Love Your Gut Blog
Monday, June 13th, 2011
This time of year can be quite stressful for those that are taking exams. With long revision sessions and the stress of taking exams, our body can become run down making us more susceptible the common cold and other ailments. Our eating habits are also not always the best when revising .We want to maximise study time and therefore want to be able to grab something quickly meaning the nutritional value will be less of a consideration. We also tend to opt for sugary and fatty foods such as crisps and chocolate as snacks. Whilst these will give us energy to keep us going they will only provide us with short sharp boosts of energy which will then be followed by a ‘slump’ making us feel tired, restless and your concentration levels will be poor, all spelling a recipe for disaster in helping us get the grades we want.
Why not try the advice below to help you on your way to achieving the grades you deserve.
- Got a sweet tooth? Why not opt for dried fruit such as apricots, dates or cranberries. These are packed full of vitamins and minerals including fibre which will help you maintain a healthy gut and keep you fuller for longer. This snack will satisfy your sweet tooth and provide you will energy to help maintain your concentration levels.
- Top up your five a day with carrot and celery sticks dipped in hummus. This is quick, cheap and easy to prepare. Hummus is a good source of insoluble fibre which will keep us fuller for longer and provides us with slow releasing energy.
- Short sharp bursts of revision are best. We tend to not take a much in if we are sitting reading for hours. Why not split your revision sessions up by going for a short walk. This will help keep your mind active.
- Vary your revision methods. Continuously reading text will become boring and monotonous. You could try making bullet point notes, recording yourself and replaying it back or perhaps make mind maps/flow diagrams.
Tags: exam stress, insoluble fibre, nutrition
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Monday, January 10th, 2011
Whether you’ve kept to all your New Year’s resolutions or you’re starting them again this Friday (see last week’s blog!), when thinking about your 2011 health regime, don’t forget your gut!
The way we eat, sleep, work and socialise can all be organised to give the gut the respect it deserves.
Eat slowly: Chewing releases enzymes which kick-start digestion. It also gets food to the stomach in manageable, well-chewed slivers. Bolted-down food can take down lots of air with it, leading to uncomfortable wind.
Eat regularly and moderately: The first meal of the day wakes up the gut and stimulates a bowel movement, so keep regular by having breakfast at the same time every day.
Get to bed: Lack of sleep can disrupt bowel function, appetite and mental function. Insomnia sufferers should rule out late-night fatty foods, alcohol and caffeine.
No smoking: Smoking not only affects the lungs but also the gut. Cigarettes increase the likelihood of heartburn, peptic ulcers, Crohn’s disease and cancers of the mouth, oesophagus, stomach and pancreas. It can also diminish the sense of taste.
Only take antibiotics when they’re really necessary: They can disturb the delicate balance of the gut flora and cause digestive disturbances, so don’t nag your doctor for them.
Relax: Eating while stressed can cause indigestion in the short term as well as aggravating existing gut complaints such as IBS.
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Tuesday, July 27th, 2010
You’re probably wondering what sleep has to do with a website about digestive health. Well quite a lot actually and not just because I’m feeling a little tired myself. 
Sleep is vitally important to the workings of the digestive system. In the same way we need to consider what and when we eat and drink, we also need to make sure that the amount of sleep we get is also important.
You often hear athletes talking about their rest days – they realise that their bodies can’t train all the time and need time to recover. Well the digestive system is the same – it needs to relax and recuperate. And it can’t go off for two weeks on the Med!
How many times have you stayed up watching a late night film? And then when you’ve been awake have started to get out the popcorn or crisps cos you’ve just got to have something to munch on? And then off you go to bed, late of course, and food still needing to be processed. So the digestive system kicks into action when it should be resting, and of course you’ve reduced your amount of sleep too! Worse still some studies have shown that insufficient sleep can lead to weight gain, and additional weight around the middle puts extra pressure on the digestive system.
So what can you do? Well first lets cut out the midnight snacking, and try and make a conscious effort to get to bed earlier. Whatever time you need to get up, count back 7-8 hours and start making that time your bedtime.
And try not to have your large meal too late in the day. You may not be able to avoid that your largest meal is the one you have in the evening, but you can look to ensure that it is a few hours before you go to bed – two to three hours is best.
So time to turn over a new leaf and see how your sleep patterns and digestion might just improve.
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Monday, July 12th, 2010
How often do you find yourself tempted in the supermarket? Those special offers just look too good to ignore and so it’s easy to find a few more things in the shopping basket than you intended, and certainly sometimes the items are not always as healthy as they might want to be!
A healthy fridge
Of course, one way around this is to make sure you have a shopping list and stick to it, but another way is to take on board some tips on how to make your shopping basket healthier – and it might keep temptation at bay!
For instance, did you know that wholegrain products contain 75% more nutrients than their white counterparts? But that studies show that only one in twenty adults eat enough wholegrain but that one in three of us are eating none at all?
When selecting staples to your diet such as rice, pasta, breakfast cereal and bread look for wholegrain varieties as much as possible. You need to get 18g of fibre a day, but you can use fruit and vegetables to help you achieve that too. And if that sounds tough, consider that a 90g portion of penne pasta contains about 2.3g of fibre but switching to wholewheat pasta and the same amount will offer 9g of fibre! And yes they are in the same aisle!
Dairy products are an important source of calcium and you should be aiming for two or three moderate portions a day – and if you’re watching your weight then you can opt for reduced fat versions. You can also help increase your intestinal health by looking for fermented milks and yoghurts which contain probiotic bacteria.
The World Cancer Research Fund also recommends that people cut back on red and processed meat following a report from them at the end of 2007 which showed strong evidence between red and processed meats and bowel cancer. Try and limit your intake to less than 500g cooked a week and perhaps switch your red meat choices to poultry or fish.
And of course, don’t forget your fluid intake – water that is! Water aids digestion, so drinking around eight glasses a day along with your dietary fibre will help to soften stools and make them easier to pass.
So, is it time to rewrite that shopping list? Stay strong in the shops and your body and digestive system will thank you for it!
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Tuesday, May 4th, 2010
We promised some changes to the Love Your Gut website and hopefully regular visitors will have noticed the blog has moved to a more prominent section of the website.
Fruit Salad
However we’ve also introduced a new recipe section which we hope will be of interest and use to all of you trying to incorporate more healthy foods into your diet.
To start off the new section we’ve included five recipes from top chef Antony Worrall Thompson who we are delighted to have as one of our Love Your Gut supporters. Antony has shared with us not just some of his fabulous recipes, but ones that really use good gut foods which will help you work towards better digestive health.
Over the coming months we’ll be adding more recipes to the site from a range of celebrity chefs and expert nutritionists and dieticians who are all working together to get us healthy on the inside and out. And if you have tried any of the recipes or have some good food tips to offer then please share them here!
So next time you’re stuck for a delicious and healthy meal, click here for inspiration!
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