Heal your gut

Is it really skin month if we didn’t talk about the gut? You can’t remedy a shit diet with any facial, so here’s a (by no means comprehensive) four-point plan to heal your gut.

REMOVE

Irritating foods. ‘Irritating’ is different for everybody, but there are some obvious ones to try sidestepping and then reintroducing once you see if it makes any difference to you. Soy (YUCK), gluten, dairy, and sugar are the four super-obvi ones, but others that might also cause inflammation for others include corn, potato, nightshades, or foods high in FODMAPs... look, it’s different for everybody and the best thing to do is try cutting it all out and then reintroducing them one by one so you know which ones work, and don’t work for YOU.

REPLACE

Most people, me included, can do with a little digestive help and this can sometimes be as simple as taking a little apple cider vinegar before meals to kick digestive acids up a notch, or could include something stronger like taking actual hydrochloric acid supplements or digestive enzymes. Stress causes our body’s natural digestive enzymes and acids to drop, but most of us are at least a little stressed all the time so unless you can chill out (an ideal first step, actually), aka address the cause of your raised cortisol (job, kid, partner, traffic, whatever), this might help.

REPAIR

You need a healthy small intestine to absorb nutrients and a healthy large intestine to metabolise waste. If you’re having real issues, find a naturopathic doctor, but  L-glutamine and the herb Slippery Elm are often recommended to help  leaky gut which is the real cause of a lot of skin irritation and eruptions.

REINTRODUCE

Remove irritants to help heal inflammation, and then get some of the good bacteria back in there. I’ve taken A LOT OF ANTIBIOTICS and I’m currently on a mission to infuse as much good bacteria into myself as possible (in a manner of speaking). If you are anything like me and have been on far, far too many rounds of antibiotics, it is likely as that might have gut issues. I can’t seem to find good probiotic supplements here in India, and most are just entirely pointless, given the high temperatures they’re stored in, but I try and make my diet work for me. Plus get out in nature. I have a dog (she is the sweetest) and apparently just having a pet helps boost immunity through exposure to bugs of all sorts (thanks Ella), but if you haven’t got a four-legged germball that likes to snuggle into your bed at 5am every day, just go out. Couldn’t be any easier.