Kale Brock - The Gut Healing Protocol: An 8-Week Holistic Program to Rebalance Your Microbiome

This book would not have been possible without my amazing family, friends, and colleagues.

To Eris Watkins, who taught me so much of this information and pointed me in the right direction, thank you. To Dr. Damian Kristof, thank you for being an amazing mentor.

To Ryan, Inessa, Emma, David, Dianne, Lyn, Noel, Paul, Kylie, and Ziathank you for being there for me.

To David, Jason, Ryan, and all my friends who have contributed ideas and messages of support for this bookthank you.

To Kenya Addison, @rhythmoffood , thank you for taking the most beautiful recipe photos which I could never have takenyour work was invaluable in creating a beautiful, aesthetically appealing book.

This book would also not be possible without you, the enthusiastic reader. Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope youve enjoyed it and found it useful and worthy of sharing.

Kale Brock is an award-nominated journalist, producer, and speaker. With qualifications as a Health and Exercise coach, Kale has worked in the health and wellness industry since 2007 alongside some of the best naturopaths and health personalities in the world. Now specializing in the areas of gut health and the microbiome, Kale shares a well-rounded and comprehensive message on these areas with the general public.

Kales books The Gut Healing Protocol and The Art of Probiotic Nutrition have generated international acclaim.

He has worked as a producer, TV host, public speaker, health and exercise coach, personal development strategist, and is an inspiring and entertaining speaker.

Kales recent documentary The Gut Movie has generated world interest and acclaim.

See testimonials for Kales work at kalebrock.com.au/changedlives .

The gut. The gut lining. Its one of the hottest topics in science right now. Scientists the world over are scrupulously investigating the role that our microbiome and subsequent functioning of the intestinal lining play in our health and wellbeing. Let me tell you, theyre discovering some amazing things, many of which I will share with you in this book.

This book is the result of nine years of my research as a health journalist and coach into how we as everyday people can better look after ourselves in order to experience life to the fullest. This book is not a scientific journal or investigative report, but rather a simple action plan, with validating references, that you can use to improve your gut health and furthermore to improve your overall health and vitality!

The Gut Healing Protocol is an extra tool for your health maintenance toolbox. It contains principles that I learned from some of my earliest (and still current) healthcare mentors. Ive borrowed ideas and principles from prominent doctors who Ive interviewed over the years and incorporated philosophical ideas from health leaders and backed them up with scientific references. Ive taken ideas from the pages of the thousands of books and articles Ive read on health and wellness, and Ive tidied it all up into a pretty little package called the Gut Healing Protocol.

Im not a doctor. I am a normal person, just like you, who was forced to learn about the wonderful thing I live in called the human body. I believe the most powerful thing about this protocol is its simplicity. This is literally a real-food approach to healing the gut lining and improving ones health. Its the approach I had to take to improve my own health when I was a young person, and its the approach I still harness now to maintain vitality. When I sat down to write this book, I didnt want to overwhelm anyone. I didnt want to create a manifesto that only the most advanced health researcher or practitioner could understand. I wanted to make this book applicable and friendly to the everyday person. Gone are the days when health and wellbeing was reserved only for those considered alternative. The fantastic news is that asking questions and taking responsibility for ones health is common practice now.

Unfortunately, we have many individuals involved in the health movement who create a picture of holistic health as being niche and unobtainable for common people and this is one of the biggest downfalls of the health movement as it stands right now; the fact that it is viewed as too hard or too weird. I believe that as an educated person on health and wellness, it is my responsibility to convey the health message in a simple, comprehensive, and enjoyable way to the public. Most importantly, my goal is to inspire readers to take action. That is the mission behind all my work in this industry. One of the greatest pleasures I receive from this job is when a reader or listener tells me that they got their health back in control and are now living their life to the fullest because they felt inspired in some way by my work.

Health and wellness is simply a tool to help you achieve your dreams.

This book is called The Gut Healing Protocol because it focuses, primarily, on the health of the intestinal lining. For the nerdy, this means tightening up the junctions of the gut epithelium and shutting down over-active inflammatory mechanisms throughout the body so that you can experience optimal bodily function. This is like resetting the gut or figuratively getting a gut-chiropractic-adjustment. When we calm the system down, we can allow our health and vitality to thrive.

I will be providing you with a lot of information on the mechanisms of the gut and your digestive system, because when you are well-informed, you can make informed decisions.

The current scientific interest in the microbiome is discovering that many of our current ailments including arthritis, psoriasis, Hashimotos, depression, diabetes, asthma, and even heart disease have some origins in the gut. This is probably because our gut and the functioning of the gut lining has a heavy influence on the inflammatory responses which go on throughout the entire body. Your gut is like the bodys central dashboard. It has connections to all the different parts of the body and can send signals to and fro. Those signals can either be health-promoting or disease-promoting, and that is controlled by the functioning of the gut itself. By rebalancing the gut microbiota, decreasing inflammation, and restoring integrity to the intestinal lining, we can create a digestive environment that is health-promoting!

Microbiota: The individual microbes which inhabit the body.

Microbiome: The sum total of the microbiota population which inhabit the body.

Whats so fantastic about the gut message is that it represents a strong intersection between alternative health and conventional medicine. For years these fields have remained very separate from one another, often criticizing and attacking the opposing team from afar. But with the accumulation of science confirming gut-health principles as being core to the development and maintenance of wellbeing, these groups are coming together. One of the greatest benefits of this intersection of ideas is that we as consumers will see huge advancements in how disease is treated, if not prevented. Indeed, there are many conventional doctors, as well as many complimentary practitioners who are still behind the 8 ball in terms of gut health, and that is why I encourage you to educate yourself on the basics of gut health to ensure youre always making informed decisions about your wellbeing.

When we break down the sometimes complex and overwhelming scientific research, a common theme arises: most disease and illness can originate or be exacerbated by an imbalance in the gut microbiome and a lack of intestinal integrity.