Most people don’t realize how much of your health is affected if you have an unhealthy gut. They often think that you just get a stomachache, diarrhea or vomit, but it can show itself in many ways that you may think have nothing to do with digestion and your stomach may feel fine. Lack of sleep, a poor diet and lack of exercise can affect your gut health. Just what is a healthy gut to begin with, then let’s look at some signs yours may be unhealthy.
Bugs are controlling your body and your life.
That’s a little dramatic and the way it’s written, not true. It’s microbes and your microbiome that can keep you healthy. If you have too many dangerous microbes that harm your health and not enough beneficial ones, you’ll get sick. There are between 300 to over 1,000 different species of microbes in the gut, which include fungi, bacteria and other microbes. You have more microbes in your body than you have cells. Beneficial microbes prevent dangerous ones from overtaking your system. They also release chemicals that affect your body and mind, plus digest food for us. If you don’t have the right microbes, you’ll become malnourished, no matter how much you eat.
There are many symptoms of an imbalance.
Autoimmune disease and mood disorders are just two of the symptoms of an unhealthy gut. Skin conditions, cancer, food intolerance, mental health issues and even obesity can come from too many bad microbes and too few good ones. Since the gut plays an important role in immunity and is part of the immune system, you’ll be more prone to illness when your gut isn’t healthy. It can even cause autoimmune disease.
A lot of things can cause an imbalance.
Taking antibiotics kills off all germs, even beneficial ones, so if you’ve taken a few rounds of antibiotics and end up with thrush, yeast infections or digestive issues, you lost that healthy balance. How do you turn things around? First, clean up your diet. Make sure it contains soluble fiber to feed the good bacteria. Avoid sugar that boosts the bad microbes and can damage good ones. Eat probiotic foods that help replace the bacteria lost to antibiotics. If your diet is high in sugar, switch to healthier whole foods.
- Do you crave sugar? That’s a sign you have too much yeast or fungi. Are you gaseous after meals? It might be the gas released by microbes as they digest your food.
- Other foods to help improve your microbiome and heal your gut include garlic and onions, which include natural chemicals to help. Foods high in fiber and collagen boosting food like mushrooms and bone broth are good.
- Exercise improves your microbiome and increases the beneficial microbes. Getting adequate sleep can also help. Reducing stress can also help. Stress creates chemicals in the body and changes that aren’t beneficial for your body’s microbes.
- Give your gut microbes a break, chew your food longer. Those busy little belly bugs do digest food, but you can help them out. Digestion also occurs in the mouth and by eating slower, you’ll reduce the strain on your gut.
For more information, contact us today at VIP Fitness Center