Gut Health Blog

April 17, 2024

Is AG1 Supplement Good for You?

Hi Everyone,

I am often asked, “Is AG1 supplement good for you?” And I have to say no! When I first saw it (I like to keep up to date with new products so I ordered a packet for myself) I was horrified by the ingredients. I was so horrified that I returned the product. Let me explain so you can learn how to spot problematic ingredients too.

What is AG1?

AG1 is a multivitamin and herbal powder formula that you mix with water to make a healthy drink. It is heavily endorsed by doctors and celebrities and marketed with phrases such as ‘Promotes Gut Health,’ ‘Supports Immunity,’ and ‘Helps Recovery.’

But the extensive list of ingredients doesn’t stack up to be as healthy as it makes out.

Are Supplements Safe?

Is AG1 Good or Bad for You?

The Risks of Taking AG1

Why the AG1 Ingredient Soy Lecithin Has Health Risks

How is Soy Lecithin Produced?

Is Inulin, Another AG1 Ingredient, Safe?

Are Supplements Safe?

Firstly, everyone needs to know that supplements are not FDA-approved (Food and Drug Administration). Supplement manufacturers are responsible for their products’ safety but do not need to prove their safety.

Nor do they need to prove the effectiveness of the supplements.

A supplement manufacturer may do business with another manufacturer who may verify the safety of their ingredients before they use them. But the other manufacturer does not have to prove the safety of their ingredients, either.

The Food and Drug Administration provides no safety certification for supplement formulas – or their ingredients, including

additives. Additives have never been rigorously tested.

For reassurance, I always advise using a trusted brand, like Minami or Solgar who extensively research their ingredients and products. You can see more brands I love and trust on my Yalda Loves page. However, no matter how good a supplement is, it cannot replace a healthy diet and lifestyle.

Also, please ask yourself what you want from your supplement. For instance, you can easily reach your weight loss goals, manage depression, ease pain, optimize energy levels, and discover glowing skin by following the EBS anti-inflammatory lifestyle! The effects are incredible, and they keep on coming!

What Do Supplements Contain?

Many popular supplements contain unnecessary excipients, fillers, stabilizers, bulking agents, and preservatives. A supplement company can get away with using cheap additives because they don’t have to comply with any food and drug laws. This lack of regulation and use of cheap filler ingredients is partly why supplement manufacturing is a billion-dollar industry!

It is essential to know what to look for in a good quality supplement and to spot cheap, unnecessary ingredients. I urge you not to be swayed by endorsements from doctors or celebrities or to buy things online without understanding the ingredients.

Is AG1 Good For You?

AG1 has been around for a while, is recommended by doctors, and has famous people as investors. So, there’s a lot to ‘trust’ about the brand. Endorsed by Dr. Chatterjee, Dr. Mark Hyman, Huberman Lab, and Dr. David Sinclair, it is not a surprise that their revenue numbers are apparently through the roof. Doctors are telling you that it is good for you.

AG1 was founded in 2010 and was originally called Athletic Greens. It is a blend of 75 vitamins, minerals, superfoods, probiotics, and adaptogens, with no GMOs, herbicides, pesticides, artificial colors, flavors, or preservatives. According to their website, AG1 is made from the highest quality ingredients under the strictest standards – but bear in mind that there are no strict standards in place by the FDA.

The Risks of Taking AG1

Supplements are huge money-makers, and the manufacturers don’t need to prove their safety.

Even when taking supplements from ‘reputable’ brands, it’s always wise to ensure that you go over the ingredients with your nutritionist or healthcare provider. This minimizes the risk of :

Contraindications with medications or other supplements.
Accidentally taking too much of a vitamin or mineral.
Sensitivities to ingredients that are not classed as dangerous to health.

AG1 is full of active ingredients beneficial to health such as B vitamins, zinc, and vitamin C. However, this high amount of active ingredients may be difficult for some people to digest and assimilate. And many of the herbals have well-recognized potential risks. For example, too much licorice can lead to hypokalemia and hypertension and some people are more sensitive to licorice exposure (Kwon et al., 2020). There is no caution about this on their website, by the way.

The most significant problem I noticed within seconds of looking at the ingredients is soy lecithin.

Soy lecithin harms the gut microbiome (Miclotte et al, 2020) and may trigger gut dysbiosis. It is NOT good for gut health, the immune system, or aiding recovery. It does the complete opposite.

Why the AG1 Ingredient Soy Lecithin Has Health Risks

Soy lecithin is added to products as an emulsifier, not for health benefits. You could argue that AG1 is using it for this reason and the good ingredients will outweigh any harmful effects. But, soy lecithin is the second largest ingredient in the supplement!

Research is ongoing into the impact of emulsifiers like soy lecithin on health, but so far we know that:

Higher levels of soy lecithin encourage Enterococcus and Clostridium bacteria in the microbiota. These are pathogenic and lead to disease.
Soy lecithin is associated with a decline in the diversity of the gut microbiome (Miclotte et al, 2020).
By disrupting the microbiome, emulsifiers contribute to a pro-inflammatory state and the development of Metabolic Syndrome (Miclotte et al, 2020).

Disruption of the gut microbiome leads to a dysregulated immune system, which leads to chronic inflammation. This manifests in different ways for each individual and can show up as alopecia, candida & H-pylori, depression, IBS, bloating, migraines, obesity, Metabolic Syndrome, skin inflammation – the list goes on!

So, if you have an inflammatory condition and you regularly take a supplement containing a large amount of soy lecithin, you could be making your condition worse.

A footnote at the end of the label states: This product contains a premium lecithin for phosphatidyl serine and phosphatidylcholine. The metabolism of phosphatidylcholine from soy lecithin in the gut microbiota has been linked to cardiovascular disease, as discussed in studies (Wang et al., 2011, Tang & Hazen, 2014).

How is Soy Lecithin Produced?

To make soy lecithin you must first extract soybean oil from raw soybeans using an industrial solvent. The oil then goes through a process called degumming. This involves mixing water with the oil until the lecithin separates from it. After that, the lecithin is then dried and often bleached. The DNA in soy lecithin is degraded during this process, so it is impossible to tell whether it is GMO or not. Also, I am not sure what AG1 means by premium soy lecithin.

Is Inulin, Another AG1 Ingredient, Safe?

The other AG1 ingredient linked to health issues is inulin, the fourth ingredient listed.

Inulin is a prebiotic fiber that can alter your microbiota. In some instances this can be helpful but if your microbiome is already out of balance there is the risk of feeding the harmful microbes.

Animal studies show that inulin disturbs systemic cholesterol and bile acid metabolism and may have detrimental effects on liver function. (Pauly et al., 2020). And be careful if you have digestive problems as inulin can cause bloating, excess wind, cramps, and diarrhea (WebMD).

Again, many articles state the health properties of inulin. It is important to run through ingredients with your nutritionist (or contact us if you are a member) to make sure they are right for you and your specific health needs.

Reading one of AG1’s clever marketing statements “AG1 empowers the gut for whole body health” I’m afraid I have to disagree. Soy lecithin disempowers your gut, increasing the risk of disease. But I do agree with their statement: We can’t achieve a healthier everything else without a healthy gut.

Beware of Marketing Words!

They could cost you your health.

The key takeaways here are:

The FDA does not regulate supplement companies and their products.
Marketing slogans exist purely to make you buy the product.
Always read the ingredients list on any supplement carefully and speak to your healthcare practitioner (or us, if you are an EBS Member) before taking them.
Taking supplements – even those endorsed by doctors and famous people – may leave your body susceptible to disease if they contain potentially harmful ingredients.

If you haven’t heard my podcasts or the recent Instagram Live with Dr. Dawn Sherling about the dangers of food additives, check them out.

AG1 or Eat Burn Sleep – Which is the Best Investment For Your Health?

Consider how much it will cost you to make you unhealthy in the long run:

AG1’s ‘BEST VALUE’ package is for two people at £2,328.00 ($2,796.70) a year.
For a single subscription (at the time of writing, there was an offer of £79 per month), which is £948.00 (approx.$1,140) a year for a ‘health’ supplement!
Our Premium EBS Membership, which gives you access to everything you need to support your health, is only £250 a year, without health risks and long-term positive effects.

Knowing what is good for you and how your body works is the best way to take care of yourself. And the EBS platform enables you to do exactly that.

A year’s subscription to Eat Burn Sleep gives you the knowledge and tools you need. It is the equivalent of having a personal nutritionist and a year’s gym sessions with unique exercises not found anywhere else. You can access Movement videos, guided Meditations, meal plans, food lists, and an ever-expanding anti-inflammatory cookbook with recipes from around the world, like Catalan Roasted Vegetables, Chicken Marbella, and Moroccan Burgers.

EBS is family-friendly and world-friendly. Our members are getting happier and healthier, changing their tastebuds and optimizing their microbiome. They are living a better life as the days and years go by.

This is what Dr Sara Fernandez, MD, has to say…

“I am really impressed with the quality of your work and couldn’t agree more with your principles. Your ability to formulate a lifestyle strategy around improving health is outstanding.

EBS is an excellent professional platform sustained with thorough research and scientific information. You not only cover research for anti-inflammatory nutrition but for all medical conditions. This demonstrates how what we eat contributes to their regression or progression as chronic illness.”

Do take care. Your health is precious. Have a great day!

Yalda Alaoui is an expert Naturopathic Nutritionist (with a foundation in Biomedicine) who studied with the College of Naturopathic Medicine in London.
She has spent over a decade performing groundbreaking research into chronic inflammation and gut health.

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Yalda Alaoui

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October 22, 2023

10 Ways to Boost Your Immunity Quickly

Fastest Ways to Boost Your Immunity Against Viruses

Hello Everyone! If you are in a part of the world experiencing seasonal changes, there is likely to be an increase in viral infections, and you could be looking for ways to boost your immunity quickly against viruses.

Exposure is inevitable, and it is essential unless you are advised to shield for medical reasons or are classed as vulnerable.

We need exposure but must also be highly cautious of viruses when underlying chronic inflammation exists. This has become even more evident in the last few years. If you have underlying chronic inflammation, your immune system is dysregulated, but you can change that and fight inflammation.

Boosting your immunity quickly by following the below will help most people do so while still enjoying life!

(Looking after your immune system throughout the year is good advice, not just when the seasons shift).

Here are 10 ways to boost your immunity quickly against viruses and ensure better health:

1. Eat Gut-healthy, Nutrient-rich Foods Regularly

Our immune systems need nourishment from a plethora of nutrients from foods.

Poor gut health is linked to weakened immunity and non-communicable diseases. Gut health is imperative to good health, and the diversity of your gut bacteria will dictate how nutrients are absorbed.

Getting it right will better prepare the body for excess inflammation and microbial attacks! Beneficial nutrients to boost your immunity quickly and ensure immune system regulation must be digested regularly, forming an excellent dietary pattern.

Try these two delicious recipes:

Immune-boosting Chicken Soup

Immune-boosting Energy Balls.

2. Ensure You Get Enough Vitamin D

90% of vitamin D is absorbed from the sun, essential for the immune system. There are safe ways to do this, and of course, there are challenges here, especially with seasonal changes.

If you have poor vitamin D absorption, like with ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s, and celiac, please follow the personalized advice for inflammatory bowel disease. It is an imperative protocol for good health and to put the conditions into remission, regardless.

