7. Nutrition & Gut Health
What you will learn in this module
Nutrition
Gut Health
Food is Medicine
I’m sure you’ve heard me say it before, but it really is a covenant to me: Food is medicine. Well, the right kind of food, that is. I’m talking about real, whole foods and not food-like substances. Food-like substances make you need medicine, not the other way around.
It should be no surprise to hear that breakfast is a very important part of your morning routine. Starting your day with balanced blood sugar and the fuel you need to conquer the day just makes sense.
If you start your day by spiking your blood sugar from consuming a pretty standard breakfast of sugary cereal, sugary yogurt, and sugary juice, for example, the first thing your body experiences is the extreme stress of blood sugar spikes, the mad rush to clear the excess glucose, which is stored as fat, and then the dip when blood sugar goes too low. Have you ever experienced fatigue mid-morning or mid-afternoon? You can blame unbalanced blood sugar for that!
If you really want to set your day up for sustained energy, motivation, focus, and healthy skin, you must start your day with balanced, whole, real food.
Cut artificial sweeteners
Nearly a third of Americans regularly consume artificial sweeteners. These low or no calorie sugar substitutes add sweetness, but did you know they may be harmful for gut health. Artificial sweeteners pass through your digestive system undigested. In the gut they often influence the balance of bacteria and reduce numbers of beneficial strains along the way.
Take a close look at what’s in the packaged foods you eat. Get a full picture of how much artificial sweetener you typically consume in a day. If your morning coffee is your main source, try sticking to a single cup, halving the amount of sweetener you add, or using unsweetened milk.
Soft drinks, powdered drink mixes, and flavored waters are often made with artificial sweeteners. If your beloved drink is among the many, how about slowly introducing other unsweetened options, like homemade iced tea, water infused with essential oils and mint leaves, or carbonated water with essential oils, to replace your daily habit. Your skin will love you for it.
Drink bone broth
It may feel like the latest fad from social media, however bone broth has been eaten around the world for centuries. Made by simmering the bones of animals — typically pork, beef, chicken, or fish in water. The comforting broth is easy to digest and rich in beneficial trace minerals and amino acids.
While the broth cooks, the collagen of the bone and tissue breaks down into gelatin, which can bind to water in your digestive tract and can help food move through more easily. Gelatin may also help prevent leaky gut, a condition where the barrier of your intestinal wall breaks down and allows substances to leak into your bloodstream, all thanks to the amino acid glutamine.
Other amino acids in bone broth are arginine and glycine, these also help you sleep better and reduce inflammation, which is important for healthy digestion.
Ready to sip on some bone broth to lower your skin inflammation? Here’s how to make it:
Ingredients:
4 L of filtered water
2 tbsp. (30 mL) apple cider vinegar
2 kg of animal bones
salt and pepper to taste
Optional: vegetables, herbs, or spices to enhance flavor
Directions:
Bring all ingredients to a boil in a large pot or slow cooker.
Reduce to a simmer. Cook for 12–24 hours. The longer it cooks, the better it will taste.
Allow the broth to cool. Strain it into a large container. Discard the solids.
Pour your bone broth over pastas or other meat dishes, or just drink it by itself.
Adding vinegar helps pull nutrients out of the bones and into the water. Boost depth and flavor by adding:
Garlic
Onion
Celery
Carrots
Parsley
Thyme
How well do you know your proteins?
Sometimes getting back to nutrition and biology 101 basics is important, to wake us up to think about what we put in our mouths. It's easy when you're feeling your best, however it's always when you feel unwell that you reach for the bad foods. We make poor choices when we are tired.
Proteins are the building blocks of life. Our skin, bones, muscles, hair, nails, and cartilage are mainly made of proteins. Most enzymes and hormones in our bodies are also proteins. Our personal protein needs change and shift as our activity levels adapt throughout our day and throughout our life cycle. Many people are concerned that they don’t get enough protein, but most of us can easily obtain adequate protein from our diets, whether or not you consume animal products.
Proteins are made up of amino acids. Our bodies contain 20 amino acids and from these, our body is able to synthesize 11 of them. The remaining 9 cannot be synthesized in our body and must be obtained from our diets; these are called essential amino acids.
There are two types of dietary protein: complete and incomplete. Protein that comes from animal food is considered complete because it contains all essential amino acids. Plant-based proteins are generally lacking in 1 or 2 of these essential amino acids, which is why this form of protein is considered incomplete. However, soy and quinoa, two plant-based foods, have a more balanced ratio of amino acids and are often considered complete.
