Tips For Reseeding Your Gut | Step 3: Reseed

Learn how to eliminate the biggest offenders from your diet and RESEED your gut to embrace good health.

Once you’ve eliminated the biggest offenders from your diet and your body, your gut will get a break and the inflammation will start to go down. That’s when you start to restore your gut with nourishing foods and “good” bacteria.

You’ll want to give your digestive tract exposure to live bacteria, fungi, and yeasts because they keep your gut healthy as well as reduce and prevent the growth of harmful bacteria in the digestive system.

Why should I reseed my gut? If you don’t properly add back the good, friendly microorganisms, you can end up walking down the path of leaky gut or gut dysbiosis; resulting in an imbalance of good and bad bacteria. Gut dysbiosis can be caused by a multitude of factors including:

• Chronic stress

• Toxins in our food and environment

• Over-sanitized society

• Chronic prescription drug use such as using NSAIDs, PPI’s, antacids, antidepressants, blood pressure lowering, cholesterol lowering

• Antibiotics which kills all flora and leaves the door open for developing antibiotic resistance

• Antacids deplete calcium, folic acid and vitamin D; Antibiotics deplete a number of B vitamins, calcium, magnesium, and good bacteria; NSAIDs deplete folic acid, iron, potassium, and vitamin c

• Pathogens

• Organ malfunction

• Poor diet

Why Constant Sanitation is Bad for You

We live in an over-sanitized world and our exposure to beneficial bacteria, fungi, yeast, viruses, enzymes, and other unique aspects of dirt have all but disappeared. The majority of the foods we consume are pasteurized (heated between 168-280 degrees), irradiated (passed through radiation), or sprayed with pesticides - all of which damage beneficial organisms in our body when ingested. Even if we do our best to seek out foods with beneficial microbes, we might still lose them by running them under the faucet when we use city water as most municipalities have chlorine in the water and chlorine destroys microbes both on your skin and in your gut.

When we eat foods that don’t have a health balance of good bacteria, this can lead to inflammation, which activates your immune system, deteriorates your mucosal lining, and opens up the lining of your intestines, which further activates your immune system as food particles and medications get into your bloodstream. These variables often lead to or trigger autoimmune disease.

What is Leaky Gut?

Leaky gut is a syndrome in which tiny gaps in your intestinal tract open up as a result of inflammation in your body. Once opened, these gaps leave space for undigested food particles to pass through your intestines into your bloodstream. At this point, your food is now an invader and treated as such, which can give you a variety of symptoms, including:

• Brain—Headaches, anxiety, and brain fog

• Skin—Red bumps on the skin can be acne or rosacea. Other skin conditions can be eczema, psoriasis, and dermatitis

• Sinus—mouth, and lungs—allergies, asthma, dry mouth or frequent colds

• Thyroid—fatigue, hyperactivity, weight gain or loss

• Joints—stiffness or pain

• Muscles—pain, weakness, drained, sore

• Gastro—stomach cramps, gas, bloating, diarrhea, and/or constipation 

How to Add Probiotics Into Your Daily Regimen 

Here are a couple ways to add beneficial microbes back into your system. A few things to know is that not all probiotic supplements are the same, so you’ll need to look for these key elements when purchasing a probiotic supplement:

Probiotics—live bacteria

• Brand quality—look for organic

• High CFU count—15-100 billion colony-forming units CFU

• Strain diversity—search for a probiotic that has 10+ strains and contains not just probiotics but also SBO’s, yeasts, fungi, and algae

• Survivability—look for strains that are heat resistant and can make it to the gut and colonize

• Research—look for strains that support your specific needs 

Prebiotics—food for the bacteria

Synbiotics—a combination of both; a special combination of prebiotic fibers that favor and support the growth of the bacteria

Beneficial Bacteria 101

It’s good to have a general understanding of which types of probiotics to use and what options are available to consumers. With a wide variety of ways to get your good probiotics, you can easily add these to your daily diet.

• Diversity—each organism serves a different purpose. For example, some strains enhance immune function, others protect the intestinal lining, and others destroy dangerous bacteria.

• Soil-based—in the plant world soil-based organisms protect vegetation from disease and help plants grow to their fullest potential. In your gut, SABO's kill off harmful bacteria and help you absorb nutrients by breaking down food.

• Medicinal Mushrooms—balance microbes, boost the immune system, prebiotic, act as an adaptogen to balance hormones and mood, help fight viruses and candida overgrowth (cordyceps, reishi, shiitake, Lion’s mane, Turkey tail).

• Probiotics in foods

  • Kefir, sauerkraut, kimchi, kombucha, miso, tempeh

• Prebiotics

  • Apples, onion, garlic, asparagus, mushrooms, dandelion greens, artichoke, banana, oats, flax seeds

• Exposure to bacteria in your environment

  • Walk outside barefoot

  • Shop at your local farmer’s market for fresh produce

  • Play with a dog or ride a horse

  • Consume 1 Tbsp raw local honey daily

  • Dig in the soil of your garden

  • Swim in the ocean or freshwater lakes

  • Consume two servings of fermented foods daily

  • Eat medicinal mushrooms like shiitake

When eating or consuming these foods, you give your body opportunities for dirt micro exposures, which aide your body in continuously replenishing and nourishing the bacteria that are sloughed off each day keeping them well fed and happy

To find out more and receive personal guidance on restoring your gut health, check out my Gut Restore program or schedule your complimentary phone consultation with Emilie by clicking below!