How It Started, How It's Going

Every day is a learning experience where you fine-tune yourself. Ramya Krishnan

After five years, with receipts in hand from this gut health game, I’ve learned a ton. I always hope to pass along useful information to you with some personal, anecdotal experiences that hopefully resonate with you. The overarching goal I have is to do my part to help you conserve the most precious commodity- time.

It would be inconsiderate for me to encourage you to improve your gut health and sit on what I learned over time, essentially throwing you to the wolves to start where I started five years ago.

That would be a colossal waste of your time so today I’m going to relay the essentials of what I did, share some mistakes I made, and what I might do differently as I learned along the way.

Let’s get started.

First of all, I got lucky. I’m not talking about luck concerning my medical situation, I’m talking about luck by getting good initial information and implementing initial changes effectively.

If I hadn’t had such an early, good source of information via The Good Gut book, who knows how long this process could have taken to sink in. (Thanks again Dr. Saba for the recommendation)

The knowledge and implementation were very simple.

Knowledge first. The gut microbiome touches virtually every physical and mental aspect of your health. An imbalance or dysbiotic state in your gut where the good bacteria are overrun by the bad actors starts the circular firing squad of degrading your gut lining, fostering a leaky gut, and dumping gas on the fire of inflammation.

Implementation next. Increase your intake of dietary fiber and fermented foods. Begin this habit and work on other areas of concern; stress management, sleep, and of course exercise. This list might seem long, but here’s how I did it.

I started with a single fermented food, (well documented in this space) of milk kefir. I didn’t make my own. I didn’t overanalyze it. I didn’t read a bazillion articles or reviews on milk kefir. My wife was already drinking it so it was the easiest way to start.

It was the first of many challenges to change my palette toward foods that I detested. I am a milk hater. Always have been, and probably always will be. But put it out on the counter and let it ferment at room temperature now? It’s pure gold to me.

The next order of business, get some fiber in my system. Enter luck again. Rather than do what almost every person under the sun would do- start housing large quantities of fiber, my condition of having recently, reattached sewage pipes necessitated a gradual ramp-up of fiber.

That’s where I started five years ago. How’s it going today?

I average between 4-6 servings of fermented foods daily and feed my gut bacteria with an average of 50g of fiber daily. These include milk kefir, water kefir, fermented pickles (Bubbies are my jam), a gut shot of the same Bubbies fermented pickle brine straight out of the jar, Fage’ 2% greek yogurt, a spoon or two of sauerkraut, a morning glass of water with diluted apple cider vinegar, and typically a piece of homemade sourdough bread (thanks Craig!)

So I lied, it’s more like 5-7 servings per day.

On the fiber front, my day starts every day with a few tablespoons of chia seeds. If you take no other steps to increase your fiber intake, stir in some chia seeds to any beverage and you’ve just housed about 10-11g of fiber. Start with half of that to begin. They are chocked full of nutrients and they are very neutral on the palette. Easy stuff.

But I also traffic heavy in fresh fruits and vegetables, mixed greens, nuts and seeds, legumes, and other resistant starch sources. The latter is probably the best example of getting started, and then getting good. I had no idea early on what resistant starch was. I got lucky by eating foods that had it.

Now I target it.

Resistant starch makes it to your colon undigested. Gut bacteria feed on this and begin the process of making short-chain fatty acids, butyrate especially, and gut lining cells thrive.

Then my work shifted to managing stress better and getting good sleep. A balanced gut will help these efforts tremendously and vice versa. Sleep is crucial to protecting your gains.

Last on the list but one of the first habits I started was regular walking. I didn’t join a gym. I didn’t go buy a Peleton or other piece of equipment. I walked.

Walking has been an absolute godsend for my physical recovery and probably more so for my mental recovery. I started at the very beginning to accelerate my recovery and to assist in re-firing my reattached bowels. I continued because it was the one activity where I could clear my head and feel good.

I wish I had something more impactful to pass along to you, some “lightning in a bottle” remedy that would knock your socks off, but this is an easy, accessible recipe for arresting the descent of poor health and making the ascent to good health.

Much of what I did early worked for me. I intentionally kept the list of changes small to ensure I gave myself the best chance for success. Increase fiber and fermented foods and walk. I can’t argue with the success I’ve gained from this approach.