Although most plant foods are incomplete when eaten on their own, however eating a variety of food ensures that vegetarians get all the essential amino acids they need. The idea of protein combining at every meal was once popular, but research shows that it is really unnecessary if you stick to a colorful and varied plate.
Here are some high-quality vegetarian protein sources:
Quinoa
Legumes (beans, peas, lentils)
Seeds (hemp, chia, flax)
Nuts (almonds, walnuts, cashews)
Nutritional yeast
Spirulina
Organic soy products (edamame, tofu, tempeh)
Functions of Protein
Protein’s main function in the body is to give us energy. However there are so many more important functions; It provides structure to our tissues and cells, supports our immunity, and even helps support growth. It also importantly creates many of our hormones, which help our bodies maintain homeostasis by signaling that a particular action should either begin or cease.
Part Two: Gut Health
Why is gut health important? A healthy gut means you have a good balance of bacteria, or microbes, in your gastrointestinal tract. These microbes help the body:
Absorb energy from the food you eat
Remove toxins
Fight harmful viruses and bacteria
Produce the mood-boosting brain chemical serotonin
You may just think of your gut as the part of your body that’s responsible for digesting your food, but it’s pretty underrated. Actually, a thriving gut microbiome is super essential for good skin health and total body health. A disturbance to the intestinal microbiota, from things like stress, an unvaried diet, or sleep deprivation, is strongly linked to poor skin health and eczema flareups.
Many of the things you do every day affect your gut. I want to show you the small changes you can make everyday add up to massive shifts in skin health.
Get your fill of fiber
You’ve probably heard that most adults don’t eat enough fiber, but did you know we eat less than half of the recommended amount? Recommended is 25 grams for women and 38 grams for men
High fiber diets have been linked to a longer life as well as lower:
cholesterol
blood sugar levels
risk of diabetes
risk of some cancers, including colon, lung, and breast cancer
Soluble fiber helps you feel fuller with fewer calories.
“Soluble” means it dissolves in water, which helps make your stools pass easier than insoluble fiber (the kind that doesn’t dissolve in water). This can make your bowel movements come at more consistent times. Since we can’t digest it, some fiber also acts as food for the good bacteria in your gut.
The best way to get more fiber in your diet is to add more whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. When shopping, think of your sopping cart like your dinner plate. Half of your shopping cart should be a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. A quarter should be whole grain foods. Replace simple carbohydrates like chips, white rice, and white bread with whole grains like quinoa, brown rice, oatmeal, and whole wheat bread.
The most important thing to remember: Add more fiber to your diet slowly, day by day, to prevent gas, bloating, and diarrhea or constipation. A great source of easy to find fiber is doTERRA Fiber. One serving of doTERRA Fiber provides six grams of soluble and insoluble fiber.
Signs of poor gut health
When your body doesn’t have enough good bacteria, bad bacteria can thrive. The following can be signs of a gut bacteria imbalance:
Autoimmune problems, such as thyroid issues, rheumatoid arthritis and type 1 diabetes
Digestive issues, such as IBS, constipation, diarrhea or bloating
Sleep issues
Skin rashes and allergies, sensitivities
Sugar cravings
Unexplained fattigue
Unexplained mood disorders, such as depression and anxiety
Unexplained weight gain or weight loss
When I hear my health coaching clients mention these symptoms to me, I’ll generally ask deeper questions about their nutrition and the quality of the foods they are eating. Often I find a related link between their skin symptoms and an unhealthy gut.
How to Eat to Boost Immune Function
Now, more than ever, it’s time to reclaim our kitchens. It’s a wonderful, grounding, healing habit to get stuck into cooking some clean food, delicious, skin healing food! Hundreds of species of bacteria live in our intestines, so how do you make sure your gut has the best strains? Whole grains, fruits, and vegetables are essential. Fermented foods can help encourage beneficial strains to flourish.
Fermented foods like yogurt, kefir, kimchi, and sauerkraut are high in natural probiotics. Those probiotics, or beneficial bacteria, break down sugars in the foods. Eating fermented foods has been linked to a lower risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes as well as improved intestinal health.
Yogurt and other fermented foods can help reduce the frequency and length of respiratory infections and improve immune and anti-inflammatory responses.
Eating yogurt can change the flora in the gut for the better, improve the function of the microbiome, and even improve symptoms of lactose intolerance. Look for varieties marked as “probiotic yogurt” to ensure you get the maximum benefits.