If you are a vegan, live where sunlight is limited, or have any other reason that prevents you from getting the right amount of vitamin D, it’s worth reading through this health education platform, arming yourself with advice from a nutritionist and of course, eating nutrient-rich, gut-healthy foods. The bioavailability of foods is essential to boost your immunity quickly. However, some people need to take supplements.

Absorb sunshine as much as possible in cooler months, sit by an open sunny window, or obtain a S.A.D. lamp.

3. Keep Your Inflammation Down – through eating, moving, and sleeping (Eat Burn Sleep!) is the most sound advice for everyone!

4. Change Lifestyle Habits

Change any lifestyle habits that inhibit good health. An unhealthy lifestyle, which includes eating and drinking unhealthy foods and drinks most of the time, being overweight and underweight, following restrictive diets, lacking proper exercise, being sedentary, lack of fresh air, pollution, toxins, excess alcohol, smoking, drug abuse, poor sleep patterns, and stress weakens immunity defense.

5. Reduce Your Weight

Obesity is a chronic inflammatory condition, and you can reduce your weight by reducing the inflammation in your body. It is the safest, most effective way of reducing weight and boosting your immunity. Fat tissues produce adipocytokines, and these increase inflammation. Impaired T-cells stop the response of the immune system to pathogens. Also, it is worth knowing that with obesity, vitamin D is not readily available when needed because it accumulates in excess fat. This is reversible when you reduce chronic inflammation.

6. Put Your Autoimmune Disease Into Remission

Is that possible? Yes. I have two autoimmune diseases, so I created Eat Burn Sleep. Please read the other articles and magazine and newspaper features in the articles section.

7. Perform Regular De-stressing Techniques

Stress is so bad for your health, and it can affect gut health, affecting mental and physical health. Excess cortisol that is triggered, along with other hormones when you are stressed, leads to reduced immunity and increased inflammation.

The immune system, central nervous system, and endocrine system interact with each other.
When stressed, your sympathetic nervous system kicks in, shutting down the immune and parasympathetic nervous systems.

Have you heard my podcasts with Nick Potter about The Behavioral Immune and with Dr. Tamsin Lewis about Long Covid, Immunity, & Energy Levels?

When life feels like it is crashing around you, pay attention to your gut (70% of immune cells and 60% of feel-good neurotransmitters reside in a healthy gut) and de-stressing techniques.

It is vital to keep chronic inflammation at bay because chronic inflammation promotes anxiety, depression, and other diseases, as well as a weakened immune system.

8. Get Good Sleep

Sleep is the foundation for good health! You only have to think about how you crave sleep when you feel ill and have a virus. Nothing can keep you awake. Your body tells you to lie down and heal!

A person who regularly sleeps for a good amount of time will likely have more antibodies than someone with fitful, irregular sleep. This is an excellent way to boost your immunity quickly.

Long-standing shift workers and insomniacs have turned their lives around on the Eat Burn Sleep reprogramming. Reprogramming your sleeping is possible. Check out the Insomnia personalized advice.

9. Stay Social

It’s fundamental to our overall health and survival. Our emotional joy!

Studies show that people who socialize tend to live longer than those who are more isolated. Plus, dopamine is released when we mix and exercise.

10. Go For a Walk

Walk with your family, your friends – or just yourself – and feel the pleasure and reward of the dopamine hit from doing so. You will release stress along the way, boost your immunity quickly and be outside!

Remember that a robust immune system can respond appropriately to the world around it and can defend the body against invaders, pathogens, and viruses!

I wish for you – the best immune health there is!

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Yalda Alaoui

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Is AG1 Supplement Good for You?

Vegetarian to Meat Eater

What Is Gut Health?

October 15, 2023

Vegetarian to Meat Eater

Vegans and Vegetarians Who Want to Eat Meat Again

Hi Everyone! This post is for you if you are a vegan or vegetarian and want to eat meat – again, for the first time in years or ever!

Firstly, you should also know that we have personalized advice for re-introducing meat/animal products back into your life safely and healthily. Plus, this month’s personalized advice for members is the essential guide to optimum health for vegetarians!

Vegan and Vegetarian Health

Malnutrition Statistics

Vegan and Vegetarian Deficiencies

Symptoms of Deficiencies in Vegans and Vegetarians:

Vegan & Vegetarian Diet Supplements

Nutrition Advice for Vegans and Vegetarians

Vegan and Vegetarian Health

Firstly, it’s okay to eat meat again if you are looking at eating meat after being vegetarian. If you are reading this, then there is good reason. Maybe your mind and body are screaming at you to have animal protein.

With the added pressures of eating plant-based diets and the reasons why people become vegans and vegetarians, it can be a hard decision to switch back to eating meat.

I think many people can feel guilty when they decide to follow a particular way of eating and then find that they can’t eat that way and it isn’t sustainable. Micronutrient malnutrition can also cause low moods and less-than-optimum mental well-being.

It happens all the time with so many popular diets. Like Keto, Atkins, Raw Food, and Low-calorie diets, for instance. There may be ethical or cultural reasons behind your choice, but many diets are unsustainable or nutritionally sound.

Many diets can make you unwell and not satisfied nutritionally. Sometimes without realisation.

You may not be concerned about the impact of a vegan or vegetarian diet on your health. You may have switched to veganism for weight loss or from another diet because the doctor says your cholesterol is high or something, and you feel better at the moment.

Although there are statements all over the internet that say veganism and plant-based diets can reduce your risk of developing disease, this is not necessarily the case if you are not eating everything you need daily for optimum health. Numerous studies state that following a vegan diet can lead to skeletal, nervous, and immune system impairments, as well as anemia and depression.

Any diet that is not balanced and contains a lot of meat, or too much or too little of anything, puts you at risk of chronic disease. Everyone needs to know how to eat for optimum health!

Many restrictive diets (and those you would not define as restrictive) can cause deficiencies, leading to chronic inflammation.

Chronic inflammation, sustained inflammation running all the time (not just as a protective reaction to trauma or injury), is linked to the leading causes of death. 78% of deaths related to diseases have chronic inflammation pathways.

Chronic inflammation leads to neuroinflammation, which increases anxiety, depression, brain fog, mood swings and irritability, a decline in cognitive functions, and so on.

Malnutrition Statistics

Many of the world’s population has malnutrition, and an unhealthy diet, which means nutritional needs are not met, is a significant contributor to malnutrition.

Malnutrition is defined as deficiencies, imbalances, and excesses of nutrients. Malnutrition increases chronic inflammation and ill health (see below).

There’s:

– Undernutrition
– Diet-related imbalances lead to chronic inflammation and autoimmune diseases like obesity, diabetes, cancers, heart disease, IBD, arthritis, mental health issues, fibromyalgia, etc.
– Inadequate micronutrient intake.

According to the World Health Organisation, 149 million children under five are affected by malnutrition through their height. Forty-five million were estimated to be too thin, and 38.9 million were obese.

1.9 billion adults are overweight or obese, and 462 million adults are underweight.

Low-to-middle-income countries have a high rate of obesity and malnutrition.

According to the Malnutrition Task Force, 1.3 million people over 65 have malnutrition in the UK.

Not eating a good balance of the proper nutrients and micronutrients affects everyone throughout our lives!

Vegan and Vegetarian Deficiencies

Many deficiencies come from missing out on the essential daily required nutrition. Not just for vegans and vegetarians. Most people have dietary inadequacies and need the assistance of a nutritionist.

The types of iron consumed are essential. Without this, oxygen cannot be circulated, and body homeostasis is not maintained. Plus, there are Gut microbiota that improve the absorption of iron. These Gut microbiota are promoted with essential daily vitamins not found in a vegan diet, for instance.

Essential nutrition for life and keeping disease at bay is generally lower in vegans or plant-based diet eaters. The overlooked side of veganism could be dangerous for many, as explained in a study by Bali & Naik (2023).

Hundreds of studies have been reported on nutritional intake for vegans and vegetarians that show inadequate intake. These essential micronutrient requirements for optimum health are only obtained from animal products.

If you are considering eating meat after being vegetarian, it would be best to consider B12, zinc, iodine, calcium, PUFAs, etc., with veganism and vegetarianism. (Head over to personalized advice for nutrition help for vegans and vegetarians. We cover all sorts of science-backed supportive advice for vegans and vegetarians, like:

– eating meat after being vegetarian and vegan
– how to eat and what to eat (with 300+ recipes)
– vegan guilt
– worries about eating meat and getting sick after veganism
– being vegetarian and eating meat again has side effects
– how to shop for anti-inflammatory groceries on a budget
– your Gut microbiome…and the list goes on!

Follow this anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle for all nutrition concerns when you have been eating a restricted way for a while or have malabsorption issues like with any inflammatory bowel disease.

There are essential vitamins necessary for crucial metabolic roles across your whole life span, during development (before you are born), throughout your childhood and adulthood, and later years.

This applies to people with too much of one thing and not enough of another, not just if you are considering eating meat after being vegetarian. (Many meat eaters think they are okay, too, but they may not have enough essential daily vitamins. They, too, are at risk. It’s why nutritionists and dieticians exist!).

Protecting your mind and body, ensuring proper nutrient absorption, and meeting daily nutrition values are essential for optimum health. We do it here through gut health, reducing inflammation, regulating the immune system, liver detox, and so on.

Check out the article: Help With Anemia, B12, and Iron Deficiencies.

Symptoms of Deficiencies in Vegans and Vegetarians:

Iron-deficient anemia
Pernicious anemia
Fatigue
Weakness
Depression
Anxiety
Mood swings
Confusion
Lack of coordination
Headaches
Shortness of breath
Palpitations
Lack of energy
Vision issues
Pins and needles
Myelin shaft damage
Walking issues
Cold hands and feet
Nausea
Cravings
Appetite loss
Heart murmurs
Weight gain

Vegan & Vegetarian Diet Supplements

The recommended daily intake of supplements for vegans is for people who already eat a balanced and nutritious diet. Plus, as I always say, supplements do not match the bioavailability of good food, and your vegan diet supplements could be full of inflammatory ingredients. Eating meat after being vegetarian needs good consideration.

Try these vegan recipes: Slow Cooker Indian Vegetable Curry and Carrot & Quinoa Salad.

Read these articles for more information about inflammatory ingredients in the form of supplements and medication:

Is AG1 Supplement Good for You?, Side Effects of Antibiotics & IBD, NSAIDs, and Gut Health & Inflammation.

Nutrition Advice for Vegans and Vegetarians

If you are a vegan or vegetarian with concerns about nutrition and want to eat meat again, join us! We can help you facilitate the transition and help you achieve optimum mental and physical wellness.

There are many vegetarian and vegan recipes on this anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle, along with others, so you will eat well and be well.

If you are thinking about eating meat after being vegetarian, it won’t just be your vegan or vegetarian diet that you change. You will protect yourself from chronic disease, age-degenerative neurological diseases, and anything genetic.

Plus, you won’t be disappointed about the incredible side effects.

You can book a 15-minute Zoom with me if you have any questions, connect with us in the forum, or start immediately by going to the personalized advice section.

I wish you and your family good health and wellness.

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Yalda Alaoui

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Is AG1 Supplement Good for You?

