Evidence suggests that intermittent fasting may benefit your gut health and boost your gut microbiome, the trillions of bacteria and other microorganisms that live in your gut. Intermittent fasting is an approach to eating where you switch between periods of fasting and eating as normal.
Just by doing that even a few times a week, you can create a near-effortless 12- to 14-hour fasting window that helps heal your gut and so much more. Whether you're a fasting newbie or already fast but want to heal your gut, these five strategies can help you optimize your plan.
Low-calorie diets could tank your gut health, research suggests, leading to GI issues such as diarrhea and colitis. Consuming enough calories throughout the day is important not only for the health of your gut bacteria, but to fuel your active lifestyle as a cyclist as well.
At least a couple weeks of healthy diet changes are needed before gut dysbiosis will be healed. In some, two weeks and — snap — they're healed. In others, it can take months of dietary correction, supplements, and/or medications to reverse gut dysbiosis permanently.
Initial evidence suggests that intermittent fasting may benefit your gut health, particularly by increasing the diversity of your gut microbiome and the “good” gut bugs that make their home there. Certain foods may improve your gut health while intermittent fasting, as well as help support you during fasting periods.
It was also found that during fasting, bad bacteria tend to starve more quickly than healthy bacteria, leaving more opportunity for good bacteria to colonize. There has also been evidence to support that a sixteen-hour fasting window with an eight-hour feeding window has beneficial effects.
A good indication that the gut repair program is working is when your energy and vitality have returned, you've regained mental clarity, your mood has improved, you've returned to your ideal weight, and you feel like your best self.
To heal the gut, most people need to first implement an anti-inflammatory diet and make lifestyle changes to prioritize rest, relaxation, and joy. Next, probiotics and (in some cases) digestive aids like enzymes and betaine HCl are helpful to increase good gut bacteria and strengthen digestion.
An anti-inflammatory diet, regular exercise, good quality sleep, and probiotics are all strategies to put in place before trying antimicrobials or antibiotics to get rid of bad bacteria.
Typically, it will take the body time to balance the microbiome to healthy, diverse bacteria levels. In fact, research shows that it takes about 6 months to recover from the damage done by antibiotics.
A balanced diet, complete with all the necessary macronutrients and micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) can help fortify your gut. Vitamin D and an amino acid called L-glutamine may specifically help repair your gut lining.
There are many factors that can lead to a disturbance in gut function. The four R's protocol (Remove, Replace, Re-inoculate, Repair) works to address the underlying causes of imbalance and aids in alleviating symptoms.
There is no smell to detect leaky gut. Leaky gut is the idea that increased permeability of the intestine allows toxins and bacteria to enter the body, potentially leading to inflammation and other symptoms. Foul smelling stool may be due to what you ate or certain medications, or from poor absorption or infection.
Frequent discomfort, gas, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, and heartburn could be signs that your gut is having a hard time processing food and eliminating waste. You feel tired more often than not. People with chronic fatigue may have imbalances in the gut.
Essentially, fasting cleanses our body of toxins and forces cells into processes that are not usually stimulated when a steady stream of fuel from food is always present. When we fast, the body does not have its usual access to glucose, forcing the cells to resort to other means and materials to produce energy.
Research suggests that treatments to address this imbalance may benefit people with IBS. A 2021 study looked at the effects of Ramadan-associated fasting and found that intermittent fasting may help remodel the gut microbiome and upregulate the bacteria Lachnospiraceae, leading to health benefits.