How Gut health Affects your Recovery!

Gut health is a piece of the nutrition puzzle that is often overlooked. We tend to focus more on performance, body composition changes, and overall wellness before thinking about other systems.

Your digestive system is primarily responsible for digesting nutrients, breaking down food, managing inflammation, and regulating your body’s energy balance.

When your gut functions well, it will absorb the macro and micro nutrients in our food. These nutrients are the fuel for all our daily activities, including building. However, if your digestion is “off”, think bloating, diarrhea, constipation, etc… and you’re likely not getting the full benefit of the foods you’re eating

Training hard will typically create inflammation in the body. This inflammatory response is partially responsible for the body’s adaptation as we get stronger.

If the gut is disrupted or stressed, it can become “leaky,” allowing inflammation to circulate in the body. Common causes for excess inflammation are stress, overtraining, and a diet high in processed foods and all of this added inflammation can make recovery slower and increase the risk of injury.

Foods rich in probiotics like yogurt, kefir and sauerkraut as well as prebiotics like bananas, oats and beans will help foster a healthy and balanced microbiome.

So how do we support good digestion?

• Eat a variety of foods: Aim to have color on your plate with different veggies, grains, and legumes to diversify your gut bacteria.

• Prioritize protein quality: Try to avoid having a large amount of your protein come from a single source (ie, chicken, or eggs). Add in animal proteins, plant based proteins as well as fermented options like yogurt

• Stay hydrated: Digestion requires water. Dehydration often leads to a slower digestion and a delay in nutrient transport.

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• Time your fiber: In this case, there can be too much of a good thing. Fiber is great for regulating our bowels, and helping us stay full, however if you overdo it you might find yourself constipated and bloated.

• Manage Stress: Stress impacts the gut more than most of us realize. Be sure to practice healthy de-stressing activities like deep breathing, mobility work, meditation or even journaling.

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Your gut is more than just your stomach and intestines, it’s directly linked to our brain and overall wellness. A healthy gut supports muscle building, energy regularity, mental focus and immunity. If you’re looking to optimize your body composition or performance in the gym, gut health should be on your radar!

Need help?

Start by joining the Lift Yourself LEAN FB group when I go live each week with a tip or pep talk.

If you want to go deeper into your nutrition then lets chat about some online nutrition options by starting HERE

Stay strong my friends.