10 Ways to Boost Your Immunity Quickly

What Is Gut Health?

October 01, 2023

What Is Gut Health?

How Does Gut Health Affect Us

Hi Everyone! I talk about gut health all the time, as you know, and how it can change and lead to chronic inflammation and immune dysregulation.

There is still a lot of wonder about gut health, though. Why do we need good gut health? What exactly is gut health? Is gut health just another trend until the next health trend? Does gut health matter?

Gut health really matters! It is vital to good health. It isn’t a passing health trend.

It’s important that we all know how to make and keep our guts healthy. It is linked to chronic disease and to the leading cause of death.

It isn’t just food that we need to look at, although that’s a good place to start.

I hope that you will be as fascinated about these tummy bugs as I am. It’s amazing that they are imperative to good health. Read on and share!

What Is Gut Bacteria?

How Do You Get Good Gut Health?

Why Is Gut Health Trending?

How Do You Know If Your Gut Health Is Balanced?

What Is the Fastest Way to Improve Gut Health?

How Can You Improve Gut Bacteria?

How Do You Fix Gut Health ASAP?

Why Does Gut Bacteria Change?

How Can I Drastically Change My Health?

What Does Gut Bacteria Do?

The Causes of Bad Gut Health

What Are the Signs of an Unhealthy Gut?

What Meals Are Good for the Gut?

Why Do I Need Good Gut Health?

What Is Gut Bacteria?

Your gut health is the entire digestive system, running from your esophagus to your bowel, and it is full of microbes!

Your gastrointestinal tract harbors a complex colony of trillions of different microbes and thousands of species of gut bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites.

Suppose you can imagine this vast, industrial network of cell signaling and pathways with proteins, metabolites, peptides, etc., in the layers of the GI tract. In that case, you get a rough idea of the gut microbiome.

Most microbiota are symbiotic (which means that microbiota and the body benefit), and some are pathogenic (disease-promoting).

These microorganisms, which consist of viruses, fungi, protozoa, and microbiota, weighing in at around 4-5 lbs, all co-exist quite happily in a healthy person.

Our diverse gut microbiomes are paramount to good health.

How Do You Get Good Gut Health?

Your gut health started before you were born. That was when the first colonization occurred.

We got some from our mothers, who got their first exposure from their mother, who got hers from her mother, and so on.

Since the second we were born, we inherited and acquired trillions of bugs all over and inside us called microorganisms.

Our gut microbiome is unique to us, and it is there to protect us.

Some of our microorganisms are ancient because they have been passed down from mother to mother!

What they were exposed to was passed down, and so on.

This links to an intriguing report about the existence of ancient microbes in our microbiome by Dr. Rook, University College, London.

These trillions of microorganisms and their genes support critical functions, which has allowed us to evolve. In return, they get what they need to survive from us!

These ancient microbes prevented the body from attacking its tissues and resembled that of the natural environment.

Gut health is trending because it has been realized that good gut health is imperative to good health. Gut health is real and not a fad.

Please be warned about unqualified people on social media giving out gut health advice, gut health hacks, gut health weight loss tips, and so on. You could damage your gut health and open up your body to the risk of disease. I always advise that you take gut health nutrition and gut health diet advice from a qualified gut health expert/nutritionist/doctor who has studied gut health.

So, gut health is not a passing health trend. I have spent years studying gut health and chronic inflammation, and it is crucial to good health.

How Do You Know If Your Gut Health Is Balanced?

A balanced microbiota stimulates the immune system and synthesizes amino acids and vitamins. It also assists in breaking down toxic compounds, providing protection from organisms that enter the body through contaminated food and drink.

You would know about it if your gut health is unbalanced. Once you know how to look after your gut health, when it becomes unbalanced, you will feel it.

What Is the Fastest Way to Improve Gut Health?

In the past, we lived under timber and close to dung and thatch. We had pantries, not refrigeration. Bacteria were more abundant, and we were exposed to them more than they are today.

Nowadays, our homes are made with manufactured products, people clean too much, and there are chemicals everywhere!

We miss that connection to the past and do not have the microbiota to deal with these extremely clean environments.

Unless we live on a farm in a natural environment or with pets! (If you think of the powers of earthing and maximizing our exposure to nature and our connection to early antioxidants).

Having good hygiene is important to avoid infections, but too much is not good for your health.

The Lifestyle Guide has more gut health information. It will help you look after your gut health, keep sickness and disease at bay, and have you feeling fantastic – every day! Start with the potent, popular 6-week Reset.

How Can You Improve Gut Bacteria?

You can improve your gut bacteria by following an anti-inflammatory lifestyle that has a focus on gut health.

Exposure is key to protection!

If we are never exposed to something, we won’t have the bugs to deal with it when we do. This is why if you have never come across a certain germ and then you are suddenly exposed to it, your body reacts.

It’s all about diversity, remember. Your good bacteria will thrive if you do something that encourages it.

So, the first exposure is entirely down to our mother’s/DNA species of microbiota but also depends on how we are delivered into the world. Vaginally delivered (and position), we have microbiota resembling our mother’s vagina microbiota. C-sections would harbor microbes from a mother’s skin.

The microbiota we were born with is not very diverse but soon alters as we adapt to our surroundings so that we can digest the food we are given and deal with germs and what is around us. This cultivates a diverse, anti-inflammatory microbiome.

A baby in America is exposed to different bugs than a baby in Europe, for instance.

As we go through life, as we have changing environments, lifestyle habits, and so on, gut health corresponds with how you live.

So, if we feed the good bacteria with good nutrients, they thrive. If we feed it with damaging foods, then the damaging bacteria grows. They, in fact, like anything living, will want to survive and send signals to your brain for more damaging foods! They are that powerful!

How Do You Fix Gut Health ASAP?

We have bacteria all over us as the first line of defense – on our skin, in our airways, and in our guts. If we don’t give the bad bacteria any reason to grow, we stay healthy.

Gut bacteria become harmful when a healthy diversity is not encouraged. This affects the immune system, and ruins the line of defense, and that is when we are susceptible to disease. See the list of reasons below why gut bacteria change.

You can fix gut health ASAP by joining our gut health community!

Why Does Gut Bacteria Change?

Gut bacteria change with everything we do and are exposed to.

Exposure in infancy protects a child from developing weakened immune systems later in life that are sensitive to pollen, benign germs, and dust.

Likewise, exposure to chemicals in infancy can affect these gut microbiota. Did you read: Why Aspartame is Linked to Cancer? Exposure to aspartame is linked before you are born if your mother drank aspartame-laden drinks without knowing about the dangers. It has only been exposed as a carcinogen recently, despite scientists crying out for it to be banned for decades!

There are more risks of being susceptible to chronic inflammatory conditions and autoimmune diseases later in life without the correct quantity and quality of germs in childhood.

It’s really important to be exposed and not shielded unless it is chemicals!

Have you read Low-calorie Foods for Weight Loss and listened to my chat with Dr. Dawn Sherling on Food Additives & Your Microbiome and about The Behavioral Immune System with Nick Potter?

I talk all the time about how medication can cause gut dysbiosis and keep you in a perpetual state of sickness, so to speak. I found this out when I was researching what was wrong with me and how I could fix myself with two autoimmune diseases. Read NSAIDs, Gut Health & Inflammation.

So, everything we are exposed to as we grow, along with our diets, habits, and environment, shapes our microbiota communities. This bug community can change the body into a healthy state or one at greater risk of disease.

Mental and physical health change bacteria. Stress and depression can change your gut bacteria. The wrong exercise can change it, too.

Being with people has an effect on gut bacteria.

Sleep affects gut bacteria! If you don’t get good quality regular sleep, your gut health will be affected. Have you read Weight Loss and The Link To Sleep?

And vice versa! It all works symbiotically together.

How Can I Drastically Change My Health?

You can drastically change your health by joining this anti-inflammatory lifestyle.

Your gut health will improve dramatically, and the benefits are astounding.

You see, some bacteria in your gut may grow depending on what you are exposed to and what you eat. Others may disappear or shrink, which influences the immune system in the gut and in our adaptive immune system.

There’s a whole array of activities involving antigens, innate cell types, neutrophils, T cells, and B cells, for instance, that go on in the gut that displays how the microbiota has a profound effect on both the innate and adaptive immune system. A study by Wu & Wu (2012) explains it in detail.

Microbiota can change or become fixed due to being too hygienic, even.

Having a low microbial load due to being too clean in modern life can have a powerful effect on our immune response because it will either not be tolerant or will create inflammation.

What Does Gut Bacteria Do?

Our composition of microbiota has a crucial influence on our health. As I mentioned, it aids nutrient metabolism, breaks down toxic compounds, and protects against contaminated food and drink. It also ensures that the gut barrier is strong.

Indeed, our microbiota is an intrinsic regulator of immune responses.

Gut microbiota plays a vital role in the development of immune homeostasis, including the development of gut-associated lymphoid tissues.

70-80% of immune cells (Gut-associated Lymphoid Tissue) reside in the gut. GALT is an essential component in protecting the body from pathogens. In fact, studies show that it is microbiota from before we are born that is involved in generating innate immunity during growth and development.

Gut microbiota and gut-associated lymphoid tissue are essential players in the pathogenesis of various diseases.

The Causes of Bad Gut Health

An unbalanced microbiota results in gut dysbiosis, leading to chronic disease through (but not limited to):

*An unhealthy diet, including calorie-restrictive and extreme diets (not all popular diets are good for you!)
*A compromised immune system (you can be born with or acquire a weakened immune system)
*Overstimulated bowel functions (malnutrition through inflammatory bowel conditions like Crohn’s, colitis, and diverticulitis)
*Older age (influenced by personal factors)
*Lifestyle
*Obesity
*Medication (often to ‘treat’ disease causes more disease)
*Antibiotics (wipe out a gut microbiota richness and diversity within four days)
*Recurring bouts of acute inflammation (pneumonia, viruses: colds, flu, Covid)
*Auto-inflammatory diseases
*Stress
*Illness (a vicious cycle)
*Environment (toxins, cleaning products, plastics, solvents, pesticides, cigarette smoke, mercury, and so on)
*Sleep deprivation
*Certain exercises
*Isolation (not socializing significantly alters gut microbiota).

What Are the Signs of an Unhealthy Gut?

Dysbiosis (when an altered interaction between immune cells and microbiota occurs) makes the body susceptible to disease. It increases intestinal permeability (leaky gut syndrome) and opens up the chronic inflammation pathway!

When you realize how gut microbiota can get unbalanced, and contributing factors like highly processed and calorie-controlled diets, along with other factors mentioned above, you can see the link with the rise in chronic inflammatory diseases like obesity, diabetes, depression, cancer, and autoimmune diseases.

There are currently, 10 percent of the population with autoimmune diseases, and 78% of deaths worldwide are linked to chronic inflammation.

It seems that everyone has conditions that are related to the gut microbiome!

A woman in exercise gear with a measure tape around her waist, indicating weight loss. — Member’s results of living the EBS Gut-healthy Anti-inflammatory Lifestyle.

What Meals Are Good for the Gut?

You can find 300+ gut-health recipes when you sign up for this gut-health diet and lifestyle. They are globally inspired, so you get to travel around the world while you are making yourself super healthy, too! Try these taster dishes: Moroccan Burgers, Sicilian Eggplants, Asian Chicken Soup With Konjac Noodles, Mediterranean Roast Chicken & Vegetables, and Coconut & Cacao Loaf.

