ATHE_Transcript_Ep 479_YT 37
JJ Virgin: [00:00:00] Hey, this is JJ Virgin. Thanks so much for joining me. This is ask the health expert. In each episode, I put the power of health in your hands and share ways to get healthy, lose weight, heal your gut detox and lots more. So you can look and feel better fast if you’d rather watch the video. Hey, I did put on my makeup and do my hair.
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Your gut is the center of your world in more ways than one. It’s the control center for your immune system and your second brain. So when it’s not happy, Neither are you, but odds are, if you’ve got gut issues, you ate your way into them, which is awesome because it means you can eat your way out of them.
Hey, it’s [00:01:00] JJ. Welcome. And thanks for being here. This is one of my favorite things to do because together we’re making the world healthier one bite at a time. So in this series, we’re talking about ways to use food, to heal and feel better, fast by improving what’s the end of your fork. And in this episode, we’re gonna talk about what to eat when to eat and why for gut health.
If your gut is off, it can be hard to connect the dots and find the source of the problem, because it can manifest as so many different symptoms and conditions from fatigue and headaches to digestive problems like irritable bowel, skin problems, like acne and eczema, joint pain, brain fog, food cravings, moodiness.
There’s a lot of different things it can be. If you’re dealing with any of those, it could mean there’s a problem in your gut and it’s trying to get your attention. And one of the most common is a condition called leaky gut leaky gut is when the tight junctions in your intestinal [00:02:00] wall become loose.
They’re loose from being assaulted with constant stress, food intolerance, a processed diet, GMO foods, and a bunch of different medications. And it can seriously disrupt your gut microbiome. The little holes get bigger and bigger and bigger and start letting through undigested food, particles, bacteria, and toxins.
And when this happens, you start to have all of these symptoms and you start to feel Ugh, and you start to get inflammed. So if you’ve got gut issues like leaky gut, it can be hard to focus on anything else. But the good news is you can heal most problems, pretty fast with food. So I’m gonna give you some simple ways to shift your diet and swap out foods that could be hurting you for ones that can heal you.
And that starts with whole natural. So my friend, Dr. Will Lee is an internationally renowned scientist, physician, chef, and author. He’s [00:03:00] all about eating to beat disease. That’s actually the title of his New York times best selling book. And he says, when you look at traditional cultures, you’re gonna see that they eat.
Whole organic and fermented foods, which is way different from our Western diet. That’s full of ultra processed inflammatory foods that literally wreak havoc on our gut. And he sees solid evidence that eating those processed foods leads to worse health outcomes than eating whole fresh foods kind of seems obvious, right?
Foods like whole grains, fruits and veggies, nuts and seeds because mother nature. Has actually figured this out whole foods, feed our microbiome and create a healthy gut that is less inflammation. Now this healthy gut also protects our DNA slows down cellular aging and improves our immunity. So eating to feed your microbiome right.
Is the key to healing your gut and reducing inflammation. You wanna choose foods that support [00:04:00] and increase the good bugs in your gut, your probiotics. So you’re gonna feed your probiotics more. Their favorite food prebiotics. So prebiotics are just basically fiber, but the average American diet is pretty low in fiber.
Like 15 grams on a good day, which is way below my goal for you. And my goal is 50 grams or more. So there are a couple easy ways to increase the fiber in your diet. Now, one of them is a supplement, which I have it’s called extra fiber plus extra fiber plus makes it super easy for you to get your fiber.
And also has resistance starch. You may have heard of resistance starch. It’s called that. Because it resists digestion. It’s a type of carbohydrate that has amazing benefits. It can improve your digestion, it can improve your insulin sensitivity. It can lower your blood sugar levels and it can reduce your appetite.
And it also helps you burn fat by helping your body produce butyrate. and all of that [00:05:00] in addition to helping you have a strong, healthy gut. Now, another way to get more fiber in your diet on top of supplementing is to eat more non searchy veggies. Okay. So my floor for non searchy vegetables is to make sure that you get in at least five servings a day.
That’s my floor. Like that’s the minimum. Okay. My goal post for you is 10. And if you wanna go past that, I’m super proud of you. So what’s a serving. Serving as a half a cup of cooked or a cup of raw. But in this instance, I wanna make sure that your veggies are cooked. This can be a great source of dietary fiber by the way.
And when I’m talking non-starchy vegetables, cauliflower, peppers, onions, broccoli, brussel sprouts asparagus. Now, according to my friend, Dr. Vincent Padre, who’s an internist and gut expert and author of happy gut. If you’re eating a lot of cold foods, it’s really hard for your gut to break them down. So think of cooking as the act of digestion [00:06:00] outside your.
as an example, just think about the difference in texture between raw and cooked, cruciferous vegetables like broccoli. Now I bring up broccoli because broccoli is not only a great source of detoxifying, prebiotic fiber for your gut. It’s also rich in sulforaphane, which has anti-cancer properties. So we’re focusing on the fiber, but these veggies will do a lot more for your overall health too.
