Why I began my gut health journey

I have known the benefits of gut health and its importance for a very long time. Even though I knew you can have issues, even without the typical signs, I was still in sort of a denial. my skin frustrates me though and contributed it to crazy hormones from the whole process of trying to get pregnant, being pregnant, and after I had our son. I had fairly great skin while I was pregnant though and thought it was awesome! There was an occasional pimple here and there during that time. But since having the baby, my skin has been terrible again. Dry patches, breakouts, redness and more. I have to do something because at almost 30 years old, this isn’t okay.

I began taking a probiotic just because I knew you should take one. But I didn’t take it regularly and I didn’t consider a specific gut health diet to clean things up more. Doing so could have helped my skin heal through the process of my gut healing. The anxiety of trying to do too much regarding changes to my diet drastically while nursing my son prevented me from trying much. But now, I realize most of the things I can do to improve my gut, won’t affect my son as much as I originally thought. However, I was able to stick to a balanced diet and low to moderate exercise program and lose the baby weight without taking extremes or having unfair expectations.

While weight loss is not a goal of mine now with my gut health, I am realistic in the knowledge that I could lose more through this cleanup process. Weight during this journey will not be discussed unless I notice a dramatic change. My focus is on my energy and my skin clearing up more than anything. I plan to do check-ins with myself on a regular basis and will follow up here in 3 months to see how things have changed.

Now that the new year is upon us, and my son is now 1, I am ready for a change. I am ready to realign my gut health to function properly. Hopefully, through the process my energy levels increase and my skin clears up.

The things I plan to do to clear things up are:

• begin taking my probiotic more regularly again
• reduce my gluten intake through refined processing and increase my whole grains
• using more coconut oil for cooking
• consuming more bone broths through soups, maybe I’ll be brave and take on the way of people drinking it like tea? I’m not so sure about that one, ha!
• more foods rich in omega-3
• more fiber-rich foods, through green smoothies
• add more fermented foods to my diet. I would love to learn how to make my own Kombucha.
• clean up my beauty products.

If you plan on making changes to your diet, exercise program, or focusing on self-care, I recommend keeping a journal or making notes during your process. How do you feel, what works for you, what doesn’t work for you? How can you change this path you are on to improvement? Remember, there is no one size fits all when working on a solution to your unique situation. Changes take time. They take energy to focus on those habits that will become second nature the longer you do them. If you find yourself feeling down during this time, let me know. Let’s work through that together to stick to your path. Remember your why. Why did you start? What do you hope you achieve through these changes?

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