Why Do I Need Good Gut Health?

Having good gut health not only protects you from disease but can help you age well and keep you looking and feeling young, as long as you incorporate other lifestyle factors. Good gut health assists in looking after your skin, hair, eyes, mood, and cognition, and it helps relationships! It’s true.

If you have good gut health, you are most likely to be a better friend, and seeing people that you love spending time with is good for gut health, too. As I mentioned above, staying social is important for your gut health and immune health!

The wonderful thing is, is that with the right manipulation, you can make your gut microbiome into a healthy, diverse community.

You just need the right tools!

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September 10, 2023

How Do You Reduce Your Cholesterol?

Reducing Cholesterol and Looking After Your Heart Naturally

Hello Everyone! I hope that you are well. For this post, I am addressing cholesterol, gut health, and how to lower your risk of cardiovascular disease.

If you have been told that you need to reduce your cholesterol and you need to reduce it for your cardiovascular health, this post is for you and your loved ones.

Of course, run it by your doctor. A combination of treatments can often be more potent if multiple factors are going on. We usually hear from members at Eat Burn Sleep that medical professionals want to know what lifestyle they are following because of their remission success.

What Is Cholesterol?

Why Is High Cholesterol Not Healthy?

What Are the Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease?

Lifestyle Intervention for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention

How Can You Lower Cholesterol?

What Is a Low-cholesterol Diet?

What Is Cholesterol?

We need cholesterol. It is a natural fatty substance we need to build cells, make hormones like steroids and vitamin D, and aid digestion with bile acid. Our livers produce all the cholesterol that we need, and it is found in some of the foods that we eat.

Why Is High Cholesterol Not Healthy?

Elevated cholesterol levels in the blood are linked to a greater risk of heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular disease.

High cholesterol usually starts early in life, depending on what you eat and how you live, and progresses before manifesting itself as a disease.

There are no symptoms of high cholesterol, so prevention is critical.

What Are the Risk Factors for Cardiovascular Disease?

While reducing cholesterol is a great way to reduce the risk, many factors need to be considered.

One of the most critical advances in the cardiovascular field is that they identified the risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

These are:

• Chronic inflammation (and all of the below are linked with/can cause chronic inflammation)
• Metabolic issues (obesity, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, imbalance of lipids + triglycerides-high cholesterol, and high blood pressure)
• Cigarette smoking
• Physical inactivity
• Excessive eating of unhealthy foods
• Genetics

Advancing age is a risk for chronic inflammation, so making lifestyle changes as soon as you can, whatever age, will have long-term benefits for your body and mind.

Prevention is key!

Lifestyle Intervention for Cardiovascular Disease Prevention

Lifestyle intervention is often the first port of discussion with a clinician and a patient.

Medication isn’t always the only solution. It is also worth remembering that medication causes gut dysbiosis, which causes chronic inflammation and a dysregulated immune system. It can create more issues than you started with. As much as medication can save lives, it doesn’t treat the source and why you have high cholesterol in the first place.

Taking tablets while physically inactive and eating the wrong type of fats every day will not help.

Unfortunately, doctors cannot follow us around and advise us on what to eat and what not to do to improve gut health and reduce chronic inflammation.

How Can You Lower Cholesterol?

You can lower cholesterol by following this anti-inflammatory lifestyle.

How you live, what you eat, how you deal with stress, and your genetic factors greatly affect your cholesterol balance.

Remember that some cholesterol foods are essential for your nutrition and gut health. It’s all explained in the Lifestyle Guide and the Personalized Advice sections when you become a member.

Remember, it isn’t just cholesterol that you need to concentrate on to reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease (see the above list).

These are wonderful dishes for reducing cholesterol: Persian Eggplant Stew & Paleo Vanilla Sponge Cake.

What Is a Low-cholesterol Diet?

Following a low-cholesterol diet is good for reducing your cholesterol, but you could still eat foods that cause chronic inflammation. Foods with inflammatory properties are all around us! Also, as I mentioned above, you could be missing out on essential nutrition from some foods we need for optimal health.

Chronic inflammation in the body is the most significant risk. It is linked to cardiovascular disease and 78% of deaths worldwide, so concentrating on cholesterol only is not enough.

You can protect your body from many chronic diseases by following this anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle. Have you read What Is The Best Diet For Everyone?

In this study: Inflammation, not Cholesterol, Is a Cause of Chronic Disease, by Tsoupras et al. (2018), they present all the relevant data that supports this. They note it is ‘inflammation induced by several factors, such as platelet-activating factor (PAF) with its related inflammatory pathways that leads to the onset of cardiovascular diseases rather than cholesterol.’

‘The key is to control the inflammatory activities of PAF and other inflammatory mediators via diet, exercise, and healthy lifestyle choices.’

‘The cause of chronic diseases is chronic and unresolved inflammation and its manifestations. Instead of cholesterol, targeting and treatment of inflammation will lower the side effects of chronic disorders. Overall outcomes and the extensive paradigms of the beneficial effects of an anti-inflammatory diet, without any reported side effects, have radically shifted attention away from the lipid-centric hypotheses and the trends for targeting cholesterol towards more effective approaches against inflammation, which are the causative factors of chronic diseases.’

This study ends with a beautiful quote from Hippocrates of Kos, the father of modern medicine (460-377): “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”

I wish you a fantastic day!

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August 06, 2023

Why Am I Always Hungry?

How to Stop Never-ending Hunger Pangs

Hi Everyone! Are you constantly hungry and never feel full? The perpetual feeling of hunger can be confusing and frustrating, especially if you have had medical issues ruled out by the doctor and they have just advised weight loss and exercise.

You could be exercising a lot and not losing weight. You could be eating foods that are not excessive in calories. Or staving off the impulse but are obsessed with food and just want to know why your appetite is never fulfilled.

In this post, we will explore one colossal factor contributing to excessive hunger, and I will tell you how to fix it!

Can’t Stop Eating All Day?

Why Am I Never Full?

Why Do I Never Feel Full and Am Always Tired?

Diet Affects Sleep

How Sleep Affects Metabolism

How Can You Improve Your Sleep?

Can’t Stop Eating All Day?

If you can’t stop eating or thinking about food all day, there could be several reasons why, like:

• You are not eating or absorbing enough nutrients. Nutrients are essential for the mind and body. A good day of eating the right food is shown in the food lists and example days in the Lifestyle Guide.
• Emotional eating. Are you bored, stressed, or locked in a pattern? Check the Emotional Eating in the Masterclass Lives.
• Eating too fast. Take a little necessary time for mealtimes. Don’t underestimate eating nutritious, filling foods without distractions. Sit at a table on a chair, away from your desk or the sofa. If you are traveling, check the Travel Advice in Personalized Advice. Leave your phone away from reach. Chew each mouthful well for good digestion. Enjoy the flavors. A calm mealtime does wonders for filling you up.
• You are not having quality sleep! This post will focus on sleep, the foundation for health.

Why Am I Never Full?

Sleep deprivation causes an incessant appetite and cravings because what happens is:

• Gut health is disturbed, which increases inflammation.

• Cortisol is raised, which disturbs gut bacteria and increases inflammation.

• Human Growth Hormone (HGH), which keeps lower body fat levels, is dysregulated.

• Appetite hormones imbalance occurs.

• Malabsorption of nutrients.

• Less stable sugar levels.

• Metabolic dysregulation.

• Slower movements, so less energy expenditure.

• Less resistance to oxidative stress, which increases chronic inflammation.

Why Do I Never Full and Always Feel Tired?

If you have had medical conditions ruled out by your doctor and you can’t stop eating and feel tired all the time, you are most likely not getting enough sleep.

Unfortunately, over time, inadequate sleep leaves the mind and body at risk of many conditions. It makes the body inflammatory, encouraging obesity, diabetes, and many other chronic inflammation diseases.

Lack of good quality sleep is linked to being overweight for several reasons.

During sleep, our hunger hormones, ghrelin, and leptin, are regulated.
Ghrelin is responsible for hunger, and leptin is responsible for feeling full.

In the daytime, these neurotransmitters are increased and decreased, signaling the need to consume calories.

Studies show that these hunger neurotransmitters become dysregulated with very little good sleep (even one night of disrupted sleep). Experts recommend between 7 and 9 hours of sleep for an adult.

There is a rare collection of people with a specific gene (1% of the population has DEC2) that can survive on 6 hours of sleep.

With disrupted sleep, there can be an increase in ghrelin (hunger) and a decrease in leptin (feeling full), ultimately leading to an insatiable appetite, e.g., No matter what you eat, you are not just not feeling full!

Diet Affects Sleep

Firstly, lose ‘diet’ out of your thoughts and embrace ‘nutrition.’

These days, people have diets with a lot of micronutrients, carbohydrates, fats, and protein but are not getting the vitamins and minerals essential for our bodies and brain functioning.

We can have bigger bodies but be starving on the inside – which will not help us sleep. If you have the right vitamins and minerals, you are full. When your body is satisfied nutritionally, you are more likely to sleep better.

Not having enough nutrition could cause insomnia, which puts you in a spiral of sleep deprivation and undernourishment.

This cycle makes your body more susceptible to disease!

When we are nourished, we are less hungry, and we will sleep better.

How Sleep Affects Metabolism

Studies show that sleep deprivation increases metabolic dysregulation.

When we sleep less, we also have less stable sugar levels (glucose intolerance and insulin resistance), more cravings, and we hold onto fat, so more cases of diabetes and obesity.

Chronic sleep deprivation is recognized as one of the significant contributors to the escalation of type 2 diabetes – and it can be avoided. Also, less sleep generally means slower movements and less energy for exercise, which increases the chances of obesity.

Less sleep also disrupts the circadian rhythm (24-hour internal clock).

There’s a strong link between sleep and circadian disruption in the development of diseases.

The circadian rhythm activates many body and brain mechanisms during daylight hours, designed to keep you awake, and then when it is time to sleep, the processes slow down and deactivate ‘alert’ signals.

The circadian rhythm plays a vital role in the sleep/wake cycle, including sleep duration and continuity.
Check out Insomnia in Personalized Advice, Members! (The 15th of every month brings a new comprehensively researched condition in the Personalized Advice section. Let us know in the forum what you would like researched). Did you see my Instagram Live on Sleep Function?
How Can You Improve Your Sleep?
Following an anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle like Eat Burn Sleep is scientifically proven to optimize mental and physical health and promote sound, quality sleep.

Eat Burn Sleep is recognized by members for promoting good sleep. It is an essential component of the lifestyle and is one of the most healing, repairing things to do for our body.

What you eat will affect your sleep; what you think, do, and move will affect your sleep.

Ensure you eat a nutrient-rich diet full of everything the body needs, which will satisfy your body and help you sleep better.

If you have just joined us, follow the Lifestyle Guide on what to do, eat, reduce stress, exercise correctly, etc., every day.

You won’t believe how much you eat on Eat Burn Sleep, but trust me, your body needs these foods.
Here are a couple of teaser dishes for you: Savory Rosemary & Chives Paleo Bread Rolls & Slow Cooker Oxtail & Vegetables.
Nothing is off limits, but here’s a cravings hack that works, and you will see how cravings diminish. It’s science-backed! This will set your sleep patterns up because, for instance, digestion of nutrition will contribute to good sleep.

