Foods That Unlock Gut Healing (Butyrate)

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Your gut is at the ROOT of your health and therefore, your gut holds the key to unstoppable health.
Everything that you eat effects your gut, the part of your body from your mouth all the way to the other end. Why is your gut so important? Your gut is where you take all the good stuff you eat and drink and transform it into the many building blocks your body needs to make energy, think clearly, sleep well, maintain a healthy weight, build muscle, and clear out toxins that need clearing out daily so you can thrive. 


It is my passion is to work with people like you whose health symptoms–like low energy, gut/digestive issues, excess weight, mood imbalance, and skin & sleep problems–are getting in the way of you living life fully and with a sense of freedom in your body. I help you to regain your health so you can feel great and free to enjoy life fully.

Today let’s focus on some ways that you can increase the SCFA (short chain fatty acid) butyrate, the health benefits of which I’ve previously written about and include:

  • Supports weight management
  • Fights inflammation
  • Aids in intestinal motility
  • Stimulates the absorption of water and sodium
  • Maintains the protective mucus layer of the intestines
  • Helps fight leaky gut
  • Improves blood sugar balance and insulin sensitivity

You can’t eat butyrate. Rather, your gut bacteria makes it if you eat the right foods.


 

How To Boost Your Butyrate

Foods that support butyrate production in your body include resistant starches and prebiotics. Rather than aiming for specific amounts of these foods, aim for an overall fiber-rich (and protein-rich) diet, 25+ grams of fiber/day.

Here’s a list of resistant starches:

  • Unripe bananas
  • Plantains (uncooked)
  • Raw cashews
  • Uncooked oats (e.g. overnight oats)
  • Green banana flour
  • Potato starch

Cooking and cooling the following foods greatly boosts their resistant starch level AND, you can reheat them and eat them warm without reducing their resistant starch level (or eat them cold should you desire). 

  • Cooked and cooled legumes
  • Cooked and cooled sweet potatoes
  • Cooked and cooled potatoes
  • Cooked and cooled rice
  • Cooked and cooled barley

These foods are excellent sources of prebiotics, non-digestible parts of foods such as fiber, that the bacteria in your colon will break down and then make health-boosting substances like butyrate:

  • Almonds
  • Apples
  • Apricots
  • Artichoke
  • Asparagus
  • Barley
  • Beans
  • Burdock root
  • Carrots
  • Cashews
  • Chia seeds
  • Chickpeas
  • Chicory root
  • Dandelion greens
  • Dark chocolate
  • Flaxseeds
  • Garlic
  • Green tea
  • Jerusalem artichokes
  • Leeks
  • Lentils
  • Mushrooms
  • Onions
  • Pears
  • Raspberries
  • Seaweed
  • Soybeans
  • Tomatoes

Generally speaking, whole, unprocessed foods support your health while processed and artificial ingredients do the opposite.

If you’re ready to discover where your best health has been hiding, I’d love to connect with you!

Apply for a complimentary Unstoppable Health Discovery Session. http://bit.ly/schedulinghealth (subject to availability).

Until next time, I’m wishing you unstoppable health!
~Rebecca

5 Tips For Constipation Relief

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Chronic constipation affects 15-20% of the U.S. Population and significantly more women than men. Besides being horribly uncomfortable, stressful, and even expensive to live with, there are health risks involved.
Our bodies remove waste through our poop. When we aren’t pooping regularly, the waste sits in the bowel, reabsorption of waste occurs, fluid in the bowel is absorbed (making stool harder and drier) and that poop sits there in the colon. Over time, this can lead to something called megacolon (which sounds kinda cool, but isn’t). Megacolon describes the condition of the enlarging/widening of the colon resulting from chronic constipation.

Causes of Constipation

Slow transit time of stool through the digestive tract, poor diet (lacking in fresh unprocessed food, fiber, and/or protein), certain medications (such as pain medication, antidepressants and GLP-1 drugs), dehydration, lack of physical activity, hormonal changes, low thyroid function, high stress, and lifestyle habits (like routinely “holding it”) can all contribute to less frequent bowel movements, harder/drier stools, and set up a vicious cycle of ongoing constipation.
Now I want to add here that women have longer colons than men to begin with which is a reason why significantly more women than men suffer from constipation. When you add any of these other causes to the equation, it becomes clear that women are going to be at increased risk of the widening of the colon that occurs with chronic constipation. 

5 Tips for Constipation Relief

If relieving constipation were simple, I wouldn’t need to write this newsletter. The fact is that it usually isn’t just one simple thing that needs adjusting. If you’ve been struggling with slow motility and constipation, I encourage you to seek out support from someone who understands digestion, nutrition, how stress affects motility, and who can help you investigate your gut on a deeper level to help you address all the things that are likely contributing to this pattern.
Additionally, here are some great tips to support you.

  1. Timing and positioning (aim for pooping at the same time of day–colonic activity is highest in the morning– and consider a squatty potty or similar toilet stool to get your knees up and improve anorectal angle/position). Additionally, meal timing also matters. Eating late at night can worsen chronic constipation as we don’t have adequate time to process the food before going to bed–aim to eat 3 meals/day including a healthy breakfast and stop eating at least 3 hours before you go to bed.
  2. Hydration. Drinking enough water is important for every aspect of health, not just for supporting your BM’s. Aim for half your bodyweight in ounces of water per day, but if you are currently nowhere near drinking this much water, ease into it gradually to allow your body to adjust.
  3. Fiber. Aiming for 25-35 grams of fiber per day (with plenty of fluids) from whole foods and sources such as psyllium husk helps increase water absorption, softens stool, binds to toxins, feeds the healthy bacteria in your colon, and increases motility.
  4. Exercise/Move your body. This supports blood flow, stimulates intestinal motility, and encourages bowel movement regularity.
  5. Relax and listen to your body. I recommend that each of us have a daily practice to balance our nervous systems (such as HeartMath). When we tune into our bodies, one of the things we are able to listen to is the signals for going to the bathroom. Doing regular stress management techniques that calm your nervous system (like pausing and doing deep breathing) has a beneficial impact on your vagus nerve and migrating motor complex, both of which support bowel regularity. 


I hope that this information is helpful to you.  Chronic digestive issues are rarely caused by just one thing. It’s not your fault if you haven’t figured out how to fix it. This newsletter is intended to give you hope and let you know that help is available.

It is my passion to work with people like you whose health symptoms are getting in the way of you living life fully and with a sense of freedom in your body. I can help you to regain your health so you can feel great and free to enjoy life fully. 

If you’re ready to discover where your best health has been hiding, I’d love to connect with you!

Apply for a complimentary Unstoppable Health Discovery Session. http://bit.ly/schedulinghealth (subject to availability).

Until next time, I’m wishing you unstoppable health!
~Rebecca