Your immune system lies in your gut, literally! Think of your gut as a home to trillions of microorganisms working hard to keep everything in balance. Your gut microbiome is the backbone of your digestion, nutrient absorption, and most importantly, your immune system.
Ever wondered how certain everyday eating habits can compromise this delicate balance? We’re talking about things like eating mindlessly, not chewing your food properly, relying too much on liquid meals, and letting stress take over during meals.
These habits might seem small, but they can have a BIG impact on your gut health and immune system, and as a registered dietitian and a certified LEAP therapist, I’m here to tell you all about it. So let’s dig in!
What is Mindless Eating?
What is mindless eating exactly, and why does it matter? Mindless eating is the habit of consuming food without paying full attention to the experience. It’s that moment when you’re watching a TV show or scrolling through your phone, and before you know it, the entire bag of chips is empty.
Mindless eating can have profound implications for holistic gut health, impacting various facets of digestion. The mind-gut connection is strong, and when we eat mindlessly, we miss important signals that affect digestion and nutrient absorption. This lack of awareness leads to overeating or, conversely, insufficient intake of essential nutrients.
Studies have shown that programs focused on reducing stress through mindfulness are effective interventions for various chronic health conditions, including gastrointestinal disorders. A case in point is individuals dealing with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), who show positive responses to mindfulness-based stress reduction.
Mindful eating habits include:
- chewing slowly and thoroughly
- engaging all your senses
- minimizing distractions
- taking breaks during meals
- and one of my favorites, the “set a timer for 20 minutes” method. This method, as the name states, entails setting a timer for 20 minutes to avoid rushing through your meals. Did you know it takes approximately 20 minutes for your brain to send a signal to the stomach to let you know that you’re full?!
Chewing Your Food: A Foundation for Gut Health Nutrition
In Gut Health 101, a fundamental aspect often missed in holistic gut health is the importance of chewing. Beyond its basic function of breaking down food, proper chewing serves as a cornerstone for optimizing nutrient absorption and maintaining a healthy weight.
Research suggests that the routine act of chewing has the potential to influence the gut microbiota and its surroundings. Current evidence also indicates that chewing might influence gut hormone responses associated with feelings of satiety and reduce hunger and food intake.
Here are some tips from a gut health nutritionist on improving your chewing habits:
- Practice mindful eating to allow enough time to chew thoroughly
- Eat with your non-dominant hand to eat slower
- But your fork down in between bites
- Challenging yourself to chew each bite around 20 times.
Liquid Meals vs. Whole Foods in Gut Healthy Diets
The prevalence of liquid meals, ranging from nutrient-packed smoothies to protein shakes, has become increasingly prominent.
Liquid meals offer undeniable convenience and a quick nutrient infusion, making them a popular choice for those with busy lifestyles. However, unlike solid foods which undergo the intricate process of digestion in the stomach and intestines, liquid meals can bypass some of these stages, affecting the dynamics of nutrient absorption and gut microbiota.
Calculating macros and having them as liquids overlooks the interaction between the gut microbiota and the foods it processes. As mentioned previously, chewing on and digesting whole foods may improve the hormone response that promotes a feeling of satiety or fullness, which is a huge advantage of eating whole foods at meals.
Additionally, whole foods often have more fiber than liquid-based foods, and fiber is crucial for gut health. Research indicates that eating fiber-rich whole foods can keep us feeling satisfied for a longer time compared to consuming the same amount of calories in liquid form. As a result, when we drink our calories, we tend to eat more throughout the day.
Stress and Eating: Navigating Mealtime for Improved Gut Health
In the hustle and bustle of our daily lives, stress has become an unwelcome companion, affecting both our mental and physical health, including gut health and immune system.
The gut, often referred to as our “second brain,” is highly attuned to the signals from our central nervous system, and stress disrupts this communication, leading to negative outcomes from altered gut motility to changes in the composition of the gut microbiota.
Eating under stress can negatively affect gut health and immune system. It can lead to constipation, increased stomach sensitivity, leaky gut, heartburn, bloating and decrease of the good bacteria.
Mindful Eating in the Context of Functional Nutrition
Functional nutrition is one of the main pillars in my Restore for Gut Health program. Functional nutrition and medicine focuses on getting to the “root” cause vs. symptom management. It incorporates Individualized care, understanding what best “serves” you at the moment, and looking at the individual as a whole, not just parts.
Functional nutrition uses food as medicine/healing (both physically and emotionally). This can be done by ordering specific labs that indicate inflammation in your body, or looking at micronutrients and how they impact each other as a whole. Therapeutic diets or supplement plans are used to help improve and rebalance your immune system and inflammatory symptoms. Functional medicine also can mean improving your mental and emotional health and incorporating new health and lifestyle behaviors.
Mindful eating is a way of eating that helps you pay attention to the food you’re consuming and how it makes your body feel. As mentioned previously, this can look like eating without distractions, slowing down and chewing your food thoroughly, tuning into your hunger and fullness cues, etc.
As you can see, both functional nutrition and mindful eating are both important strategies to use to improve one’s health. Improving your digestive, or “gut,” health is another primary focus of functional medicine and nutrition. By using mindful eating practices, you may help your body to digest food and absorb nutrients more effectively, which can have a significant impact on many different areas of your health as well.
If you’re interested to learn more, read my previous blog here!
Join the Restore Program for Sustainable Gut Health
The Restore program is a gut health program that goes beyond the conventional approaches to diet by considering the holistic spectrum of factors influencing our gut health. After completing the MRT test and the LEAP elimination diet protocol for two weeks, my private clients improved their symptoms by 50%.
Yes, that’s a 50% improvement in their gastrointestinal issues, headaches, joint pain, and anxiety in just two weeks. Long-term, most of my clients have experienced an improvement in their symptoms by more than 70% – which is LIFE CHANGING.
Besides feeling GREAT, my clients also learn how their body responds to food and how to eat and enjoy food again, leading to sustainable health and lifestyle change.
So don’t wait, and take the first step of starting 2024 off right and get the healing you need. Get on my waitlist today for my private program, and we can set up a time to develop a tailored plan for you.
