Welcome to the 21 Weeks of Intentional Health Challenge. The first challenge will be Health Starts in Your Gut! The reason is: “Our gut health has a huge part in how we think and make decisions.”
This post may contain affiliate links.
Working out, eating healthy and taking your supplements is good; however all of that won’t make you healthy if your gut is unhappy. Learn how to improve your gut to improve your health!
One key component to healing and improving your gut is drinking homemade bone broth. Recipe here.
Health Does Start In Your Gut
Lovely topic for our first challenge together! It appears that no matter how much we work on other areas of our body, if our gut is a mess than we won’t be able to achieve the health we’re desiring.
- First, we’ll get a brief review of our anatomy, as it relates to the gut. (This truly is important to understand and it’s fascinating.)
- Secondly, let’s look at why a healthy gut is the starting point of good health.
- Lastly, I’ll give four ways to challenge us (myself included) to improve our gut health.”
“All Disease Begins in the Gut.” – Hippocrates
Have you ever heard the expression “go with your gut”?
The reason being, our gut directly communicates with our brain! Many people might not know the truth behind that common phrase, but it’s the way our body is wired.
Interesting: The vagus nerve works on our behalf to send messages from the gut to our brain. These messages are sent through the neuronal pathways as signals. Our brain interprets these signals as emotions.
Therefore, our gut health has a huge part in how we think and make decisions.
Do you love fascinating facts about your body?
- More than 100 million brain cells live in our gut.
- Our gut works independently to control our digestion and elimination (it doesn’t need to be told what to do by our brain, like other organs in our body.)
- Their are trillions of organisms in our gut that make up at least 70% of our immune system.
Just by learning a bit about our body we can see why our health does start with our gut. I’m still in awe of the role our gut plays – it is the lead player!!
Importance of a Healthy Gut
Now that we know that 70% of our immune system is in our gut, we better clean it up and keep it healthy. It’s amazing that our gut holds most of our immune cells. Not a commonly talked about fact!
Truly our gut is our best defense against disease and illness. It aids in fighting off viruses and harmful bacteria that can cause infections in our body.
Professor Dan Peterson of John Hopkins University School of Medicines, states it this way, “a huge proportion of your immune system is actually in your GI (gasteravintestinal) tract.”
The focus of building that immunity is keeping healthy bacteria in our gut. We all have heard at some point that antibiotics kill both the bacteria that makes us sick and bacteria that makes us well.
To grow a healthy gut environment we need to increase the amount of good bacteria in our body.
Recommended Whole Foods Live Probiotic: New Chapter Probiotic All-Flora. Contains a probiotic blend, digestive support blend and turmeric.
The Challenge: How we Can Improve Our Gut Health?
- Play in the dirt. Sounds too simple and crazy! It’s true, our body needs Soil Based Organisms for a healthy gut. Soil Based Organisms contain strains of beneficial bacteria that can’t be found in our food. That is one reason you hear that gardeners are some of the healthiest people. Not only do they play in the dirt, but they grow their own food. Wellness Mama has an informational article that explains this in more detail, “Why Kids and Adults Need Dirt.
- Manage stress. Have you experienced an uncomfortable stomach when dining under stress? Or perhaps during a stressful day you tend to lose your appetite? Unhealthy stress changes our gut microbiota. Deep breathing before and during stressful situations will certainly help. Our family keeps a spray bottle handy with essential oils meant to relax. I recommend using the oils 15-20 minutes before eating. Read Healthy Stress Management for more tips.
- Take a probiotic. Lactobacillus acidophilus was the first strain of probiotic I was introduced to; about 25 yeas ago. It’s also the most common strain. This specific strain is found in our small intestine and aids in digestion. When looking for a probiotic, chose one that has several different strains and can survive our digestive tract. My holistic doctor recommended Biotics Research BioDoph-7 Plus (60 Capsules) dietary supplement. It contains 7 different strains and “more than 20 billion organisms at the time of manufacture.”
- Eat and drink fermented foods. We have so many options in this area! I currently ferment and process kombucha for myself and my family. We used to ferment raw goat’s milk into kefir and yogurt, until our milk source dissolved. I started with Cultures For Health Milk Kefir Grains. Fermenting vegetables is one area I need to incorporate into my weekly routine. Would you like more ideas to become successful in this area? Check out Dr. Axe’s 15 Fermented Foods.
21 Days to Intentional Health Challenge: Health Starts In Your Gut
The challenge for myself is to work on consistently eating fermented foods! I have done this on and off with fermented cabbage and carrots, but not with huge success. I accept the challenge to find several recipes that my family enjoys.
Would you like to accept the Challenge? Encourage others and join us on the 21 Days to Intentional Health! Chose to Play in the Dirt, take a daily Probiotic, eat Fermented food & Manage Stress.
Share your challenge one of 4 ways; by commenting below, leave a comment on my Facebook page, Instagram page or email me your acceptance. Use #accept21weekhealthchallenge on your social media comments.
Pursing Better Health Together,