Reclaiming your relationship with food will help you sleep.

To kickstart your new optimum health lifestyle, do the powerful 6-week Reset. You won’t recognize yourself. Mental and physical well-being is optimized in a fantastic protocol.

I know I repeat this a lot, but it’s essential: not eating enough of the right foods for the proper nutrients can lead your body to starvation, sleep deprivation, and disease susceptibility.

Understanding your body helps you take the best care of it throughout your life!

Many people with poor sleeping patterns for decades have turned their lives around through the Eat Burn Sleep lifestyle because it retrains your brain. It’s a game-changer! Even for people who work shifts or have a circadian misalignment.
You will not be hungry and reach for food all day long again!
Members reset their bodies into good sleep patterns with the proper nutrition and lifestyle guidance – and have lost significant weight. Those who don’t have weight to lose follow the Personalized Advice for Healthy Weight Gain because weight loss is a side effect of Eat Burn Sleep.

There’s more sleep talk in What Happens If You Don’t Sleep, Weight Loss & The Link to Sleep & The Benefits of Sun Exposure.

I wish you excellent health and a great day.

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July 16, 2023

Fatty Liver Diet: Look After Your Liver

Liver Disease Prevention

Hello Everyone! Did you know that what you ingest (and what you don’t) has an incredible impact on your liver? What you eat and drink and your supplements and medication affect the liver.

Your liver is the second largest organ in your body, and it performs over 500 functions that are essential to life. It has a role in nearly every organ system in your body and has a bidirectional connection with your gut.

Homeostasis in the gut is essential for liver health; likewise, the liver must be healthy for the gut!

There are plenty of reasons why you need to look after your liver. For this post, I explain some of a healthy liver’s functions. It will also showcase why an Eat Burn Sleep Liver Detox and Lifestyle are imperative to good health and liver disease prevention and remission.

Why You Should Care About Your Liver

What Conditions are Linked to Liver Disease?

How Does The Liver Digest?

Leaky Gut and Liver Disease

What a Healthy Liver Does

Why You Need a Liver Detox

What Is Fatty Liver Disease?

How Do You Protect the Liver?

Why You Should Care About Your Liver

Liver disease has increased since 1970 by 400%.

In fact, the hospital admission rates for liver disease in the financial year ending 2021 in the UK were the highest since the financial year ending 2011 and significantly higher than the financial year ending 2020.

Many of my clients have been diagnosed with fatty liver disease and have not been able to put their conditions into remission before. A doctor may tell you to eat healthily and watch what you are drinking, but they can’t follow you around and advise you. The big issue is that many foods and drinks that we think are healthy are not. Even many supplements!

Everything impacts the gut, which affects the liver!

What Conditions are Linked to Liver Disease?

Your liver is around the size of a large cone and is tucked under the right-hand ribs in the upper abdomen. It weighs around 3 pounds and takes about 13 percent of your blood supply. The portal vein brings nutrient-rich blood from your gut, and the hepatic artery carries oxygenated blood from your heart.

The thing is, is that there are so many conditions that can create sub-optimum liver function. Gut dysbiosis and chronic inflammation, for example. And all the conditions and symptoms that are attached to those, like gastrointestinal symptoms, SIBO, IBD, eczema, chronic fatigue, nausea, anxiety, multiple sclerosis, fatty liver, and joint disorders.

Fatty liver disease is linked with type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney disease, heart attacks, and obesity.

There are so many things that we ingest that are linked to these conditions, through gut bacteria and chronic inflammation, that ultimately affect the function of the liver.

The liver is an important buffer between gut contents and systemic circulation.

How Does The Liver Digest?

You see, some of the liver’s vital functions are that it is involved with digestion and blood, which I will describe. If you think about how it processes, purifies, detoxifies, and stores from what we eat and drink, I think it makes you more aware of why you have to look after your gut and liver health. Not just to avoid fatty liver disease and other conditions.

Once something is ingested (food, drink, medication), the stomach and intestine digest it; it gets absorbed into the blood, and 80% of hepatic blood goes to the liver through the portal vein.

This is rich with molecules from gut bacteria, and dietary and environmental antigens. It carries simple sugars, amino acids, glycerol, vitamins and salts, toxins, and byproducts to your liver.

The liver must tolerate this immunological load while providing ‘surveillance’ for viruses, infections, pathogens, malignant cells, etc.

A good-functioning liver is involved in many immunological functions. There are many cells in the liver that are involved with immune activity (Kupffer cells). They destroy disease-causing viruses and other bacteria that enter the liver from the gut.

Leaky Gut and Liver Disease

In a leaky gut, where the intestinal barrier is damaged, the liver becomes exposed to numerous toxins from the gut, as well as from gut bacteria.

If there is an imbalance of gut bacteria, this will dysregulate the immune system, and liver health is further compromised.

Toxins that reach the liver via a disrupted gut barrier accelerate liver disease, increasing the inflammatory response.

It is easy to overload the liver, create an imbalance in gut bacteria, and damage the intestinal lining with today’s diets and sedentary lifestyles.

What a Healthy Liver Does

On receipt of what is delivered to the liver, it then does a filtering process. It will store nutrients like vitamins and minerals to be released when needed. If we eat the right ones, that is! Malnutrition causes liver disorders!

There are all sorts of things that a healthy liver does to convert vitamins into functional forms to be secreted back into circulation or metabolized for excretion.

It detoxifies and pushes toxic substances out of the body.

When food is processed, the liver will also remove excess glucose (sugar) from carbohydrates from the blood and store it as glycogen for when blood sugar decreases. It turns to glucose, giving instant energy into the bloodstream.

When glycogen storage is used up, the liver creates glucose from carbohydrates and some protein.

A healthy liver also produces bile continually, which is critical to digest and absorb any fat that has been eaten, and converts it into energy. Any excess carbohydrates and protein are converted and stored for later use while synthesizing other fats like cholesterol.

Bile comprises bile salts, bilirubin, electrolytes, and cholesterol and is essential for vitamin K absorption. The liver has to produce enough bile to help vitamin K create coagulants to help clot the blood!

It is bile that carries away toxins!

The liver also absorbs and metabolizes bilirubin, which comes from the breakdown of hemoglobin. (High levels in a blood test are a sign of fatty liver disease or hepatitis). The liver or bone marrow stores iron released from hemoglobin. This makes the next generation of blood cells.

The liver also produces albumin, which carries enzymes, hormones, and vitamins through the body. It also keeps fluids in the bloodstream from leaking into the surrounding tissue. Low levels in a blood test indicate liver or kidney issues.

A healthy liver directly synthesizes multiple hormones! It has numerous endocrine functions which are essential for growth, development, metabolism, and reproduction.

It regulates amino acids, synthesizes angiotensinogen, which manages sodium and potassium levels and blood pressure, and removes hormones such as estrogen and aldosterone when necessary. Thyroid hormone conversions also occur in the liver.

Why You Need a Liver Detox

This is just a simplistic look at some of the liver’s functions. It is an incredible organ that must be looked after to prevent it from developing a disease. As I mentioned, it gets overloaded, particularly with the foods and drinks produced now if you consider all the chemicals around us and what we ingest.

You may hear that you do not need to detox because a liver detoxes itself, but food has changed dramatically, and inflammatory lifestyles slow the liver down! Here are a couple of sample recipes from Eat Burn Sleep to show you what type of meals will do you good when eaten every day: Cream of Broccoli & Zucchini Soup & Coconut Yogurt & Almond Cake.

I thoroughly advise our liver detox in the Personalized Advice at least twice a year.

You may be interested in reading: Detox Your Liver Naturally & Looking For a Safe Liver Detox for Weight Loss?

What Is Fatty Liver Disease?

If inflammatory mechanisms in the liver that deal with pathogens and tissue damage, for instance, become disrupted due to less-than-optimum health, disease progression can develop.

Many liver diseases share the same gut dysbiosis, gut permeability, and pro-inflammatory changes in many studies.

Fatty liver disease is a condition caused by irritation to the liver and often runs alongside obesity or heavy alcohol use. Liver tissue accumulates amounts of fat in response to the injury in liver cells. What we ingest contributes to fatty liver disease.

Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD) is a little different because it is not because of alcohol directly. It is most common in people with diabetes, high blood pressure, insulin resistance, obesity, etc. NAFLD also affects people who are not overweight.

Hepatitis is an infection of the liver from viruses and toxins. An autoimmune response can cause it, too!

Cirrhosis is where scar tissue replaces liver cells in a process called fibrosis. Hepatitis can cause this, as well as alcohol and toxins.

Gilbert’s syndrome is a genetic disorder where the body cannot break down bilirubin, so mild jaundice occurs.

Liver cancer is the sixth most common form of cancer globally.

Several organs, like the lungs, heart, and kidneys, are affected if liver disease occurs.

Manipulating gut bacteria to reduce inflammation and improve gut barrier function is an important strategy in the management of diseases.

This is why this anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle are proving to be a success in putting a fatty liver into remission and avoiding getting one!

How Do You Protect the Liver?

Unhealthy diets and lifestyles change gut bacteria. This results in the production of pathogenic factors that impact the liver.

I advise a lifestyle change to avoid liver overload, with good food, nutrition, and little daily tweaks detailed in The Lifestyle Guide that cumulatively make a massive difference to liver health.

Looking after gut bacteria and avoiding immune dysregulation, dysbiosis, and chronic inflammation will do amazing things for your health.

Remember that chronic inflammation leads to the pathology associated with autoimmune, infectious, and malignant liver disease. Gut health increases or decreases inflammation depending on what you eat, think, and how you live.

If it hasn’t gone too far, your liver can be repaired. It is the only visceral organ that can regenerate. Start a fabulous detoxification to reset your liver and move on to the next level of health.

Members, although I advise following this lifestyle on an 80/20 ratio, there are times when it can be more like 70/30 because, as you know, this lifestyle isn’t about perfection. So, I advise doing the liver detox twice a year. Check Instagram for the results of the last time I did one!

You won’t believe how incredible you feel afterward, such as a newfound enthusiasm for life and your health!

I am sending you all good health wishes.

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June 18, 2023

Low-calorie Foods for Weight Loss

5 Important Things You Need to Know About Low-Calorie Foods

Hello Everyone. If you are searching for low-calorie foods for weight loss, this post is for you!

I’m going to show you some higher-calorie foods that are better than low-calorie foods for weight loss, plus something vitally important for long-term weight loss.

1. Beware of Marketing. Selling Matters More Than Your Health.

2. Most Low-Calorie Foods Should Carry a Health Warning!

3. Most Low-Calorie Foods Will Lead to Even Greater Weight Gain

4. Don’t Count Calories for Weight Loss

5. Low-Calorie Foods for Weight Loss Lead to Misery

1. Beware of Marketing. Selling Matters More Than Your Health.

For this post, I wanted to point out the dangers of low-calorie foods.

So, a quick search led me to ‘low-calorie crackers,’ and the first one to come up was a sweet chili flavor rice cracker, with calories shown as big as the logo on the box, in bold. The focus is on the calories, and a quarter of the pack is 106 calories for 25g, which is about 6 crackers.