And I don’t know about you. But I cannot stand raw broccoli. Like I love broccoli. That’s been lightly steamed, like my favorite of all vegetables, but raw, not so much. There are a lot of bioactive compounds in these vegetables that activate our circulation and stimulate our stem cells to regenerate. In addition to helping our gut, their natural defenses.
Become our defenses and they protect us from invaders inside and outside our body. And this is important because there’s been a lot of like, oh, plants, they’ve got all these things. We shouldn’t eat them. Anti-nutrients but [00:07:00] when you look at the antioxidants that these plants have to protect themselves from the invaders.
These can be amazing for us. Now, you can also boost the number of good bacteria in your microbiome by adding fermented vegetables, like sauerkraut, kimchi, and pickles. And I mean, these are super common when you get outside of the United States. But really not here. And we’ve gotta do a better job at getting some of these into their diet because these really help get us the prebiotics and, and, or I’m sorry, the probiotics.
Right? So these are super duper important and they not only. Nourish your gut. They also help reduce inflammation and strengthen your immune system. Now here’s one thing that Dr. Vincent Padre said, so this will help you a word of caution. If you’ve not been eating fermented foods and you’re hearing this, don’t go overboard right away.
What you wanna do with fermented foods is start slowly like a tablespoon a day, right. Or rotate them in, but don’t go crazy. All right. Another [00:08:00] one that’s great for your gut is bone broth. Bone broth is a rock star for gut healing. It contains collagen and gelatin. And those are gonna reinforce the integrity of your intestinal lining and help reduce inflammation.
It also contains the amino acids, proline, and glycine, and those are really important because they help support the tight junctions and they’ll help heal the gut. Now, 90% of your gut lining is made up of collagen and those other amino. So I have a bone broth shake that I’ll use, but I also have bone broth that I put in and I use for cooking as well.
And I try to get in, ideally, this is something that you’re adding in and maybe having a cup a day sipping in between a meal too. It’s super soothing for your gut. All right. Healthy fats. So healthy fats help reduce inflammation. Now they are not to be confused with the nasty fats that cause inflammation like the ones in industrial seed oils.
Those things are highly [00:09:00] processed oils and they’re extracted from things like soybean, corn rape seed that’s by the way, canola oil, cotton seeds, safflower oil, and they’re used in processed. Also some foods that seem healthy, like packaged hummus. So you gotta be super careful here, cuz you could go in that health food store and think you’re doing a great thing.
And they’ve snuck in these rancid. Bad oils. And remember these inflammatory omega 6 seed oils, when they are processed, they become toxic to our body and they produce trans fats. So we wanna stay away from them super important, but we wanna go towards and get in the good fats, like the ones you’re gonna have in wild salmon, in avocado, in nuts and seeds, because these are gonna help reduce inflammation.
They do everything from keeping you mentally sharp to boosting your metabolism. They also can help stabilize your moods and help keep your energy high. Especially the oil from coconut, the MC2 oil that’s super easy to burn. They also can play a huge role in [00:10:00] weight control because they help keep your blood sugar balanced and they help regulate the amount of insulin released after you eat.
So, again, here’s another shift you can make, it’s gonna support your gut healing, but then it does all this other good stuff too. Okay. Some of the other things you can use to help heal your gut are coconut oil and coconut milk. Now I already mentioned coconut oil, but I wanna give it a little bit more time because it’s got some amazing properties to it.
Coconut is antifungal antiviral, antimicrobial, and can help balance your gut bugs. You also can MCT and coconut oil super easy, and for your body to burn gives you a lot of energy. Okay. You also wanna get foods high in polyphenols. So those are things like nuts and berries. My personal favorite. I love blueberries.
They’re great because they’ve got loads of antioxidants. Those are gonna help you fight off this oxidative stress and that’s gonna help you heal. Now. Here’s the thing. I love blueberries, but I’m not eating like, [00:11:00] you know, 10 cups of blueberries. I’ll have a cup. You wanna make sure you don’t overdo the fruit.
I say two servings of fruit a day. A serving’s a cup because you don’t wanna get too much sugar and then you create another problem. And by the way, when we’re talking fruit, remember we’re talking fresh or frozen whole fruit. Not juice. That’s a soda, not dried that’s candy, not the jams or the syrups, right?
