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Gut Health

“All disease begins in the gut.” – Hippocrates

When looking to optimise health and performance through nutrition; gut health is often ignored in favour of nutrition immediately before and after exercise.

Inflammation often starts in the gut, and inflammation can lead to low energy levels, injury and burn-out. Importantly too – over 50% of the body’s immune system is in your gut.

Here are some tips for improving gut health:

– Improve the profile of your gut flora by consuming fermented foods and a probiotic supplement
– Again, improve your gut flora profile by reducing sugary, high GI carbs (except for after exercise)
– Drink glutamine on an empty stomach, first thing in the morning if ‘leaky gut’ syndrome is suspected
– Drink organic, apple cider vinegar – a tablespoon (or more, assess your tolerance) in water, drunk about 15 minutes before a meal improves digestion dramatically in most people.

– Gingko Biloba and NAC powder have personally helped with the IBS that I had. Gingko has a multitude of health benefits, but can thin the blood (usually not a bad thing), and increase the likelihood of a bleed on the brain

After giving up dairy and sugar I saw the biggest improvements in IBS. I literally went from having to work somewhere next to a toilet – so I could run and have a mega-dump whenever my bowels ‘decided’ to being regular as proverbial clockwork.

General Eating Habits

If you take one message away from this book, please remember that Sports Nutrition starts with healthy nutrition, organic whole foods, preferably cooked from scratch. If you are eating protein bars full of additives and collagen, you are just being duped by Sports Nutrition marketing.

Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio
Western diets are full of Omega 6 fats, and highly processed, heated fats, that cause inflammation. Omega 6 causes inflammation, which is the enemy for recovery and general health.
The easiest way to adjust this balance is to supplement with fish oil and cook with coconut oil, instead of vegetable oils. EPA is the anti-inflammatory element of omega 3. Look for fish oil (and krill oil) high in EPA.
Probiotic Foods
Back in the day, we had dairy from one cow, it was raw, untreated etc. and full of goodness.
Nowadays the milk (and most other products) come from about 1,000 cows, mass milked, full of drugs to make them produce more milk and anti-bioitcs to stop them getting infections, the milk has to be heated to 97 degrees so it doesn’t kill us…what you end up with, is a product that is on a different level (a lower one) to what our great, great grandparents and their mates drank.
If the balance of bacteria in our gut isn’t right, we’ll feel slugish and generally less awesome.
Look to get some of these in your diet:
raw honey,
miso soup, kefir, dark chocolate, sauerkraut, kombucha tea (might be a bit on the yeasty side for some people), pickles and olives.

High Quality Carbohydrates
Include sweet potatoes, buckwheat, quinoa and oats. Avoid sugar and High Glyceamic carbs, except for post-training, as sugar is highly inflammatory. More on this later….

Coconut milk and/or oil for extra calories
If you are struggling to consume enough calories try adding coconut milk to a smoothie with hemp seeds and fruit. Most commercial coconut milk, is 95% water and about 3% coconut milk. For extra calories get pure coconut milk, or as near as possible to pure coconut milk – try the tins, rather than the cartons of coconut milk, which tend to be watered down. Nuts have also been used in the past for extra calories, however recent research suggests that the human body is only able to assimilate around 50% of the calories found in nuts.

Experiment with Dairy and Wheat Free
It’s not for everyone, but try it for a week and see how your body and digestive system feels. Dairy is also known to cause inflammation in many people.

Experiment with Alkaline Foods
Some nutritionists claim that alkaline diets are superior for health and also endurance. Try adding wheatgrass and spirulina to your diet, and minimise the consumption of citrus fruits.

Consume natural anti-inflammatories
Eat more:
Ginger, Tumeric, Garlic, Onions, Red cabbage
High magnesium foods such as spinach, squash and pumpkin seeds and fish such as Mackerel
Try Pineapple for its bromelain content (you can also buy bromelain as a supplement)
Eat/Consume less:
Alcohol,
caffeine,
deep fried foods,
artificial sweeteners and additives,
sugar,
vegetable cooking oils, dairy &
processed meats as these can cause high levels of inflammation. Nightshade fruits such as tomatoes are also linked to high levels of inflammation. Consider cutting down on these if suffering with knee, back or any joint inflammation.

Consume fresh, whole foods, in their original state if possible
Take table salt for example – consume sea salt or Himalayan salt, not table salt that has been bleached.
Another example – eat organic, grass fed beef, not processed meat. Eat organic food, that’s as fresh and ‘unprocessed’ as possible.