Coaches notes:
In my option the best probiotic you can take is doTERRA’s double encapsulated PB Assist probiotic. It has a slow release absorption method to ensure it gets into the GI tract to do it’s good business.
Always look for fermented foods that have no added sugar. The bacteria need some sugar to grow and ferment, but many kombucha and yogurt products are full of unnecessary added sugars.
Food as Medicine
Focus on flavonoids with anti-viral properties:
Kaempferol (spinach, cabbage, dill)
Quercetin (dill, onion, oregano, chili pepper, apples, leafy green vegetables, broccoli)
Hesperidin (oranges, grapefruit, lemon, tangerines)
Oleuropein (olives and extra virgin olive oil)
Catechins and epicatechin gallate (green tea)
Lauric acid (unrefined virgin coconut oil)
Load Up on Anti-Viral and Immune Boosting Herbs and Spices:
Ginger
Garlic
Turmeric
Rosemary
Chili pepper
Oregano
Supercharge Your Microbiome:
Healing your microbiome (your gut bacteria) is critical for regulating inflammation and most of us have an inflammatory microbiome, connected to skin inflammation and nearly all chronic diseases
70% of our immune system is located in our gut, which is why it is critical to focus on gut health now
Eat prebiotic foods; dandelion greens, Jerusalem artichokes, garlic, onions, leeks, asparagus, artichokes, bananas, apples, konjac root, cocoa, burdock root, flax seeds, jicama root, and seaweed
Eat probiotic foods; grass-fed sheep, dairy or coconut yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, tempeh, miso, natto, kimchi, pickles.
Whats the difference between Probiotics & Prebiotics?
The digestive system is home to trillions of bacteria, called microflora. The majority of these bacteria reside in the large intestine. These bacteria assist in digestion, produce essential nutrients, breakdown substances, and participate in immune messaging. To maintain the health of the digestive system, it is crucial that we have enough friendly bacteria.
PB Assist+ from dōTERRA helps to establish healthy microflora colonization, improving long term gut health. PB Assist+ is a blend of both pre-and probiotics.
Prebiotics are substances, like fiber, that foster an optimal environment for microbial colonization and activity in the gut.
Probiotics are bacteria that live in the gastrointestinal tract and are known to provide health benefits.
PB Assist+ from doTERRA employs a unique double-layer capsule that provides prebiotic fiber in the outer capsule and a time-release inner capsule with active probiotic cultures. This unique system allows the probiotics to be released in the intestines where they will have the maximum benefit. So cool right.
You maybe surprised to know that a lot of probiotics sold never make it to their desired destination. They get burnt up in the stomach acid, which is basically doing it's job to remove bacteria from your stomach as they pass through.
“The whole foods you are eating aren’t just helping things move along in your digestive tract. They’re also feeding the microbes living in your gut.”
Fiber and other molecules like resistant starch pass into your large intestine, where these microbes break them down. The undigested and partially digested foods are called prebiotics. They’re essential for health. Without prebiotics, the beneficial bacteria in your gut can starve, causing a dangerous overgrowth of harmful microbes.
Today’s discussion is on introducing even more prebiotics to your daily diet. Aim to add prebiotics to every meal and snack. This list of 19 prebiotic foods is a great place to start. Generally, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, and seeds are high in prebiotic fiber.
19 Prebiotic foods
Chicory root
Dandelion greens
Jerusalem artichoke
Garlic
Onions
Leeks
Asparagus
Bananas
Barley
Oats
Apples
Konjac root
Cocoa
Burdock root
Flaxseeds
Yacon root
Jicama root
Wheat bran
Seaweed
Cut bananas into your breakfast smoothie, sauté veggies with plenty of garlic and onions, and get creative with your vegetables. Reach for foods like raspberries, green peas, broccoli, and hummus. The friendly bacteria in your gut will enjoy it, too.
Diets low in fiber and high in animal protein and fat have been shown to decrease the amount of beneficial bacteria, including Bifidobacterium, which help prevent intestinal inflammation. On the other hand, diets heavy on fruits and vegetables and lower on meat and other low fiber foods have been linked to a healthy, diverse microbiome.
Coaches Notes: You have an estimated 160 species of microbes in your large intestine, and they all prefer particular foods. That’s why it’s important to eat a wide variety of whole foods to best nourish beneficial strains and encourage diversity in your gut.