This is my final blog 2017. And I leave you with: Resolutions and solutions.
This is the time of resolutions – how we can change our lives, our bodies, our images, our feelings. Transform ourselves.
If you haven’t been reading me all year, shame on you. lol
No, what I really want to say is: if you haven’t yet heard me say this, listen up! You’re fat? It’s not your fault. There’s no such thing as willpower and you not measuring up. That’s just a story.
If we seriously look at reality, it’s more about what’s going on in your gut. It’s a simple concept. What’s going on in your gut is calling to whatever you are eating. So for example, if you are eating lots of sugar, your gut flora is calling out for more sugar. And as you stop eating sugar, and there is less and less of the flora in your gut calling out for sugar, you stop eating sugar as much.
They say it takes 21 days to break a habit. Here’s some info on how long it really takes to change your gut.
MindBodyGreen comes to my inbox regularly. They did the research, so here it is!
Healing your gut means healing your whole body.
First of all, the surface area of your gut is around 300 square meters, which is the size of a house! These super important gut-lining cells, called the enterocytes, are constantly regenerating and in a normal healthy gut, you have an entirely new gut lining every two to three weeks. The gut-healing time of people who don’t have autoimmune conditions, food sensitivities, or other inflammatory health issues varies, but studies suggest that it’s somewhere between two and 12 weeks.
Another study from Harvard, published in the medical journal Nature, found significant changes in the makeup of the gut bacteria occurring just three days after a dietary change! This demonstrates the amazing power of the foods we eat, but in reality, most people interested in healing their gut have other health issues that make healing more complex and a lot slower. If you have one or more of these health issues, gut healing will definitely be a journey: chronic inflammation, Lyme disease, chronic viral infections, blood sugar issues, adrenal fatigue, SIBO, an autoimmune condition, histamine intolerance, candida overgrowth, or leaky gut syndrome. And to understand the issues above—and how they relate to your gut-healing journey—we have to understand something I call the autoimmune-inflammation spectrum.
More thoughts as we end the year….. A friend asked me a couple of days ago how the gut flora talks to the brain. I think that’s interesting enough to research and then share what Forbes has to say, in the context of a different story about probiotics and flora:
First, a brief sampling of the latest bacteria-brain research, which includes a study that found specific hormonal exchanges enabling communication between gut bacteria and the brain. This is especially noteworthy because the hormone in question is cortisol, the so-called “stress hormone”– a well-established indicator of stress levels in humans and other mammals. …..the brain that uses cortisol as a channel to send “messages.” The implications of this research will take some time to unravel, but one initial takeaway is that our stress-response system may play a key role in how gut bacteria communicate with the brain.
Another recent study suggests that gut bacteria may influence anxiety and depression. This study was conducted with mice raised in a sterile, germ-free environment devoid of bacterial influence. The researchers identified a specific brain region influenced by the bacteria, and suspect that our early-life exposure to bacteria may predispose us one way or another to anxiety and depression later on. Again, the conclusions are speculative, but the research is exciting because it moves us a little closer to figuring out what’s going on.
I know you are having your own thoughts as we welcome the New Year and if I have addressed even one of them, then this blog, all the work I have put into creating this since 2010, has been worth it.
I hope this year you are less hard on yourself, that you have more understanding about what’s going on, on the inside.
And that you have joy!
I wish you light and love and ….
Healthy Happy Eating,
