DIGESTION 🍽️
When we have clients that come to us with fatigue, the first thing we address and support is their sleep and the second is their digestive function.
Poor digestion is often the elephant in the room for a lot of people and a major reason for low energy for some. Most people by now would be very familiar with the term that health begins in the gut - you don’t have to look far anymore to find a supplement to support gut health, and that is because science is showing us it is of critical importance. Our immune system and neurotransmitters are made in our gut. Without good digestion we cannot break down the food we use and absorb it adequately to support our bodies.
When we are dealing with the effects of fatigue, optimising our digestive function will support our energy.
We just want to give a shout out to our bodies though, they are truly a miraculous thing and it still blows our minds how many processes occur every second of every day without us giving them any conscious thought. From our mood to our skin, we look to the gut when we are looking to optimise health. There are many organs involved in digestion and we want to focus today on actionable ways that you can support digestion.
1. Chew your food!! Don’t inhale your food, this is one of the most simple and actionable things you can do to improve and enhance digestive function. Once we have swallowed our food, we’ve missed this simple and powerful opportunity to support our bodies. Our oesophagus is not lined with teeth! We need to do the work in our mouths, so SLOW down and chew. Chewing alone can be the basis of digestive system complaints such as bloating. We went to an amazing health retreat - they gave everyone a Brazil nut and asked them to count their chews. Gold medal podium finish is 60+ chews before swallowing. Put down your weapons aka knife and fork between chews. If you are in such a rush and have no time to sit and chew adequately, a smoothie is a great idea as it is already mostly chewed for you! Our salivary analyse which is a digestive enzyme is released by chewing and this is an essential part of breaking down our carbohydrates
2. Watch your portion size - pop your fists together, now this is the size of your stomach. Anything more then this will distend and stretch out our stomach. When we go on a “diet” and reduce our food intake we can feel hungry for the first 5 days as it takes time for the nerve endings around the stomach to adjust.
3. Stomach pH sits at around 1.9 which is so acidic that if you touched it, it would burn you. Obviously this doesn’t happen as it’s nicely housed within our bodies. It has a low pH for a reason, and that is to help break down food. Unfortunately far too many people have a higher stomach pH and this can mean the difference between having a flat stomach or feeling bloated post meals. The biggest tip we can give you here is to help your stomach out by having a little shot of ACV or lemon water before eating to keep that pH nice and low as they physically stimulate the production of stomach acids. Also do not drink with meals! Water usually sits at a pH of around 7 so Think about this, we often drink when we eat however this is diluting those juicy stomach acids which we need in high concentrations to support our digestion. It is best to consume any liquids away from meals ideally 20 minutes either side as our food is held in our stomaches for 30 mins post eating to utilise the strength of these digestive acids to further break down our food.
4. Eat real food. Our bodies have the inbuilt equipment such as digestive enzymes to break down real food. There is a study that scientists have analysed that looks at the digestive system. Group 1 was given a meal that was made with real foods where noodles were made with salt, flour and water and the other group was given a store bought ramen noodle soup mix with 15 different ingredients on the label with a blue sports drink. After four hours group A had only small particles of white fluff remaining whilst the second group you could still see the teeth marks in the noodles from where the study participants had bitten into them and clearly not chewed properly! The sports drink was petroleum based and we humans don’t have an enzyme to break down petrol… something to think about! Take home message here is JUST EAT REAL FOOD!