Finally, Id like to say that Im always here to answer your gut-health questions and help you overcome your personal hurdles. You can contact me by email at j@52recipes.co.uk or get in touch via 52DietRecipes on Facebook or Twitter.
Yours,
Jacqueline Whitehart
IS THE 28-DAY GUT-HEALTH PLAN FOR YOU?
Severe Food Allergies
If you have a severe food allergy, such as nut or egg allergy, or suffer from coeliac disease then you should be following expert treatment. This book is absolutely no substitute for professional medical advice. The book can still be used to find other intolerances as long as you first seek expert medical advice.
If your weight loss has stalled (or hasnt even got going), then your gut could be holding you back. Your digestive system is like your second brain, telling you what to eat and when. When those signals get confused because your gut is a bit toxic (sorry for the bad news), then it tells you to eat when youre not hungry and gives you irresistible cravings. Were going to give your gut a deep clean and find out the foods your gut likes and the ones it struggles with. As a result, your cravings will disappear and you will naturally lose weight. Its not uncommon for someone following the gut-health programme (but not thinking about weight loss) to easily lose half a stone.
Cutting out trigger foods also forces us to cook more real food. Do you believe your ready meal doesnt contain gas-inducing veg? Wrong. Its in the stock. Think your cereal bar is good for you? Wrong. It contains at least twenty ingredients including five kinds of sugar or sweetener.
But dont worry. I know you dont want to spend hours in the kitchen, which is why Ive included a whole section of easy and delicious recipes for you to try. My recipes are always fresh and simple, use common ingredients and have been tried and tested by me. All those faffy bits that restaurant chefs like to add to make their food look beautiful (but take half a day to prepare) theyre not in my kitchen.
Onions and garlic are two of the more common causes of a sensitive belly. They are potent, gassy vegetables and even the tiniest amount can set many people off. Ill introduce you to a new cheap and easy-to-get-hold-of spice that youve probably never even heard of.
Add a pinch of this to a dish to add natural onion flavour, without the tummy consequences and without the chopping! What is it? Youll have to keep reading to find out!
Gut sensitivity affects as many as 10 to 15 per cent of people in the UK and that figure is rising. And that doesnt even include the thousands perhaps even millions of people with mild or occasional issues who just battle on and never visit the doctor or discuss it with anyone.
What Id like to show you in this book is a way to get to grips with the causes of your gut-health problems. For just one month, well cut out possible trigger foods and introduce them again in a controlled fashion. Youll get your own personalized guide to foods you can eat with no problems, foods you can eat in moderation and foods to avoid.
The trigger food groups that well be looking at are: milk, red meat, nightshade (such as tomatoes and chillies), gassy vegetables and wheat.
Please dont think, Thats it. Youre telling me not to drink milk or eat bread ever again. First of all, it is rare to be intolerant to both wheat and milk. And even if you find foods that you are intolerant to, youll hopefully still be able to eat them in small quantities. Youll know how to choose the right foods for you. Ill give you the tools to help you make your own choices. Its like drinking alcohol. We all know that it gives us a hangover the next morning, but sometimes we do it anyway. You might find that tomatoes give you a rotten tummy ache, but occasionally youll think its a price worth paying.
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT DIFFERENT GUT SENSITIVITIES
One of the things that you quickly find when exploring gut sensitivities is that no two people are the same. How we react to certain foods and how our digestive systems behave is unique to us. Yet the mechanism is the same for everyone. And the root causes of all digestive issues are the same: inflammation of the gut lining, foods not being digested properly and the aptly titled leaky gut.
In this book, Ill look at the root causes of digestive issues and explain how this can lead to IBS-like symptoms: stomach cramps and bloating and also to inflammation throughout our body. Frequent headaches, sinus pain and achy joints can all be linked back to our digestion.
HOW DOES THE 28-DAY GUT-HEALTH PLAN WORK?
The Gut-Health PlanThe plan acknowledges that there are five common food triggers, as Ive already mentioned wheat, milk, nightshade, red meat and gassy vegetables the cause of over 95 per cent of digestive difficulties. We rest the gut for a week then introduce each trigger individually on a three-day cycle to come up with a detailed plan of your own personal sensitivities.
The plan starts with a simple gut assessment to help you work out whats up. You then follow a cycle of rest and food trials for the twenty-eight-day period, while recording your progress in a Gut-Health Diary. Plus youll get my own personal brand of enthusiasm, advice and dedication to help you every step of the way.