The concentrates. That’s just syrup. Okay. Let’s avoid that. Now as a general rule, you also wanna make sure you stay hydrated, but especially, I want you to drink out a lot of water and green tea. I’m a big green tea fan. I’ve got it right here. It’s really good for your gut microbiome. And getting the right gut bugs in place.
You also might wanna try this traditional Chinese fermented tea called and I hope to say this, right. I learned this from Dr. Will Leo’s pure, pure. I’m probably killing it, but he just told me about it and he’s testing it out because it’s [00:12:00] great for health. And it’s a great digestive aid. So he’s been doing this one after dinner.
So I got, I got some too, Dr. Will Lee now you might also wanna add a probiotic supplement for good measure. You know, I mean, we’re, we wanna start with food first, but this is a way to ensure that you’re getting in those organisms, you’re getting in those probiotics. So I use it as a top off, right? It’s not like, oh, I’m not gonna eat any of those fermented foods, no, eat those.
And then top it off with some probiotics because you wanna get all of these different strengths. And so you’re gonna look for one with a high number of strains and a diverse number of strains, a diverse type of strains as. So I’ve got a probiotic that I love, you can check it out at reignite wellness and it does everything we’re talking about here.
Right? Lots of strains, diverse strains. Okay. Now, I also have some prebiotics in it. And you wanna have prebiotics. What I want you to think about with prebiotics is they feed the probiotics. It’s like fertilizer for your gut. And one of the things you’re gonna find with [00:13:00] prebiotics is some of them can make you feel a little gassy, right?
So you wanna, you wanna check that too, cuz you wanna be able to use these things on a regular basis. So that’s super important. So again, I really love taking probiotics, prebiotics. One that has something called bacteriophage because they’ll boost your immunity by attacking all those bad little microbes in your gut and then supporting the good microbes in your gut, which is so key critical.
So check out the probiotic I have at reignite night wellness. Now, another thing you might wanna do is add digestive enzymes. I personally think that if you’re over the age of 30, 35, this is something you’ll wanna have in your diet. In fact, Dr. Vincent Padre says when your gut is outta balance, you might not be making enough digestive enzymes and you don’t have enough stomach acid.
And again, this is something you wanna look at as you age. In fact, your stomach acid starts to go down at the age of 20. I’ve always had kind of a rule of thumb if you’re over the age of 30, 35 or under [00:14:00] any kind of stress. And it’s like, so it’s everybody, you wanna do a trial of this. So. Do a trial of digestive enzymes choose a blend that has some betaine because bataine is gonna enhance your natural digestive enzymes.
Right. And then you’ll also want something that’s gonna help break down some of the high five foods like dairy, right. And gluten and soy and corn. Because this is so key, critical too. Now for gluten, you want a blend that degrades the gluten in your stomach and upper GI tract before it can become an issue for you.
Now that’s not to say, Hey, go ahead and go eat all the gluten. But sometimes when you’re eating out, You’re doing your very best and things will still sneak in. Right? I always call my digestive enzymes. It’s like, okay, mistakes happen. The enzymes will also help catch you. So that’s another thing that I love to take.
Now you wanna stay away and this is super critical, right? We just talked probiotics. We talked to enzymes, but I wanna make sure that you are staying away from [00:15:00] some other things. And one of the things I wanna make sure you’re staying away from besides sugar are antacids. And acids might seem like this really great solution if you’re having heartburn.
And if it’s like once a year, that’s one thing. But here’s the challenge. If you’re using antacids on a regular basis, studies show that acid blockers reduce healthy bacteria in your gut and can increase infection. So when you reduce the amount of acid in your stomach with antacids, what’s gonna happen here.
Well, it’s gonna help the bad bacteria survive and it actually can increase your gas and bloating, you know, some of the things that you were trying to solve when you you know, were taking the antacids it can actually increase your heartburn, all the things you were trying to avoid in the first place. Now, there are other things you should flat out avoid.
You know, I mentioned sugar, processed foods, refined carbs, and the high five foods. Again, I’m gonna say shout out, going on the Virgin diet and figuring out which foods work for you. And which foods don’t. [00:16:00] I also have GMO foods on my hit. Because they can really wreak havoc on your gut. They’re sprayed heavily with pesticides that are gonna take down your microbiome and so will antibiotics.
They don’t discriminate by the way those antibiotics go in. And it’s just like scorched earth in your gut. They’re gonna get rid of the good guys and the bad guys. It wipes out everything. And then the challenge is you gotta go back in there and rebuild and you can’t rebuild your gut microbiome overnight.
This is gonna take. Right. Okay. So let’s go into when the timing of your meals, this is super important to healing your gut. And the research is clear here. One of the best things you can do is to start intermittent fasting, intermittent fasting improves the health of your gut microbiome. And by the way, intermittent, fasting improves the health of your microbiome.
