Questions & Answers

Your Guide To Healing Your Gut Post Holiday Season

Right back on the Naturopath. Thanks for coming back. Let’s talk about how you can improve your gut and get back into top shape after the holiday season. Your Guide to Healing Your Gut Post Holiday Season. So let’s talk about that. I’ve got a few tips here which we’re going to go through and I think you’ll get a bit out of this one. Nothing wrong with the holiday season.

Many people enjoy themselves, many people eat too much or they drink too much, but you know what? Life is short. You’re going to enjoy yourself, you’re going to have a good time while you’re here. As people say you’re not here for a long time, but you are here for a good time, as long as it doesn’t wreck your health in that good time process. All right. And that will mean that you’re going to be here for not quite a long time.

What’s the key thing that you would recommend, that I would recommend that you need to do to get yourself back into shape again after the holidays? Fresh year, 2020 January. Well, it’s almost February now. The new year. The key thing is to manage the stress, is to look at the key drivers behind things that really push your buttons, particularly people. We’ve spoken a lot about this in previous videos that the biggest stresses in our lives usually are the people around us and especially the people that we’re close to were the key people. They could be your boss, it could be your employee, could be your grandma, it could be your wife, or husband, or your son, or your neighbor, whoever. But often there’s an issue there with some person and this is what needs ironing out in 2020.

My recommendation for 2020 is to manage the stress, look at the people around you, look at the things that wind you up and try and correct these kinds of issues because they need fixing up because these are drivers behind this functional gut for many people. And also these stresses are drivers behind making the wrong kind of moves when it comes to eating or drinking particular types of foods.

There’s no point in saying, “I’m going to stop drinking. I’m going to cut this back.” Because you need to identify the stresses behind these things. And that’s what needs fixing. Happy people, minimal stress, tend to be healthy people. All right? Second point is looking in the on-off days, which I often talk about you’re having some days where you do the right thing, some days you’re not quite so much doing the right thing, and other days you’re doing the bad thing.

Now, obviously we can’t have these bad days back to back. But again, I’m not one of those people who says you have to live like a priest, or like a Buddhist monk living on a mountain and then breathing in fresh air and drinking pure water. You don’t have to live like that to be happy and healthy, not at all. But you need to understand that it’s important to discipline your discipline. That’s the on-off days. Say on a Monday or Tuesday, you’re not going to be drinking, but on a Wednesday you might have a couple of glasses of wine. But needless to say, you can’t do this every single day. You can’t keep consuming and enjoying constantly without paying a price. So you need on-off days.

The third point is cut back on the alcohol. This is a key one. Point 3 and point 1 would be probably just as important as the stresses, identifying and dealing with those, and the third point is understanding that alcohol is probably one of the most destructive things for the microbiomes, for the gut. So moderating. This is going to be your year. We’re going to moderate and also have off days where you’re not going to be drinking at all. Some people go for dry July where the whole July they don’t drink any alcohol at all. I think that’s a pretty dumb thing. Personally, I think it’s better to identify weekends and multiple days throughout the year where you don’t drink at all. You just drink some times here or there, but not every single day. If you can just do that one point, it’s going to really help to propel your gut to great heights this year.

Further readings:

The fourth one is, cut back on how much you eat. Reduce your portion sizes. You don’t need to have a plate and food all the time. Don’t go to these buffets where you have five or six plates of food for 10 bucks. It’s not a great idea. I can guarantee you most people watching this video now will be putting too much food on their plate, that portion size is too big or they’re eating too much at the wrong time of the day. They’ve got things upside down. They have no breakfast at all, a small lunch and a massive supper at night. Not a good idea. But should you have a massive breakfast and a small supper? Well, it’s up to you. You need to work out what’s appropriate.

But fasting, some days cutting back on a bit of food, some days skipping a meal, not having lunch at all, and allowing your tummy to have that nice rest and digest. Especially important if you’re looking at a low stress lifestyle is in also to push that low stress through to the gut. Don’t stress the gut with too much food. It’s not a great idea. Some days you don’t need to eat lunch for example, or cut right back and just have a small amount of food for lunch, not a large amount. It’s good sometimes to be a little bit hungry.

This could also be the MMC working, the Migrating Motor Complex or this sweeping motion through the gut. Those movements can be seen sometimes as, “Oh my God, I’m hungry. I’ve got to eat some food. I’m going to starve to death.” Well, I don’t think you’re going to starve to death. All right?

Point number five, more fiber in the diet. If you’re going to cut back on alcohol, increase the fiber content of the diet. Make those bowels work really well to clean out lots of dead yeast spores and bacteria, to push lots of garbage and waste out of the body. Include bitter foods in the diet to increase the secretions of bile. Increased fiber to bulk the stool up and also to allow the good bacteria to flourish. Lots of foods, broccoli, lettuce, spinach, beans, there are so many, carrots, cucumbers, so many foods you can need that really have got a high fiber content. These are the key foods to eat to get your gut into great shape after the onslaught of Christmas and holiday season.

Number six, probiotics and enzymes. Digestive enzymes are very, very good for people, particularly to take in January, February, I find the first few months of the year because this really helps to rejuvenate the gut, breaks foods down better, reduces bloating and gas, helps a person to maintain more energy while to get back into fitness and exercise and walking so the pounds will drop off. Just get yourself a digestive formula that contains enzymes and probiotics. CanXida Restore. The green one that I’ve created is perfect for that kind of application, CanXida Restore. That will start really working well in your tummy.

Point number seven, move your butt. Are you walking in? We talked about this, walking, walking, or being active all the time. I did something interesting a couple of weeks ago. I put this mobile phone in my pocket and it had some walking thing on. I went up to Oakland up to a capital city. I went up there to see my son and I did like 17,000 steps, which is quite amazing. I think I walked about eight or nine miles or something I don’t really know what it was.

But now, you can really track your progress if you’ve got one of these trackers on your foot or not those big ones like ankle bracelets. That’s what you get when you’re a bad person. I mean those things on your wrist or in your pocket. The phone will tell you how many steps you take. That will motivate you. But trust me, walking is the best exercise of all. Try and follow some of those seven tips to get your body back into top shape after this silly season. Thanks for tuning in.