The marketing on the box tells you that they are ‘baked not fried’, 93% fat-free, gluten-free, and are a healthy, delicious low-fat snack.

Here are the ingredients:

Rice (84.5%), Rice Bran Oil (Contains Antioxidant: Soy Tocopherols), Sugar (4.3%), Salt, Milk Powder, Hydrolysed Soy Protein, Tomato Powder, Garlic Powder, Yeast Extract, Soy Sauce Powder (Soy, Rice, Salt), Onion Powder, Acidity Regulators: Calcium Lactate, Sodium Acetates, Citric Acid, Malic Acid, Flavor Enhancers: Disodium Guanylate, Disodium Inosinate, Vinegar Flavor, Maltodextrin, Paprika Powder (0.1%), Chilli Powder (0.1%), Colouring: Paprika Extract, Anticaking: Silicon Dioxide, Antioxidant: Soy Tocopherol, Capsicum Extract.

2. Most Low-Calorie Foods Should Carry a Health Warning!

Look at all of the man-made chemicals! Chemicals that, when eaten regularly, can be hazardous to your health and actually contribute to weight gain in the long run.

There are at least 30 ingredients in these crackers, and the majority of ingredients, added to stabilize, make them look like they do, and fool your tastebuds, will cause gut dysbiosis.

Gut dysbiosis leads to chronic inflammation, which causes obesity! Plus, an array of symptoms and conditions.

It’s no coincidence that ultra-processed foods are big business, and obesity and diseases are on the rise. Over 1 billion people in the world are obese. That includes 650 million adults, 340 million adolescents, and 39 million children!

3. Most Low-Calorie Foods Will Lead to Even Greater Weight Gain

The bad bacteria that cause obesity love all of these acidity regulators, flavor enhancers, and anticaking agents. They will actually let your brain know that they want more of this rubbish so that they can survive and wipe out all of your good bacteria. This is how snack addiction can happen.

The chemicals in ultra-processed, low-calorie food confuse the brain’s hunger-reward system. Ultra-processed food is wiping out our natural eating habits, and the body is starving.

Bodies are getting bigger, and malnutrition is getting greater.

When we eat real food that the body and brain know what to do with it, they will utilize it and function well on it, and inflammation is reduced. You don’t get hungry with a nutrient-rich diet.

This is why obesity is on the rise. These chemicals are in all low-calorie, marketed foods. They are not actually foods because the definition of foods is any nutritious substance for life and growth.

4. Don’t Count Calories for Weight Loss

So, the low-calorie rice crackers state that they are 424 kcal per 100g. They taste like chemicals, and they coat your tastebuds with all of these chemicals, tricking them. If you eat these, your hunger will not be satisfied.

Now, look at what you can eat for the same amount of calories on Eat Burn Sleep:

A serving of our chicken nuggets @ 200g = 310 kcals.

A serving of our Summer Pudding, 113.2 kcals.

Now, we don’t count calories at Eat Burn Sleep; we count nutrients that our gut bacteria like and can metabolize, but look how much food you can eat instead!

424 kcals could give you healing, easily digested, genuinely healthy food that, when eaten every day, reduces weight and makes your brain and body happy.

If you were restricting yourself to 1200 calories, say. That’s three small 100g packets of low-calorie, health-hazard chemical-rich crackers or a serving of the above plus:

Our Red Thai Vegetable Curry 217.4 kcal

Plus:

Anti-craving Chocolate Shake 92kcal

Plus:

Moroccan Burger 204.4 kcal

Plus:

Butternut Squash & Quinoa Salad 268.4 kcal

But as I said, we don’t count calories on this anti-inflammatory gut-healthy lifestyle (it was purely to make a point). More importantly, look at the superpower nutrients you are putting inside your body instead in these easy-to-make, quick recipes:

Vitamins A, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B12, C, D, E, K, Folate, Calcium, Copper, Iron, Magnesium, Manganese, Phosphorus, Potassium, Selenium, Zinc, Fiber, Omega 3, all 9 Essential Amino Acids that form Protein, Polyphenols, and Biotin.

You can also see that you would never be hungry eating this way. This is why members are putting their weight issues and inflammatory conditions into remission and are enjoying one of life’s joys – eating delicious food and feeling happier and healthier than ever before.

Eating this way daily will fill you up and allow your body to function as it should. It will make your skin glow, your hair grow and shine, your eyes sparkle, and, without a doubt, make you feel full of joie de vivre!

The happiness that is felt is not only a consequence of losing weight and feeling healthy; it is because when inflammation is reduced, it reduces neuroinflammation in the brain (depression, anxiety). Along with ‘happy’ neurotransmitter production in a healthy gut, too. Are there many diets out there that can say the same?

Your gut cannot cope with chemicals and additives. If you eat low-calorie ultra-processed foods every day, you will put even more weight on eventually. You will increase the risk of gastric, bowel, thyroid, hormone, skin, heart, brain, and joint issues, to say the least.

Initially, weight loss diets and injections gain popularity is because weight loss is achieved at the beginning. Any weight loss regime is the same. Like the keto diet, a low-carb diet, or a low-calorie diet, keeping the weight off is the challenge. I know because I have tried most of them. Not the dangerous injection! Have you read Is Ozempic a Safe Way to Treat Obesity?), The Dangers of a Vegan Keto Diet or Is The Keto Diet Good For Diabetes?

When you eat low-calorie, nutrient-poor foods, or high-fat foods, your body is not satiated, and chances are you will think about food all day long because you are starving yourself of essential nutrients that fill you up that you need to survive.

When you binge because you are so hungry, your body will hold onto that binge food because it worries that you will starve again. And so, this is how yo-yo dieting begins. Starve and binge. Weight loss and then even more weight gain.

5. Low-calorie foods for Weight Loss Lead to Misery

Following a low-calorie diet and counting calories all the time instead of looking at the nutrients is dangerous and will lead to misery.

Literally! Chronic inflammation, which comes from eating low-calorie, nutrient-poor foods, leads to neuroinflammation: anxiety, brain fog, depression, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s Disease. Packing your body full of these chemicals is making your mind and body ill.

If you are looking for weight loss that lasts, don’t count calories and eat ultra-processed, low-calorie foods (that are not foods!). It doesn’t work as a weight loss strategy, and it is dangerous, unsustainable, and boring! Eat amazing foods like these: Mediterranean Roast Chicken & Vegetables & Coconut & Chocolate Macaroons.

Make every day count in terms of health and happiness.

I hope your day is full of both.

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May 28, 2023

Looking for a Safe Liver Detox for Weight Loss?

Some Liver Detoxes Pose Health Risks

Hi Everyone. I am writing about liver detoxing for weight loss since there are many liver cleansing supplements online and liver detox hacks on social media, and some are not good at all for your health.

Most liver detox and weight loss supplements have not been tested in clinical trials.

This post is about signs that your liver needs attention, what overburdens the liver, why some liver detoxes are dangerous, how to help your liver, and how to lose weight safely.

To jump straight to our powerful liver detox to lose weight, and reset your health safely, click here.

What Does The Liver Do?

How Does The Liver Become Overburdened?

Signs of an Overloaded Liver

Do Liver Cleanses Work?

Do Liver Detoxifying and Regenerating Supplements Work?

Does Rapid Weight Loss Happen With a Liver Detox?

Can a Detox Help Liver Disease?

What Does The Liver Do?

Our liver is the second largest organ in the body. It sits under the rib cage on the right side of our bodies. It has over 500 essential functions, so it needs to be healthy and strong.

For instance, the liver plays a central role in sensing and responding to systemic inflammation. Yet, the liver’s inflammatory mechanisms and immune cell populations are crucial for liver homeostasis. The complex interplay also frees the body from the risk of infections, tissue damage, and tumors.

Another of the main functions of the liver is detoxification. It converts the nutrients from our food into substances needed for the body and turns toxins into harmless substances or expels them.

In a process called phagocytosis, it filters toxins through the sinusoid channels. These are lined with Kupffer cells (immune cells). Kupffer cells then digest, destroy, and excrete any invading bacteria, cellular debris, and other exogenous substances like alcohol and drugs.

A healthy liver naturally cleanses toxins from the system.

However, there are many ways that our livers can become overburdened, and this leads to less-than-optimal health.

How Does The Liver Become Overburdened?

*Medication.
*Some supplements.
*Drugs.
*Alcohol.
*Caffeine.
*Gut dysbiosis. (Gut-liver axis).
*Leaky gut syndrome.
*Obesity
*Type 2 Diabetes.
*Infections like hepatitis C. It can cause chronic inflammation, dysfunction, and liver damage.
*Iron-loading Disorders like Hemochromatosis.
*Conditions include cirrhosis, fatty liver, bile duct, and Wilson disease. Liver diseases can be genetic.
*High Fat Diet. Too much to store in the liver.
*High Sugar Diet. Again, the toxic load.
*Chemical exposure. They are everywhere! In toiletries, make-up, air fresheners, candles, detergents, furniture, and furnishings.

Signs of an Overloaded Liver

*Fatigue. Toxin overload and impaired glucose storage can impair liver function and tire you.
*Lack of energy. As above.
*Digestive issues. If bile production is compromised, inefficient fat metabolism occurs, slowing digestion.
*Weight gain. Inadequate digestion and fat metabolism can occur.
*Nausea. Toxins could be circulating in your system if they are not eliminated.
*Vomiting. As above.
*Hot flashes. The liver is responsible for hormone balancing. So imbalances can bring on symptoms of hormone imbalance.
*Mood swings. See above.
*Irregular periods. See above.
*Dark urine.
*Swellings in the legs.
*Yellowing skin and eyes.
*Skin rashes and itching. Toxins can build up and cause inflammation. Itching could also indicate liver disease, so check in with your doctor.
*Acne. Again, toxin buildup could be expelled through the skin.

Do Liver Cleanses Work?

There are millions of liver detox guides, potions, tips, kits, and other products aimed at cleansing your liver that have not been tested in clinical trials. Many could be a waste of time and money, at the least, and many could worsen your health to the point of hospitalization. Without the guidance of a qualified health practitioner, nutritionist, or dietician, I advise you to be extremely careful.

For instance, an enema detox, when not administered correctly, can change electrolyte levels and cause serious harm to the intestines, heart, etc.

A product that promises a liver detox could contain ingredients that cause chronic inflammation, do not blend well with your regular medication, or are scientifically unproven.

Some liver detoxes could disrupt a good gut bacteria balance. Dysbiosis causes chronic inflammation and dysregulation of the immune system.

Do Liver Detoxifying and Regenerating Supplements Work?

Try to ignore marketing and investigate ingredients.

Acute liver injuries have been found when people take ‘liver detoxifying and regenerating’ supplements. Emergency department evaluations revealed indications of drug-induced liver injuries, which were reduced when they stopped taking them.

Many people do not discuss what herbal treatments or supplements they are taking with their doctor and can presume that natural herbs will be fine, which isn’t the case for all. Also, they may not be compatible with your regular medication. Plus, as I often say, supplements from unreputable companies are not regulated. You could be consuming anything. It could be hazardous to your health.

As mentioned above, medication, supplements, and drugs significantly affect the liver.

Does Rapid Weight Loss Happen With a Liver Detox?

