50+ Lifestyles

You ‘Gut’ This

By Margaret Alstead
Healing Inside-Out Nutrition, LLC
Registered Dietitian Nutritionist
(563) 265-2925 Healingnut@gmail.com

Your guts depend on you to make food choices that
support your body so it can function at its highest level. You are what you absorb, and every food you eat becomes part of you. The health of your intestinal lining in your gut is the barrier to either health or to sickness. If your gut lining is not functioning properly, you will not be able to absorb what you eat.

The gut microbiome, made up of trillions of microbes, is an important determinant of health. While many things affect the balance of the microbes in our gut, diet has the biggest impact. Changing what you eat today can have a huge impact on how you feel and affect your future health. There are many things that can enhance gut performance. Gut microbiome enhancers: prebiotics, probiotics, fiber, resistant starch and healthy fats. Gut microbiome disrupters: food additives, alcohol, sugar, artificial sweeteners and inflammatory fats.

The gut microbiome is protective but when dysbiosis, a gut imbalance, is present the gut microbiome can fuel inflammatory processes leading to negative symptoms and disease. Functional nutritionists address all the nutrition and lifestyle factors affecting your gut microbiome and create a personalized, comprehensive plan to restore balance.

Functional nutrition is a specialized way to determine root causes of illnesses. Diagnosis is a word used to describe a set of symptoms. Naming the symptoms isn’t very helpful if there is no plan to target the root cause of the symptoms. Getting to the root cause of each symptom helps break things down in manageable steps to heal a diagnosis. The name of the problem is not the cause of the problem. Work through a targeted approach to healing with functional nutrition.

The foods you choose to eat each day is a crucial first step. Strip away processed foods, chemicals, artificial flavors, dyes and preservatives. Removing these inflammatory and immune-reacting toxins are an important step to life-long healing.

Stress management techniques are part of a functional approach to health. Stress has far-reaching effects on our gut. It alters the gut function and causes appetite changes. Stress even alters our motility, causing diarrhea or constipation and can decrease our digestive enzymes. Overall, stress creates gut imbalances.

In functional nutrition, we understand everyone is unique and there is no one-size-fits-all. We collect the necessary information and then tailor the treatment to help you, as an individual. Your overall health depends on a healthy gut. With help from me, a functional dietitian nutritionist, you ‘gut’ this.

Margaret Alstead is a registered dietitian nutritionist at Healing Inside-Out Nutrition, LLC. She can be reached at (563) 265-2925 or Healingnut@gmail.com.