But if I could go back and do it again, I might have added one more, intentional addition to my diet. Lean protein. I lost weight that I needed to lose but at times I lost focus on keeping protein levels up and lost some lean muscle mass along the way.

I have learned plenty along the way that has helped me arrive at this conclusion. One of my next focuses will be rebuilding some muscle mass now that I’m approaching a weight that works for me.

One other mistake I made at times was getting overzealous. Too much of a good thing is often not a good thing. Especially when it comes to fiber. Fiber needs to be gradual, intentional, tolerable, and in a quantity that agrees with your system.

I’ve settled into an average of 50g per day but that might require you to need a seatbelt in the bathroom. I can tolerate as much as 70g but past that, the line gets murky for me. Everyone is different and everyone needs to find their preferred sources. But going from an absence of fiber to including fiber, if done properly, can be a game changer.

As I mentioned in my mistakes, I would make lean protein a larger focus. Some recent studies explore the benefits of the combination of lean protein alongside fiber. It’s not difficult when you’re meal planning to make this a priority.

Another thing I would do differently after seeing years of results, I would meal plan and meal prep more regularly. There is 100% certainty in my trials and tribulations that when I am organized, I eat well. When I am not prepared, the chances for success plummet.

The most valuable tool I rely on daily is a lunchbox. My work schedule is such that a properly loaded lunchbox gets me to the dinner meal relatively scripted every day. This preparation keeps me out of drive-thrus and vending machines. Try this for a week or two and drop me an email with your results. I know what they’ll be!

I’ve mentioned a time or two that I’m also a Type-2 diabetic. I’ve also mentioned that I wish everyone would adopt the eating habits of a diabetic. Concentrating on areas like reducing sugar intake, reducing refined carbohydrate intake filled with the combination of sugar and fat, and getting proper sleep can be a benefit to everyone.

Along with all the gut microbiome improvements I’ve made, the management of my diabetes has been nothing short of impressive. I’m not sure why this surprised me, since diabetes probably had a large hand in starting me down this road to disease, but it did.

I’ve had the benefit of seeing 90-day bloodwork intervals for 5 years now and they steadily improved to near remission levels on the HbA1C blood sugar marker. To date, I have only relied on this 90-day test to monitor progress.

Until a couple of weeks ago.

My curiosity got the best of me and I requested a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) to wear. This device measures blood sugar in a much more immediate fashion without pricking your finger constantly.

I’ve resisted this until now largely because I know my personality. With clear goals in mind for gut health success and good 90-day readings, would a daily, immediate distraction have me chasing numbers instead of fueling my body?

Here’s what I have learned in a couple of weeks.

Fruit does not have a lasting, negative impact on my sugar levels which is pretty much what my 90-day tests have confirmed. For being a diabetic, I eat a lot of fruit. If I’m going to get a wide variety of fiber, I need to have fruit in my arsenal. Depending on who you listen to, eating fruit as a diabetic should be forbidden. My CGM says hogwash.

The next interesting thing is how drastic the difference is between homemade ingredients and store-bought ones. We all know additives are thrown in for shelf-life and hyper-palatabilty and most of those ingredients are not blood sugar-friendly.

My homemade sourdough bread has a drastic difference in sugar spikes than store-bought. Sure fermentation is a big part of that, but I think the additives have an outsized effect on sugar. I eat bread sparingly but now when I do, I’ll try to have a homemade offering available.

The biggest surprise I’ve seen from a CGM is the effect a walk after a meal has on blood sugar management. I’ve always heard of the recommendation to take a short walk after eating instead of crashing on a couch, and I often do, but holy cow does this work! Non-diabetics might not see a huge change in sugar readings because they don’t have sugar management issues, but the body appreciates a little activity after a meal for digestion.

I don’t have all the answers and I’m still learning every day. But having the good fortune of seeing the results in black and white over a decent evaluation period can only help if I share the information with you.

Become a regular subscriber and follow along and I’ll lend whatever support I can with what has worked for me. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.

I reference blood sugar management quite a bit and how gut health has a huge impact on that but another area many people may not realize is the impact a gut-friendly diet can have on cholesterol management. We’ll leave the science to the scientists but break this down into digestible pieces.

Thanks for reading!

Jeff