Holmes - Heal your gut: supercharged food

An unhappy gut will affect your immune system, disrupt your hormones and have an impact on your weight, mood and energy levels, making you feel tired and run-down. Most of us could benefit from spring-cleaning our gut, and for those of us with health issues aggravated by a poorly functioning digestive system, or an autoimmune or digestive disorder, this treatment program can help put you on the path to wellness.

Not just another fad diet, this program is specifically designed to improve gut health with an initial cleansing regime, and promote long-term wellbeing with a maintenance plan that will restore your gut lining and rebalance your gut flora, resulting in better nutrient absorption.

This isnt just a book to read. I urge you to interact with it; make notes in the margins, scribble down your thoughts and make it your own wellness plan. Lee Holmes

FOREWORD

If our bodies were a royal court, the gut would be the quiet but powerful ruler sitting on the monarchs throne. I truly believe the gut is the seat of all health.

Lee Holmes knows firsthand how important the gut is to feeling your best, and in Heal Your Gut she shows the reader in a logical, stepwise fashion how healing your gut is the gateway to healing other health issues. Hippocrates said, Let food be thy medicine, and what I love about Lees approach is that when she reaches for her remedy pad, she is writing a recipe for healing through food, not pharmaceuticals. From my years of experience as a functional medicine practitioner in New York City, I have come to respect the power of food and the importance of a healthy and balanced gut ecosystem to overall health and wellbeing.

As the silent player in your health, your gut offers the greatest potential for healing and also the highest potential for harm. Your gut is a fertile garden where both good and bad bugs can take root. With 100 trillion bacteria outnumbering our own cells ten to one, we are actually more bacteria than human. Involved at the root of a myriad of conditions from chronic fatigue to autoimmune disease, fibromyalgia, migraines, prediabetes and weight gain the gut and its resident microflora have been the most neglected organ system until now.

Within the wonderfully curated pages of Heal Your Gut you will find a plethora of practical advice; easy-to-understand steps; and recipes to detox, heal your body and feel great. Anyone who wants to improve their health should incorporate this approach to total body wellness. It all starts in your gut!

Vincent Pedre, M.D.

Author of Happy Gut: The Cleansing Program to Help You Lose Weight,Gain Energy, and Eliminate Pain .

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

MY HEALING STORY

Six years ago I was forced to make a radical life change after being diagnosed with a non-specific (that is, affecting several organs) autoimmune disease and fibromyalgia. In the first couple of years of my healing, the path was not easy. I spent three months lying in a hospital bed, coming to terms with the illness and the crippling arthritis. I lost more than 15 kilograms; hives and bruises covered my body from head to toe; and I suffered brain fog, hair loss and extreme fatigue. There were many days when I simply couldnt raise the energy to get out of bed.

Think of your gut as a garden that can only thrive when the soil is healthy. Healthy soil requires healthy foods and nutrients that will allow the good guys to flourish. By feeding my body all-natural, easily digestible wholefoods, I allowed it to heal at a fundamental level.

D uring my time in hospital I was given a concoction of drugs everything from immunosuppressants and antibiotics to steroids, anti-cancer drugs and anti-inflammatories. This was all in an effort to get the inflammation in my body under control. The big problem was that the drugs made me feel worse, with their Alfred Hitchcock movielike side effects! I was nauseated, tired, blurry and foggy. From my days studying nutrition, I always thought that many pharmaceutical drugs only mask the symptoms of disease. Most days when I woke up from an intermittent and interrupted sleep, I felt like a forty-year-old in an eighty-year-old womans body like Benjamin Button in reverse. I was bent double and unable to get out of bed, and my beautiful thick hair was falling out in clumps on my pillow.

As I lay there, I wondered if my condition could be diet-related and whether, if I healed my gut and gave my system a chance to recover, I would be able to regain my energy and health. I made a conscious decision to look more deeply at health and disease, to discover where my illness stemmed from and how I could heal myself naturally. Thus began the process of taking my medical destiny into my own hands. I was on a very restricted diet when I first got sick, because my body reacted to everything I ate and Id started developing allergies and intolerances. So I began by eating lots of liquid foods, as I knew they would be easy to digest and my system would absorb their nutrients more effectively. This process of gently healing my gut lining took about four weeks, and it really gave my digestive system a chance to improve and recover.

After my gut felt better and I was in less pain, I started taking probiotics and eating probiotic-rich foods to heal my gut and replenish my gut microflora (my good bacteria). Once my gut began to heal, I started eating nutrient-rich foods. Soon I found I was ingesting more nutrients and absorbing them, and my health really took an upward turn. Think of your gut as a garden that can only thrive when the soil is healthy. Healthy soil requires healthy foods and nutrients that will allow the good guys to flourish.

I still have my autoimmune disease. Some days when its raining outside or cold, my arthritic symptoms flare up, but I now know how to manage them, and they never interfere with my life like they used to. I live an energetic, healthy and full life, and the gut protocol I followed and the eating path Im now on have changed my life for the better. Im no longer on any prescription drugs and Im 90 per cent recovered. It would be untruthful to say that Ill ever feel 100 per cent better, but a big part of my healing has been to accept my 90 per cent, and in turn focus on enjoying every moment life has to offer.

Healing my gut was an integral part of regaining my health and vitality, and I want to share everything Ive learnt with you so that you too can heal your gut and get your life back.