6 Tips To Improve Your Gut Health Now
October 17 2017Having a good gut health is for very important for an overall wellbeing.
When your gut isn’t healthy it can have an impact on mental health, weight, mood and a number of other digestive disorders. It’s linked to a number of different medical conditions. Keeping your gut nice and healthy can help keep the rest of your body healthy.
When your gut is healthy, you feel better in general. You’ll have a better mood, more energy, a healthy weight and not feeling fatigued.
There are some diet and lifestyle-related factors which can impact the health of your gut – poor diet, alcohol, to a high fat intake. Also, if you are someone with food intolerances, any large quantity of those trigger foods can have a negative effect on your gut health. Being highly stressed can be a factor for some people and some medications can also affect our gut.
So how do you maintain a good gut health? Here are 6 tips that will improve your gut health.
1. Eat more vegetables
Vegetables provide fibre to keep the gut healthy and help our body’s systems run more effectively.
2. Focus on fibre
Aim to increase overall fibre content, especially if your intake of fruit, vegetables, and legumes is low. Fibre can provide a huge variety of compounds and nutrients that will help improve gut health. The fibre is in whole grains, fruit, veggies, nuts, and legumes.
3. Eat more probiotic-rich foods
Different types of probiotics can have different impacts on gut health. For example, some are targeted to eczema, some are better for mental health. Before taking a probiotic supplement, speak to your GP to find the right supplement for you.
Aim to get probiotics from your food such as yoghurt and fermented foods (miso, sauerkraut, kimchi).
4. Eat plenty of prebiotic-rich foods
Prebiotics are a type of non-digestible fibre that are just as important as the more popular probiotics.
When prebiotic foods are digested they provide food for the healthy bacteria which are found in our gut, so eat foods like bananas, onion, garlic, veggies like broccoli, whole grains and other fruits.
5. Drink wisely
Alcohol can negatively affect gut health. Reduce your overall intake of alcohol and remember to drink more water. It’s important to stay hydrated.
6. Reduce junk food intake
Your gut doesn’t like processed, fatty, sugary foods. Reduce your intake of junk foods like soft drink, lollies, biscuits, chips, and pizza, and make healthier alternatives instead.
Sourced from HuffPost