But not just your microbiome. It also improves the health of your heart. It improves the health of your brain. So a lot [00:17:00] of good stuff here with intermittent fasting. So why are we doing this? The fasting window is gonna give your gut the time it needs to heal. And then when you do eat, remember we’re eating soothing nourishing foods.
So time between meals is still part of digestion and there’s a lot going on when you’re not eating. You gotta give your body time to digest so that you can start something called the migrating motor complex process. The migrating motor complex is the housekeeping that happens in your small intestine.
When you’re not digesting food, it goes in there and sweeps, undigested, food particles, and bacteria from your stomach and small intestine, your colon, but it’s not gonna happen if your body is focused on digestion. If you’re eating every couple hours, if you’re snacking. So first off is your first fast fasting for 12 to 14 hours stopping eating three to four hours before bed pushing breakfast a little later, [00:18:00] easy peasy sleep for most of that, you’re giving your gut a rest and a huge chance to heal.
And again, you’re sleeping for a lot of that. So it’s so much easier than you think. Let’s say you ate dinner at. You’re done done with dinner at seven, you go to bed at 10, you wake up at seven, you have some black coffee or tea. You work out a little bit. Then you push your breakfast a little bit, but even if you woke up at at seven and eight, boom, it’s 12 hours, but we’re gonna push it to nine you’re already at 14.
See how easy that is. Super easy. Now, when you break your fast in the morning, You can your support your gut with a smoothie, a loaded smoothie, which is what I love to do again with starting with protein, adding some healthy fats and some fiber, and then for your other meal or meals. And by the way, let’s say that you’re gonna push your.
Eating window to six to eight hours. Maybe you’re having two meals. You’ll have to see. But making sure that with those meals that you’re getting in, all of the stuff that we talked about, those healthy fats, the [00:19:00] fiber, the protein, all of the, the great healing foods that your gut needs to be at its best.
Now, if you go all in you, all right. I’ve been eating by the plate. I’ve been eating my fat fiber protein trifecta. I’ve gotten my eating window to 14 hours. Then I pushed in. I’ve got a couple days where I’m doing 16 hours. I’m gonna do one meal a day. You can do that too. That is something that you can throw in as a strategy once a week, once a month, that’s gonna help you heal as well.
Now, no matter how you do it, and you can see the flexibility that you have with intermittent fasting between, you know, the very minimum here is 12 hours. I think you can push to 14 pretty quickly stop the snacking, and then you can play around from there. No matter how you do. It’s gonna be worth it for you.
It’s been for me it’s I feel better than ever having put it in there. And I’ve watched so many people improve with it. Now the benefits of it, besides, besides what I’ve personally experienced and seen with, with clients, [00:20:00] I can tell you the studies super back it up. They show it shifts the balance of good bacteria to get you healthy and protects you against metabolic syndrome.
And if you need to lose a little bit, might help with that too. One study showed that a regular meal pattern starting with breaking the fast. And consuming a higher proportion of energy earlier in the day, but fewer meals a day and regular fasting periods may reduce inflammation, improve your circadian rhythm, which means better sleep, increase autophage which is that cellular detox and create stress resistance and rebalance your microbiome.
Holy smokes. Could you imagine if that was a drug, it would be prescribed all over the place. Now your gut is the center of your immunity and your whole body’s. Your heart, your brain improving your mood, your sleep, and your digestion. And it may help prevent some cancers and autoimmune diseases. Our gut is just so much more complex than we previously thought.
And I mean, honestly, there’s new research coming [00:21:00] out all the time about it, but we do know that for true gut health, what you eat when and why is critical. And that being said, you’ll also wanna incorporate things beyond the changes to your. You have to get stress management, exercise and sleep dialed in because if they’re a wreck, they’re also going to wreak havoc on your gut.
Now there’s one more thing to return to where we started taking a closer look at traditional cultures. They really Revere whole organic food from mother nature. The way it’s grown, the way it’s prepared and also the way it’s. So, if you can, as you eat to heal, take a page from their book, not only what you eat, but how slow down and enjoy your food with friends and family.
Take the time to eat mindfully and pay attention to your body and how you feel stop before you overdo it. [00:22:00] Ideally, when you’re about 80% full it’s, one of the best things you can do for your. listen to your body helps you tune into what it really needs. Thanks for joining me. If you’d like more contact, then please be sure to keep coming back, like and subscribe.
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for more info on this and other health topics I cover or to rate and review. Find me on Instagram, Facebook and my website, JJvirgin.com. And don’t forget to subscribe to my show. So you won’t miss a single episode. Go to subscribetojj.com. Thanks again for being with me this week.