Our members have lost weight in very little time on this lifestyle. The above and below images are indicative of what many members experience. Then, weight loss becomes constant, even without you realizing it, because you eat well on Eat Burn Sleep. There are many nutritious foods (and treats) and no calorie counting or hunger pains.

Weight loss is a side effect of Eat Burn Sleep since I developed it to put my autoimmune conditions into remission and for optimum health, not weight loss, but reducing inflammation in the body will reduce weight considerably and safely.

There is a personalized section on how to gain or maintain weight if losing weight is not your issue and it is an inflammatory or autoimmune condition you want to put into remission.

Rapid weight loss liver detox diets composed of very few calories will cause malnutrition and ultimately put weight on in the long term, as they slow metabolism and do not contain enough nutrients you need for your body to function healthily. Low-calorie diets and detoxes result in reduced gut bacteria diversity, which may heighten the risk for disease.

Eating less does not speed up metabolism.

You see, the body adjusts to the low calories and preserves the calories it gets. When you eat properly again because calorie-counting diets are unsustainable and not healthy (and downright dull), the weight piles back on.

You cannot change your liver health (only detrimentally) by doing or taking one thing. Good nutrition and lifestyle are essential for your liver health.

Doing a detox and then going back to a diet loaded with inflammatory compounds or not actively keeping stressors down will not be helpful.

However, if you live an anti-inflammatory and nutritious lifestyle or embark on one immediately after a detox that a health professional has devised (like this one), your liver will be healthier going forward. You will be full of vitality and not put your health at risk.

Can a Detox Help Liver Disease?

Many liver diseases need medical attention, and a detox cannot fix these. However, a doctor is more likely to suggest a diet and lifestyle intervention for many after treatment since nutrition, what you eat and drink, and how you live are essential to liver health, protection, and repair.

Damage limitation and protecting your liver are essential. Being kind to your liver most of the time will give you more protection from liver disease.

The Eat Burn Sleep starts with a beautiful, safe reset for the body that detoxifies/unburdens the liver so it can do its job. With nutritious gut-healthy food involved, I will add! Our thousands of members have tried and tested the powerful protocol to kickstart excellent health. By week 2, you will feel incredible. By week 6, you feel ready to take on the world!

There are 300+ recipes, worldwide-inspired, to choose from. Here are a couple of taster recipes for non-members: Indian Eggplant Curry & Harissa Salmon & Quinoa Taboulé.

You may be interested in reading: Detox Your Liver Naturally.

When looking after your liver, keeping it healthy, and boosting it for efficiency, think long-term. Quick fixes are often a waste of time, money, and energy and can be dangerous.

I always advise taking health advice from someone qualified.

You cannot outsource health, and education is key.

Enjoy your day!

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May 21, 2023

Thyroid Diet: Food, Leaky Gut, & Thyroid Issues

Malnutrition Could Lead To Thyroid Malfunction

Hi Everyone. If you have been following Eat Burn Sleep for a while, you may remember that I wrote about thyroid foods and health at the beginning of the year.

In this article, I will briefly explain the link between digestive issues like leaky gut syndrome and thyroid issues.

If you have digestive issues, like leaky gut syndrome or IBS, along with thyroid issues, you may be deficient in micronutrients. What is unfortunate is that these micronutrients are imperative to keep your thyroid healthy, which puts you in a perpetual cycle of less-than-optimum thyroid health.

So this post is about how you can heal digestive issues and intestinal conditions like leaky gut syndrome, absorb the proper nutrients for thyroid hormone synthesis, and protect yourself from other diseases related to the thyroid.

What Is the Best Thyroid Diet?

Thyroid Issues and Leaky Gut Syndrome

What Is Leaky Gut Syndrome?

How Food Links to Thyroid Issues

Micronutrients Affect the Thyroid

What Are the Symptoms of Thyroid Issues?

What Food Affects the Thyroid?

Thyroid Healing Diet & Lifestyle

What Is the Best Thyroid Diet?

The best thyroid diet has a focus on gut microbiota. You see, your gut bacteria influence many functions in the body.

Not only does the gut microbiota influence the availability of the micronutrients needed for thyroid hormone synthesis, but as I mentioned above, it influences the development of further thyroid diseases.

Healthy gut bacteria have beneficial effects on immune system activity and may prevent thyroid hormone fluctuation and disorders.

A healthy composition of gut bacteria influences things like the availability of iron, which allows the utilization of vital nutrients for thyroid health. It also provides the perfect reservoir for T3 (one of the thyroid hormones), for instance.

Thyroid Issues and Leaky Gut Syndrome

There’s a reason why if you have the autoimmune thyroid disease Hashimoto’s or Graves disease, it wouldn’t be surprising if you had leaky gut syndrome. Or any intestinal disease like celiac disease or digestive issues like IBS, bloating, and diarrhea.

Intestinal diseases and thyroid diseases often co-exist.

Chronic inflammation and autoimmune diseases affect the thyroid gland.

What Is Leaky Gut Syndrome?

Leaky Gut Syndrome, also known as ‘increased intestinal permeability,’ is an intestinal (or digestive) condition.

Inside our stomachs, we have an extensive intestinal lining. Like a tight net, this lining forms a barrier and filters what gets absorbed into the bloodstream. When it is damaged and malfunctioning, a barrier doesn’t exist, and it may have cracks and holes in it. It may become ‘leaky’.

These holes allow partially digested food, harmful bacteria, and other toxins to penetrate the tissues beneath them.

The immune system then becomes activated because it sees the particles as foreign objects or can react with other intestinal tissues.

The tissues become inflamed, and the regular bacteria change.

How Food Links to Thyroid Issues

The changes in gut bacteria (dysbiosis) lead to inflammation and digestive conditions and affect other aspects of your health too.

The gut dysbiosis that occurs with digestive issues alters the immune response by promoting inflammation and reducing immune tolerance. This interferes with important conversion and functions of thyroid hormones. Plus, nutrients for the thyroid are not absorbed.

Dysbiosis has not only been found in autoimmune thyroid diseases like Graves and Hashimoto’s, but it has been reported in thyroid carcinoma (which is treatable these days).

What you eat can change gut bacteria, cause dysbiosis, and affect thyroid hormone synthesis.

Gut bacteria that are fed by the food that you choose may be having a detrimental effect on your thyroid.

Bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract (gut) must be diverse and are a mix of viruses, protozoa, fungi, etc. If the mix gets disturbed and the harmful bacteria start multiplying, then this is the state when health becomes challenged.

The bad guys can multiply for many reasons, but certainly because of the type of food you eat (and don’t eat!).

For example, if you love fried foods every day of the week, the harmful bacteria that welcome compounds that are not particularly good for you will thrive on that. Feed them regularly, and your body goes into a state of disease.

Malnutrition (insufficient nutrition) affects the functioning and recovery of the gastrointestinal tract, immune and thyroid (as well as every single organ!).

Micronutrients Affect the Thyroid

Gut microbiota has to be a certain mix to ensure essential micronutrients obtained from food are available for thyroid hormone synthesis.

Also, the necessary conversion of T4 (thyroxine: mood, body, temperature, metabolism) to T3 (triiodothyronine: digestive, metabolic, bone health) is performed in the liver, as well.

Then, it would help if you had vitamin D because this hormone (vitamin D is a hormone) assists in regulating the immune response and for healthy bones, teeth, and muscles. 90% is produced by sunlight and 10% by food.

The Benefits of Sun Exposure explains more about vitamin D.

This is why the liver needs to be looked after, too.

Not to mention that thyroid medication is heavy on the liver!

Have you read: Detox Your Liver Naturally?

Studies have shown that these specific co-existing micronutrients, including iodine and zinc, essential for hormone synthesis and immune response regulation, are deficient in people with autoimmune thyroid diseases.

What Are the Symptoms of Thyroid Issues?

This article: Thyroid Health Foods & Advice, tells you:

* the symptoms of a low thyroid function
* the symptoms of hyperthyroidism
* about men’s symptoms of thyroid issues
* what can cause thyroid disorders
* how a healthy thyroid functions
* the importance of liver detoxing (our detox is so powerful!) for thyroid health

What Food Affects the Thyroid?

Many foods affect the thyroid, but you must ensure that you eat the right food with the right micronutrients because malnutrition can lead to thyroid malfunction.

Members, please check personalized advice for thyroid issues and watch the Masterclass Live on thyroid issues. Non-members, you can join here to access the best thyroid diet and lifestyle to avoid malnutrition and heal your digestive condition.

Here are a couple of recipes to sample: Asian Beef Lettuce Wraps & Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookies.

It is easy to follow and equips you with all the tools you need to be in your best health, including the proper exercise for your thyroid that is associated with improving serum thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) and cortisol-reducing practices (stress affects T4 and metabolism is affected), for instance.

Thyroid Healing Diet & Lifestyle

Healing your gut lining, promoting positive changes in gut bacteria, absorbing nutrients, boosting immunity, reducing inflammation, detoxing your liver, treating conditions like leaky gut, IBS, IBD, celiac, Crohn’s, Colitis, diverticulitis…it’s all here!

Be wary of following online thyroid diets from non-reputable sources. Some tell you to eat lots of vegetables, which is dangerous. Certain vegetables may block the body’s ability to utilize iodine, which is essential for thyroid health, as mentioned above.

Some minerals and foods interfere with thyroid medication. A good thyroid diet is rather complex; getting nutrition advice from a trusted source is essential.

Not everything ‘obviously’ healthy is healthy. Not everything is off-limits on EBS.

The impact of food on thyroid issues shouldn’t be underestimated.

Good nutrition is fundamental to good health.

Check out the reviews!

I hope that your day is healthy and happy.

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May 07, 2023

How Do You Get Nutrients With Celiac Disease?

A Nutritious Celiac Diet

Hello Everyone! I was reading a nutritional assessment recently about women with celiac disease. It revealed that their daily micronutrients were unmet.

The study in Norway (Norkost 3) showed that women with celiac disease had an unbalanced diet with a higher intake of total and saturated fat, along with a low fiber intake, compared to the general population.

The results highlighted the need for people with celiac to follow a nutrition-dense diet free of all the triggers.*

This post is for you if you have celiac disease and need guidance in not just what to eat to ensure that you get the proper nutrition but to guarantee that taste, variety, and cakes are involved!

What Are the Symptoms of Celiac Disease?

What Is the Best Diet for Celiac Disease?

How To Eat Healthily With Celiac Disease

What Happens if You Eat a High-Fat Diet?

What Happens if You Don’t Eat Enough Fiber?

Where Do You Find Celiac Nutrition Online?

What Are the Symptoms of Celiac Disease?

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease, and symptoms can be surprising and may include:

Diarrhea
Constipation
Bloating
Stomach cramps
Vomiting
Anemia
Nutrient deficiencies
Extreme fatigue
Headaches
Dizziness
Skin rashes
Hair loss
Damage to teeth enamel
Mouth ulcers
Joint pain
Low bone density
Sensory symptoms
Cognitive dysfunction
ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder)
Low moods, anxiety, and depression
Weight loss

The only way to manage celiac disease is through diet and lifestyle, and if done successfully, you can live a symptom-free, rich life.

What Is the Best Diet for Celiac Disease?

If you are newly diagnosed, you may feel relieved that you finally know what has been causing all of your health challenges.

