Anyone into gut health?

Read the book "Clean Gut". Eat the right combination of foods, take the list of probiotics, and find out what foods are toxic to your system.

kommodevaran wrote: »

I have a gut feeling there's a lot of woo to it. Reducing stress and anxiety, and thereby emotional eating, and getting in some kind of meal schedule, can do wonders for your weight, and getting in some kind of meal schedule, and losing excess weight, can do wonders with your stress and anxiety. Feeling that what you're doing, is right and important, is a powerful drive to keep doing it.

I pretty much agree with this -- so much of this stuff is placebo, and what I've found is that when I'm not eating well for a while and, especially, eating in an unstructured, out of control way, I feel bad. Not just digestive stuff, but it affects my mood, sleep, so on. When I first get back on track, I tend to feel immediately great and so much happier and more energetic too. At one point I'd attribute whatever I changed (eating breakfast, cutting out added sugar, so on), but now I have more awareness that a lot of it is just feeling in control. That said, sometimes doing something (like thinking "I'm focusing on gut health" or "I'm eating low carb" or any number of things) can make it easier to do the things that need to be done -- like eating better, the right amount, on a schedule if you are someone that works for -- than just focusing on those things. Beats me why, but it's like how people could just cook more from scratch and eat vegetables, but some people need to say they are "doing W30" or something to make those steps that seem more like common sense.

Despite all this, I do think it makes sense to think some about the gut biome, but most of the difference seems to be based on overall diet, not adding probiotics, and so I'd think the absolute first step ought to be just trying to eat healthfully, a wide variety of plant foods, plenty of fiber.

Beyond that I think fermented foods and the like may well be good for us and also taste good, so I include those.

I've never done a real test (eating poorly and too much but including probiotics vs. eating poorly and too much without them; eating well but with no fermented foods vs. eating well but with them). My guess is there would be no noticeable difference, but there's no reason not to consume yogurt if you eat dairy, and sauerkraut and use vinegars (that come with the mother) in cooking, and drink kombucha and so on, if you enjoy those things. I've been planning to start making some of my own; have that Wild Fermentation book and think it would be fun.

N=1 here
I'll try to make this not too gross, but when I ate a diet consisting mostly of traditional "junk" foods... highly processed, fast food, etc. My digestive system was a complete wreck. Yes I ate a few "healthy" things as well but the majority of my food was processed. I had been this way for so long I thought it was normal to deal with bloating, cramping, and quick access to the bathroom after every meal. In an attempt to lose some weight myself and be supportive of my gf at the time in her weight loss, we started "cleaning up" our diets. More whole foods, much much less junk. What I found went WAY beyond the weight loss part of things. My digestive system started functioning properly. It was amazing. I also had more sustained energy throughout the day. It was this impact that will forever keep me eating a diet of mostly whole foods with very little processed junk and no fast food.