Jeannette Hyde - The Gut Makeover: 4 Weeks to Nourish Your Gut, Revolutionize Your Health, and Lose Weight

I lost 14 pounds, saw huge improvement to stomach problems that I have had for months, and my skin is looking so good strangers have commented on it!

Jenn, age 34

My bloating stopped, I lost 8 pounds, and 2 inches off my waist, my hay fever disappeared, my skin is less dry and flaky. The Gut Makeover is the second best thing I have ever done apart from marrying my wife!

Theo, age 49

Ive always had a bit of IBS all my life and for the first time in probably 40 years Ive not had symptoms. Ive lost over 14 pounds in weight, my skins better, Im sleeping better, I feel less stressed, and off the usual yo-yo between caffeine and alcohol.

Kevin, age 45

My IBS improved the most it ever has as a result of following the principles. Im no longer scared to eat vegetables (I used to think they made my IBS worse) and my anxiety has improved too as a result of this. My skin completely cleared up and I no longer need to use half a container of concealer every day!

Rachael, age 32

Throughout the whole month, my blood sugar was generally within the normal range and I was barely needing to use any of my insulin that I would have with meals. My insulin pen has never lasted so long!

Kate, age 32

We lost 16 pounds between us, got rid of acne, slept better, gained masses of energy, and feel more measured. This has a higher purpose than losing weight.

Alana and Lisa Macfarlane (The Mac Twins), age 28

Contents

The media have declared that there is a revolution and that is not too strong a word happening right now in the nutrition world. Recent discoveries from leading researchers have shown that the state of our gut is central to our weight and health. So if we want to look and feel good for the long term, we need a diet that creates a high-performance digestive system. We have entered the gut-health era of diet and nutrition, and it will be here for a long time indeed. The science is simply too persuasive to suggest otherwise.

So, back to basics. The digestive tract is huge and tightly packed within the body. Running from mouth to anus, if it were laid out straight it would be around 2330 feet long. Our intestines, especially our large intestine, contain masses of bacteria weighing on average 3 pounds in each individual and these are instrumental to our well-being.

The collection of bacteria living on and in our body has been dubbed the microbiome (see ) and consists of about 100 trillion bacterial cells. This may be up to ten times more numerous than the human cells in the body, which means we may only be 10 percent human; the rest of us is all this stuff that is living in and on us.

The highest concentration of bacteria is to be found in our gut. Having a wide diversity of these bugs in our intestines is now understood to be essential to life. In 2014 a landmark review paper on the microbiome published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation from New York University said: The composition of the microbiome and its activities are involved in most, if not all, of the biological processes that constitute the human health and disease, as we proceed through our own life cycle. You could think of the microbiome as the control center of human health.

Until recently our gut health has been totally underestimated, but we now know that it is essential to take care of it from cradle to old age. It amazes me that it has taken so long for the idea of gut health to have a revolution. When Hippocrates (circa 460375 BC) said bad digestion is the root of all evil he was certainly on to something all those centuries ago.

Good gut health has an important impact on many aspects of your health, some of which might not have occurred to you:

There is a growing body of research showing that not all calories are created equal. Junk food, sugar, artificial sweeteners, alcohol, and meat reared on antibiotics may change the balance of bacteria in the gut and actually make us extract more calories from them than unprocessed foods even if the calorie counts are the same.

The digestive system has now been dubbed the second brain with signals passing from gut to brain, not just the other way round as originally thought. This may mean an unhealthy gut playing a role in a low mood, and a healthy gut doing the same for a better mood.

A disturbed gut lining can lead to undigested particles of food, or toxins, getting into our bloodstream, leading to irritated skin, allergy-style symptoms, and a confused immune system.

A healthy microbiome has been linked with a healthy immune system. The microbiome is in contact with a large pool of the immune system around 70 percent of immune cells live in the gut.

The great news is there is a lot you can do to cultivate a healthy gut. The biggest influence you can have on the state of your gut lining, and a healthy microbiome, is your diet which you control.

So what does this mean for us in practice? Simply, it means that we need to adopt a diet which stimulates the flourishing of as many different and varied species of gut bugs as possible, and which makes the beneficial bugs bloom and thrive. We also need to put foods into our diet daily that we know will help us to build a strong gut lining. Both of these concepts have recently been shown to be key to controlling weight, maintaining beautiful skin, improving mood, and developing a strong immune system. A good gut may also protect us from developing autoimmune disorders, which are currently at near-epidemic levels in developed countries.

This book will explain how to eat to achieve great gut health, even in your busy life. It will set you on the path to strengthening your gut lining and reseeding the bugs in your intestines to give you vibrant health and achieve a body weight that suits you.

How the Makeover Works

The book centers around a four-week plan that I have designed based on the latest research on the microbiome and impaired intestinal permeability (also known as leaky gut; see ). It is not a diet in the popular sense of the word; it is a restoration program. Its a whole health overhaul.

For four weeks we are going to take out of your everyday diet the foods that could be irritating your gut lining or skewing the balance and impacting the diversity of that 3 pounds of bacteria in your intestines, and replace them with foods that will help. Think of it as a personal makeover working from the inside out: using good food to restore your bacteria, to create a beneficial impact on your weight, skin, mood, and immune system.

The four-week plan pays a nod to the diets of indigenous hunter-gatherers in South America and Africa, who have diverse species of bacteria in their guts supported by eating many vegetables, supplemented with quality meats and fish, eggs, nuts, and seeds, and from time to time a little dairy. The plan involves eating an array of delicious, unprocessed foods that wont leave you hungry.

Once we have built your gut up to a state of bacterial diversity and abundance on the four-week makeover, we will transition to the maintenance part of this program, which is a gut-friendly version of the real Mediterranean diet, based on the diet from the pre-1960s in Greece. This consisted of a high intake of plants vegetables, seasonal fruits, and wild herbs supplemented with fish, nuts and grains, extra virgin olive oil, artisan, slow-matured cheeses teeming with friendly bacteria, and moderate amounts of quality meat. This Mediterranean diet is the best way to support a healthy gut. Its also an enjoyable way to eat for the long term.