You may have searched for the best diet for celiac disease online and resolved that you won’t be eating out anymore and will be taking food with you wherever you go.

You may have listed everything you can eat but then be flummoxed at putting a varied meal plan together to fit into your life or the family.

The best diet recommendations for celiac disease can often feel restrictive, unsustainable, and boring. Mourning all the food you love, like cake, bread, and cookies, is expected when you have been diagnosed with celiac disease.

You may not know what to avoid since many safe foods for people with celiac disease can be made, processed, and grown alongside foods that cause celiac flare-ups.

*Some surprising ingredients in gluten-free foods will not help your celiac condition.

You could replace your current favorites with ‘gluten-free’ foods but be gaining weight and not feeling optimum health. You may not realize that other ingredients in some gluten-free packaged foods may cause gut dysbiosis.

Gut dysbiosis will exacerbate your symptoms! It causes chronic inflammation, dysregulates your immune system, and makes you vulnerable to more disease.

It can be mind-blowing, I know.

How To Eat Healthily With Celiac Disease

With celiac disease, the lining of your small intestines is damaged, and your immune system has mistakenly attacked your healthy tissues when you have eaten gluten (the substances inside are seen as threats to the body!). This causes your body to be unable to take in nutrients.

I know that when you have to watch what you eat and drink due to the need to eliminate celiac flare-ups, you can often go with tried and trusted ‘safe’ options and limit your food variety. Getting through the day without cramps or sickness is easier than anticipating an attack!

What happens to many people who have gastrointestinal symptoms with their autoimmune disease or chronic condition is malnutrition and dehydration.

These then present more issues that can develop. Anemia, as one example, then presents itself with more symptoms. Have you read Anemia, B12, & Iron Deficiencies?

Poor nutrition absorption can weaken your immune system. You may be interested in reading more about your immune system here.

What Happens if You Eat a High-Fat Diet?

The Norkast 3 study revealed women with celiac disease have high-fat intakes.

A high fat intake puts the risk of diseases of the heart at a higher rate. It can increase the risk of obesity, metabolic syndrome, fatty liver, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer.

One of the problems is that processed gluten-free foods do not help you when you have celiac disease. They could be making your health worse in the long run.

You see, gluten-free processed food usually has a lot of saturated fat and chemicals to make them palatable. (Have you listened to my podcasts and Instagram Lives about additives and the microbiome with Dr. Dawn Shirling yet?).

There’s also a Masterclass Lives on Additives, that you can listen to/watch here.

High-fat diets change long-chain fatty acid metabolism and gut dysbiosis, which results in high levels of inflammatory triggers.

A high-fat diet and chemicals can alter the bugs in your tummy (microbiota) and decrease, in particular, certain ‘good’ bacteria and increase ‘bad’ bacteria.

As I often mention, bacteria are essential in gut, brain, and immune health.

Gut dysbiosis leads to chronic inflammation, which leads to immune dysregulation.

Oftentimes, with an alteration in the tummy microbiota comes depression, anxiety, low moods, and feeling like you want to cry, for instance. This is the brain-gut connection. Have you read How Do You Live with IBS and Anxiety?

Many people with chronic inflammation suffer low moods and depression, not just because of the challenges of having the conditions and how they present themselves.

What Happens if You Don’t Eat Enough Fiber?

The women in the study with celiac disease also had low fiber intakes.

Fiber is essential in our diets for digestion, gut health, and reducing the risk of developing chronic inflammatory conditions.

Your cardiovascular system is more protected with a fiber-rich diet because fiber reduces total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. LDL is a significant risk for heart conditions. Fiber also slows down carbohydrate sugar absorption, preventing blood sugar spikes after meals.

It is essential to get the balance right because low fiber intake changes tummy bacteria diversity and feeling fuller for longer, too.

Too little can cause bowel issues like IBS and even bowel cancer.

You can miss out on many nutrients if your diet is strict or limited for whatever reason (not the correct type of fiber and fats), but I will save that for another time.

As I mentioned earlier, many deficiencies occur due to conditions that trigger many trips to the bathroom. I have been there! You can feel really ill and low because of the lack of nutrients (as well as dealing with all of the complications and challenges).

Nutrition cannot be compromised. For many autoimmune diseases, mineral deficiencies, for instance, are not compensated for.

It is crucial to have a nutrient-rich diet for celiac disease while reducing inflammation, healing the condition, and protecting from developing other conditions and symptoms.

I have two autoimmune conditions in remission, and I feel amazing!

You may be interested in listening to how I put my autoimmune diseases into remission here or reading about how our bodies are wired for healing here.

Where Do You Find Celiac Nutrition Online?

Needless to say, Eat Burn Sleep’s nutrient-packed celiac-friendly diet and lifestyle may have you feeling the same way in very little time. Plus, it just gets better, and it isn’t temporary.

You don’t have to overthink too much because I have done all the meal planning, family and friends-friendly recipes, lunch boxes, and eating-out guide for you. When I was devising it, I decided that it had to be delicious and include tons of treats. I didn’t want to miss cakes and cookies! I don’t ‘do’ bland in life!

You don’t need to be good at cooking to prepare delicious nutrient-dense celiac-friendly meals. There are dozens of cake and cookie recipes (which have a reputation for being divine by cake-eating experts!), and you will know what to eat when you dine out (the eating-out guide is on the app!).

You can still eat your old favorites in moderation (but you may not want to because of the pain they used to cause and because gut microbiota is very clever!).

One important thing to note is I advise you to think about all of the beautiful new food and ways to live that are before you if you have been diagnosed with celiac, rather than feeling like you have to give up things you love. Adopting the Eat Burn Sleep gut health diet and lifestyle will reinforce the incredible way you will feel in no time.

Changing what you eat and how you eat will aid your gut healing, digestion, nutrient absorption, brain, energy, and sleep patterns. Moving and thinking in an anti-inflammatory, stress-free way will support them further.

Eat Burn Sleep allows you to be spontaneous again!

Life is to be lived well, after all!

I hope you have a wonderful day.

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April 30, 2023

Reduce Asthma with an Anti-inflammatory Diet

Asthma and Gut Health

Hello Everyone! Did you know that certain nutrients and what you eat make a difference to asthma when consumed regularly? Those bugs in your tummy that I talk about will also play a role in your asthma.

This post explains how this safe and natural anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle may benefit you if you have asthma.

What Is Asthma?

How Does Gut Health Affect Asthma?

What Is a Good Asthma Diet?

How Can You Fix Asthma Naturally?

Does Stress Affect Asthma?

What Exercise Is Good for Asthma?

How to Live a Happy Life with Asthma

What Is Asthma?

Asthma is a non-communicable disease affecting children and adults. One of the critical components is chronic inflammation of the airways.

According to WHO, 262 million people in 2019 were affected by asthma, and there were 455 000 deaths worldwide.

Asthma has been linked to many things like intestinal permeability, nutrition deficiencies, specific diets, certain exercises, genetics, stress, intense emotions, medication, tobacco smoke, pollution, weather, chemicals, animal hair and skin, pests, disinfectants, and overcleaning, dust, mold, and infections.

Chronic inflammation and disruption in gut health are linked with asthma, which dysregulates the immune system, which many of the above can cause.

Maternal diet and lifestyle and how you were delivered into the world are linked to asthma, too!

How Does Gut Health Affect Asthma?

A healthy gut has 4-5 lbs of diverse bacteria, fungi, viruses, and protozoa (known as microbiota). It produces metabolites that impact metabolic and immune responses and protects against pathogens.

Many factors determine the diversity of the bacteria in your gut. For instance, airway responses can increase with a gastrointestinal tract with more invasive bacteria than protective bacteria. The immune system is compromised, chronic inflammatory respiratory disorders increase, and so on.

In a study on the origin of respiratory diseases in children, Watson et al. (2019) determined that there was always gut dysbiosis (imbalance) with a diagnosis of asthma.

Balanced gut microbiota is imperative to health, considering that 70% of immune cells (Gut-associated Lymphoid Tissue) reside there, and gut lining strength depends on it.

If anything happens to the gut lining (intestinal barrier) and the gut-associated lymphoid tissue, this is when autoimmune and chronic inflammatory disorders may occur. Indeed, asthma has been linked to ‘Leaky Gut Syndrome’.

Changes in the gut are linked with altered immune responses and airway homeostasis.

What Is a Good Asthma Diet?

What you eat could impact your asthma. Many foods cause a great disturbance in homeostasis in the body, leading to inflammatory conditions and exacerbating symptoms in diseases like asthma.

As with many inflammatory conditions, like I say, gut-healthy nutrients in Eat Burn Sleep’s anti-inflammatory diet may prevent and alleviate asthma, too.

You see, short-chain fatty acids are produced in high amounts when you follow EBS, and they have immunomodulatory and anti-inflammatory effects.

We have an abundance of antioxidants in our recipes that will contribute to reducing airway inflammation and reactivity. They also have anti-allergic properties. They prevent, intercept, and repair oxidation and cellular damage (lungs are constantly exposed to oxidants).

Remember that our focus is gut health, which is imperative to overall good health.

How Can You Fix Asthma Naturally?

It isn’t just about what you eat, of course, because how we live, and sleep can cause inflammation. There are asthma triggers everywhere!

The health education that Eat Burn Sleep provides is vital to reducing your inflammatory condition and improving your health and quality of life tenfold.

By the way, I always advise to never give up medication that your doctor has prescribed you, and certainly run this gut health lifestyle for asthma by them.

Eat Burn Sleep gives you the tools to improve liver function. You see, allergies and many substances and compounds can create sub-optimum liver functioning. Members, access the potent and safe liver detox here.

The lifestyle enhances metabolism, nutrient absorption, immunity, and the reduction of oxidative stress and inflammation in the body.

The great thing is that it suits the whole family (I call it family and friend-friendly), and it’s portable. You can access the food lists, shopping guide and recipes (which you may have saved to favorites), and daily goals on the app, for instance, at the grocery store.

The Eating Out Guide is handy on the app, too!

Does Stress Affect Asthma?

Cortisol and other hormones release when stressed. If elongated, this can induce alterations in immune response, which may have implications for triggering asthma attacks and exacerbating the condition. It affects digestion and gut health, too.

Stress can worsen your asthma, promoting a cycle because asthma can exacerbate stress. Stress can also aid in the development of asthma.

(Some stress can’t be avoided, but EBS’s stress-reducing tools are incredibly effective!).

You may be interested in reading: Do You Often Feel Like Crying and Don’t Know Why?

What Exercise Is Good for Asthma?

Many things can occur that will affect asthma with some exercises. For instance, airways can get smaller and inflamed with heat and water loss when breathing in dry air. Some exercises can induce asthma.

However, many sports are low-risk for asthma, and there are effective stress-reducing safe movements (as well as neuroplasticity exercises) to do on this anti-inflammatory lifestyle.

How to Live a Happy Life with Asthma

It can seem hard to believe, at times, that what you eat, what you do, and how you sleep could contribute to the intensity of your symptoms and long-term effects.

Living the EBS way treats chronic inflammatory conditions like obesity, GERD, and eczema. These are commonly linked to worsened asthma outcomes.

This anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle for asthma, along with good management of medications under your doctor’s guidance, may very well help you live a regular, active, and happy life.

I wish you all a happy, healthy day!

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Yalda Alaoui

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