Did you know the gut is our second brain?

There is a lot of research which has proven that the gut is the root of most of our issues – and it’s always trying to warn us! Hence the phrase: Listen To Your Gut!

“Scientists call this little brain the enteric nervous system (ENS). And it’s not so little. The ENS is two thin layers of more than 100 million nerve cells lining your gastrointestinal tract from esophagus to rectum.” <- From Hopksin Medicine blog. Read more from this article here. 

The most obvious thing I can tell you is that pure wholefoods are way better for you than any processed foods. We don’t think about what processed means though, we look at a veggie burger and think it’s better than a meat burger, right? It depends what’s in it, what additives, how processed it is which means how much wholefood and how many nutrients are left in it. This is literally the place to start.

When I was told I had IBS, I was also given some drugs to help. I knew right away that drugs weren’t the problem – food and my insides were. Luckily, but unluckily for them – both of my parents have had similar issues and so I’ve learned through their illumination diets that THAT is the place to start curing IBS. IBS is also just a big umbrella term for gut issues, and food intolerances. Modern medicine IS amazing, but giving people a drug to mask an issue such as inflammation caused by foods is NOT going to get rid of the issue. It may help but ultimately you have an issue with some foods and no matter what drugs you are on they will still irritate you. Sure IBS medicines can help calm the issue when you are triggered which is amazing. But you shouldn’t live your life like that daily. Inflammation in the gut can cause many other issues which is why I made it my mission to find out more…

I’ve had a food intolerance test by LifeLab Tests. There is a lot of pessimism about these tests. This one if a blood test and I honestly am so thankful I took it. If you do it correctly and are eating a large variety of foods when you take it, it is likely to be fairly accurate. When foods are not in your system it is harder to test for intolerances. So bear that in mind.

I know it was accurate as it told me I couldn’t eat Kidney Beans or White Beans. I thought this can’t be true as I’ve been vegetarian most of my life and Vegan for a few years and I eat beans quite a lot. So I tested it, and both those kinds of beans made me ill!

Photo of the Nutrition Kings stall in Hackney Bohemia Place Market. 

I then had a Gut Test from Atlas Biomed, and this is super interesting. The test shows you the levels of Probiotics in your gut, how that affects you in different ways. And then how you can positively affect that, and change the levels through PREBIOTICS in your diet.

Understanding what I am lacking and how I can change it through certain food types is SO HELPFUL. And the biggest thing you can do to help your gut is to get a large VARIETY of foods into it. The larger the variety the more your gut bacteria thrives. When you eat the same foods all the time you aren’t giving your gut enough variety to grow healthy bacteria. Hence the photo above of the amazing fruit stall. I try to shop small so I can get one or two of each thing rather than buy in bulk. This makes it easier to have different fruit each day for example.

Probiotics are the kind of bacteria that lives in our guts. A good amount of healthy Probiotics is what keeps our guys healthy and stops things like food intolerances and IBS. Lots of things can affect the healthy amount of Gut Bacteria such as Anti-Biotics, poor diet, a non-varied diet etc… We can also just be born with a lack of good bacteria in our gut.

I can tell very easily when I haven’t been eating well these days, my gut lets me know! But it’s also incredible how in tune I am with it. In the past gut health lead me to be very bloated, sick, stressed and even asthmatic. The inflammation that your gut gets with the wrong foods than effect any other issue you may have for example period pain and in my case specifically Endometriosis.

Since changing my diet and exercising a lot more my Endometriosis is majorly under control! I was in extreme pain once a month, so bad that I was hospitalised and examined many times.

I can not explain to you how important it is to understand and learn more about your gut health.

I am hoping to do a follow-up gut health test and see how / if I have managed to improve my Microbiome in my gut. (The microbiome is the genetic material of all the microbes – bacteria, fungi, protozoa and viruses – that live on and inside the human body.)

Keep your eyes on my blog and social media if you want to see the results.

My personal diet is gluten-free and vegan, and without some beans, as mentioned above. This isn’t the right diet for everyone necessarily, you need to eliminate foods, take tests and find out what works for you.

Check out my previous blogs about food health here. 

Some items were gifted.