Jeff's Thoughts

• If You Are Going To Look After Anything……

  17 November, 2014

  If you are going to look after one thing – What would it be……

  I wonder if we asked people this question out on the street, what the answers would be. Your Heart?, Your Bones?, Your Diet? But really there is one aspect of you that controls so many other things in the body. It is labelled as your second brain – that is your gut.

  Odd I know, but truly my answer to the above question would be the gut. So many things happen as a consequence to an unhealthy gut. Appreciating how powerful this aspect of your body is will probably mean you don’t want to eat another transfat/flour ladened muffin or cake again.

  They say “You are what you eat”. This is simply not true. To be truthful – you are what you absorb. You can eat all the vitamins and minerals you like, but if you cant absorb them – you will still be malnourished and sick.

  Your gut has a lining called the Mucosal barrier. This is the one thing you should look after. If you look after this – other things fall into place. Here is what a healthy Mucosal Barrier looks like projections that increase the surface area of the small intestine.

  

  This is where the magic happens. If this mucosal barrier is damaged, your ability to absorb nutrients is decreased. In this case, normal supplements don’t really have much effect – which is why you must always look at changing food first – before taking a one off miracle supplement (which doesn’t exist by the way).

  Why is this so important?

  1. The gut wall is responsible for absorption of nutrients. In my opinion one of the biggest factors that leads to tiredness is a damaged mucosal barrier. With a damaged mucosal barrier you simply cannot absorb the B vitamins that are coming in from your diet. At Studio41, an increase in energy is nearly always reported in the first 2 weeks of someones weight loss journey. I believe this is due to the repairing of the gut wall that is occurring.
  2. 90% of your immune system is made in the gut, so those people who are always sick may have an impaired gut lining. So health doesn’t start with aspirin, or any pharmaceutical drug, it comes down to your strength of your immune system – which comes down to the strength of your gut.
  3. 3.  70% of your neurotransmitters are made in the gut. Such things like Gaba and Serotonin are neurotransmitters. So your inability to relax (Gaba), or your ability to have happy thoughts (Serotonin) may all be influenced by the this mucosal barrier and your current gut health.
  4. Most importantly for our clients here are Studio41, you get rid of toxins through the gut. So if your gut is unhealthy – you can’t detoxify. Simply put – if your gut isnt healthy – you are not healthy. This is one reason we use an infrared sauna during the 6 or 12 week package, to enhance our clients ability to detoxify.

  What Damages The Gut Wall?

  Stress – Via the release of histamine – stress is the number one thing that plays havoc to your gut. Quite simply, you were not designed to digest your food and run at the same time. So if you are always stressed – your gut health will be compromised .And hence your health will be compromised and your ability to lose weight will be compromised. One of the best ways to stress your self out is a lack of sleep. How many of our clients are lacking sleep? Most of them!!! So if most of our clients are sleep deprived – their bodies will be stressed – and their guts can be comprimised. Can you see how our results of being able to help people as health and fitness professionals can change dramatically once you understand how the body works. Most trainers do not take this into account – then again most trainers to not get the results we do.

  Gluten -“Intestinal cells of both celiac and non-celiac patients exhibited increase permeability when exposed to gliadin”

  Drago S, et al. Gliadin, zonulin and gut permeability: Effects on celiac and non-celiac intestinal  mucosa and intestinal cell lines. Scand J Gastroenterol. 2006 Apr;41(4):408-19.

  If you want results, at Studio41 we look at all of this, because it can all influence your results. If we didn’t it would be looking at your health through a very small straw and thinking that training was all we needed to do. If you really want results, from better sleep, mood and less body fat – learn  how to look after your gut.

   

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