Your gut health plays a big role in your quality of life and we know this first hand having our own set of digestion issues. We thought we would share some gut reset ideas with you that have worked for us! Keep in mind, this is coming from experience, speaking with a couple of our own holistic nutrition doctors over the years. What works for us may not work for you, but also, it very well could and these are options you should definitely consider.
Always consult with your own personal holistic doctor or holistic health coach first to figure out what your bigger underlying issues might be, whether you have candida overgrowth,
leaky gut, SIBO, gastroenteritis, gluten allergy, lactose intolerant, or something of the like.
1. Intermittent Fasting For Gut Reset and Healing
In our own experience, Intermittent Fasting has worked wonders for us. It allows the digestive system to do its work with a break in between. The premise of intermittent fasting is basically you have a set time to eat and time not to eat. Imagine if you had to work 15 hours a day of hard work every single day with no days off. That could be exhausting, to say the least.
Give your gut a break every once in a while and it could do wonders for you. It may not, again, try it out, see how it works for yourself! If it feels like torture, maybe don't do it anymore. It is a commitment and if you've never done it before it could very well be tempting to eat during the fasting window but you can do it!
12 hours works, 14 hours is great, 16 hours is really great but to be honest there is no holy grail of time frame. One of our favorite times to eat that works for our schedule is an eating window of 11pm-7pm however you can try whatever works for you.
12pm-8pm (16 hour fast)
11am-7pm (16 hour fast)
10:30am-6:30pm (16 hour fast)
And it could help with the following:
Strengthen the gut barrier function
Decrease bad bacteria and fungi
Decrease pathogens
2. Drink Warm Lemon Water for Digestion
Start the day with a glass of still mineral or filtered water with a slice of lemon. Why? What does this do?
Helps maintain the pH balance in your body
Can help fight off infections and bacteria
Cleanses your liver as it promotes flushing of toxins
Can help alkalize your body
Help reduce bloat
Though drinking lemon water could help with all these great things it might be wise if you're going to drink it every single day to brush your teeth before downing your glass of lemon water. You can also thoroughly rinse your mouth out with plain water after drinking your lemon water. This will help maintain healthy enamel on your teeth by neutralizing the acid.
3. Bone Broth for Gut Health
Bone broth is an excellent source for your gut to heal. It contains a lot of collagen which is basically a protein that can form into gelatin and break down into amino acids. Bone Broth also contains the building blocks for glucosamine, chondroitin, and other glycosaminoglycans which are essential for gut healing, and amazing for joints, cartilage, tendons, and skin health and quality.
According to this 2017 research, Amino Acids like glutamine can help restore the gut barrier!
4. Eliminate Sugars and Processed Foods
Damn, that photo looks so good though! We actually think you should avoid sugar for the most part whether you're doing a gut health reset or not. This could even prevent you from having some sort of flare-up in the first place. Food that has ingredients you don't recognize you should probably avoid it as you do your reset (or again, all the time) Good clean foods people, that is the key!
These sugars are super inflammatory and they can even feed cancer cells. Nobody wants that. Sugars can also kill good bacteria in your gut and increase bad bacteria. That's a recipe for having to do a gut reset. Although, having that cookie from time to time won't kill you, just don't eat the whole pack of Oreo's.
5. Reduce Stress Levels for Your Gut Health
In this study done in 2017, 'Stress & the gut-brain axis: Regulation by the microbiome' they found that many things between your gut and your brain.
"Acute and chronic exposure to stress can alter both the quality and quantity of calories consumed, and stress-induced alterations in food intake and energy balance can interact with emotional state (Epel et al., 2001). In particular, ingestion of foods rich in fat has been reported to modulate emotional states in humans and animal models"
Stress is a big factor in the way your entire body operates. Anything from lack of sleep, overworking, your boss's crazy demands, family matters, video games, whatever the case may be for you! It can come in many different forms for sure. How can you battle the everlasting stress monster?
Practice the Wim Hof Method
Deep breathing
Meditation
Take a break every 1.5-2 hours at work
Get some good rest
6. Drink Fresh Brewed Coffee and Avoid Instant Coffee
While coffee has many benefits it depends on what kind of coffee you drink, the quality, and the roast, it can be very acidic to your body which doesn't really help your digestion, especially if you're already having some issues. For some killer info on Coffee, leaky gut, and digestion, check out this link here.
And a word from our coffee master friend, Josh:
"When you hear, 'coffee is good for you' the important thing to remember is that refers to fresh, black coffee with nothing in it. Coffee itself has been shown to have many long term health benefits. This does not take into account coffee beans which have added artificial *flavor and preservatives, or what we add to coffee after we brew it: milk, sugar, flavoring, etc.
*Flavor notes on high-quality coffee are tasting notes, like wine. There isn’t chocolate and orange and cardamom in your coffee, that’s just the profile affiliated with those beans. That’s totally different from coffee beans with artificial flavors mixed in!
All coffee is acidic. Decaf takes a lot of that acidity out, but there’s always some there, just like there’s acidity in cow milk and orange juice. “Low acidity" is relative in coffee. Darker roasted coffees have “cooked out” more of the nutrients and natural sugars in the beans, which are the seed of the fruit (yep, coffee is a fruit!). Dark roasts may also have less caffeine, which coffee produces as a self-defense mechanism. Dark roast coffee can have lower acidity and may taste more “normal” to Americans, but that's a preference thing as well.
Quality is key. Maybe you don’t want to spend $30 for a 12 oz. bag of single-origin hipster paradise, but you can still enjoy good coffee. Some things to look for are the day the coffee was roasted, the roast level, is it pre-ground, and if there are any additives. USDA organic does not necessarily mean it's higher quality, often the companies who can afford that certification are selling bulk which is not intrinsically higher quality by professional coffee standards. Pre-ground coffee is usually an indicator of low quality. As soon as coffee beans are ground, they begin to stale. It’s ideal to consume coffee in less than 2 months after grinding, you’ll definitely taste the difference! If there’s a roast date on it, even better, so you know how long it’s been since the raw beans were magically cooked to perfection. Freshly roasted coffee is not usually sold ground because as soon as you grind it, it's losing more of the natural sugar compounds, which are what gives great coffee it's natural flavor before anything else is added.
The best coffee is the one you enjoy, so stick with whatever works for you AND experiment with locally roasted coffees to enjoy a better product and support local business."
—Joshua McKibbin, Owner, and Founder of Coffee Offering Worldwide
These are just a few ways that can help! You can also eliminate and outside stress factors in your lifestyle like maybe a dirty room, dirty dishes, thrashed vehicle, or even a pile of dirty laundry. Doing all your chores plays a big effect on stress as well, so get to cleaning! You'll be happy you did, and your gut health will thank you for it.
There you have it, 5 ideas for your next gut reset! Now you can try these gut-healing ideas to see if they help reset your gut health. How long will it take? Are you ready…it depends. We cannot in good faith give you a good recommendation or sure-fire answer because, as we said earlier, every person is different. You're just going to have to feel it out and if you're really having issues - go see your doctor, we recommend a holistic doctor or holistic health coach.