Getting started on your gut health journey? Here are the foods to eat, the foods to avoid, and how to plan your gut health journey so that you get the best outcome, in the shortest amount of time.

Simple, easily digestible, high nutrient food should be the foundation of any gut health diet. Forget FODMAPs, what's trendy, and truckloads of fibre right now.

Just think simple: what is easy to digest vs what is hard to digest.

Combine "simple" food with good intake of vitamins, minerals and gut healing proteins like collagen and gelatin and you've got yourself a great baseline gut health diet.

Simple food often means traditional food: food that your great grandmother would recognise.

Simple food means well prepared, well cooked meals, that don't necessarily have a long list of ingredients, but rather a few high quality, well chosen key ingredients.

Simple food means stopping to eat, rather than eating on the run, or stress/emotional eating.

When you eat more simple foods (we call them "YES" foods), your gut will find digestion easier.

That means less bloating, irritation, and activation of your immune system (inflammation).

To put it plainly: your gut needs a chance to heal. 

Better digestion, likely leads to better metabolism and energy. As your gut function improves, and your gut heals, food sensitivity will reduce. Your microbiome (gut bacteria) will also begin to come back into balance. This is a complex topic, that we won't cover here - but getting the junk out, and the good/simple stuff back in, is the best place to start improving your gut microbiome.

It's a wonderful positive feedback loop.

Our favourite gut-supporting (YES) foods

Limit these foods for a few weeks while your gut heals

When it comes to leafy greens - test your tolerance. If eating them raw, be sure to dress them in vinegar (an acid) and some Extra Virgin olive oil (a fat).

Avoid these (NO) foods whilst your gut is healing

Tips to get started

Here are some quick-fire tips to getting your daily nutrition routine more gut supporting.

• Reduce your industrial fat intake  (from vegetable and seed oils - they are easily oxidised (they go rancid!) and lead to cell damage and inflammation 1, 2 ).  
   
• Use saturated and mono-unsaturated fats such as coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil and grass-fed animal fats like ghee, butter, cream and milk. They're easy on the gut, and support your hormones, energy, and blood sugar.  

• Eat nutrient-dense sources of carbohydrates such as fruit (particularly ripe tropical fruit like melon and papaya), raw honey, quality dairy and root vegetables like sweet potato, beetroot, carrot and pumpkin (technically a fruit!).

• Balance your intake of protein by eating collagen and gelatin every day.  Collagen and gelatin are "special" foods because they have very high amounts of "healing" amino acids like glycine, and almost no methionine - it's powerfully anti-ageing, likely due to a reduction in inflammation (3).

• Balance your blood sugar by eating a balanced meal of some protein, fats and carbs.  Give your body the energy and nutrients it needs to heal itself and restore proper function.  This means ensuring adequate blood sugar levels, delivered from food, at breakfast, lunch and dinner. If you're an experienced faster - then go for it. But if in the back of your mind you think it might be making your stressed, low energy, and binge eat, then stop.  When blood sugar is balanced correctly, your body tends to calm down, making healing and repair far easier.

• Eat the YES foods that are simple, high quality, and well prepared. This likely means getting rid of foods with industrial additives, preparing your food properly, and making simple meals with a few high quality ingredients.

• Get more vitamins, minerals and proteins in using "special" foods like liver, oysters, collagen, gelatin and Gut Repair.
  
  Would you like a personalised plan to help you get started? Use the code "SUCCESS" to get 20% off your plan. Tap the picture below to take the quiz and get your plan.