever marketing take your cash without any noticeable improvement in your gut health.
Given how important we know our gut microbiome is to both digestion and our overall health, it's no surprise that probiotics have been shown to do some pretty impressive things. From allergies and immunity to women's urinary tract health and even obesity, good quality probiotics are backed by countless studies and clinical trials.
And when I say ‘good quality’, I mean products that don't contain any fillers, are strain specific and the right quantity per capsule, or CFU (colony forming units).
When looking for good quality supplements, use our Fullscript Dispensary to save 20% OFF RRP (for those in the USA). You will need to sign-up to create a Fullscript account to access these products and discounts. Click the link below or visit: https://us.fullscript.com/welcome/blindemann
9. Get tested to find your root cause(s)
There’s only so much the above mentioned diet, exercise and lifestyle strategies can do if you have serious or chronic gut dysfunction. And there is a limit to what self-diagnosis and intervention will achieve when you have a complex digestive condition.
Now we know ‘IBS’ is not a single disease with a single cause, it’s a whole host of different identifiable imbalances. And while the exact root-cause, or combination of causes, is unique to each person, the five most common causes of IBS are a great place to start and explain over 80% of all previously unexplained cases of gut dysfunction that have come through our clinic. That means there is highly likely a reason for yours!
But given the symptoms of each root cause are largely the same, knowing which one you have and how to heal it is almost impossible without functional lab testing. And considering how far we have come in the last decade in both the quality of testing and interpretation of what is and isn’t harmful, there’s never been a better time to get to the root-cause of your digestive symptoms using functional lab testing.
10. Try a natural protocol that addresses the root-cause of your symptoms
Natural supplements are often essential when healing serious chronic digestive disorders. But, they should never be the first step, which is why I only recommend them after incorporating all of the other strategies listed above.
There are three reasons we use natural supplements as part of our gut healing protocols:
> Substitution: To replace something that is missing in the body or that the body is not producing due to gut damage, such as stomach acid or digestive enzymes.
> Stimulation: To stimulate organs, glands and systems in the body to do their job, such as vitamins and minerals.
> Support: Short-term aid for the body while function is being restored, such as liver and adrenal supplements which help the body respond to toxins and stress.
And when the underlying root-cause of your IBS symptoms is a gut infection like bacteria, yeast (e.g. Candida) or a parasite, adding natural antimicrobials is the most effective approach to pathogen eradication and long term gut healing. Using blends of evidence-based antimicrobials, alternating products throughout your protocol and using biofilm busters are all ways to make sure the bad guys are gone for good and you get your symptom-free life back.
And unlike antibiotics, the right natural antimicrobials won’t cause you long term microbiome damage that you’ll spend years repairing. This is the year to reap the rewards of being a herb-nerd.
I hope that these 10 resolutions give you a gut healing start to the new year. And if you’re up to finding the root cause of your digestive issues and interested in trying a personalized science-based natural protocol for gut healing, all of our practitioners work with clients one-on-one online so feel free to head over to the Work With Us page to learn more.
#Bonus. Further your gut-health eduction!
We encourage and help all of our clients to become their own gut-health expert. We spend a lot of time on education during our consultations and love to feed your thirst for knowledge and problem solving skills. This is also why we have created resources, both free and paid, to help everyone (not just our clients) further their gut health education. In 2024, why not download our free Constipation Clear-out E-guide or enrol in The Constipation Masterclass online course to become a constipation expert yourself!? Tip: If you download our free E-guide, there are big savings to be had on The Constipation Masterclass.