You’ve officially completed your first week of working towards a healthier, happier gut! This week, we’d like you to take a look at when you’re eating and diversifying your diet.
When to eat…
Congratulations, You’ve officially completed your first week of working towards a healthier, happier gut!
Last week we asked two things from you; to include Aguulp in your morning routine and to keep a food & drink diary.
If you have, that’s great news – what you’re starting to do is build up a profile of foods that sit well with you, while identifying the foods that may trigger an upset stomach and food that leaves you feeling low or unenergised. It’ll highlight patterns that might otherwise go unnoticed, especially the psychological effects of what you eat, so please do try and keep note of any dips in mood or energy post meals.
Take a look through last week’s notes, paying attention to the comments that indicate you suffered some discomfort. If there’s a specific meal, food type, food group or even ingredient that seems to be a reoccurring theme before any upset, try removing it from your diet this week. There might already be foods you avoid depending on your particular issues – your microbiome is a bit like a fingerprint – it’s entirely unique to you, which is why there is no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to improving gut health.
If you haven’t started your diary yet, then please do! The purpose of the food & drink diary is to eventually provide yourself with a profile of what you eat, when and how it makes you feel, so you can begin to fine-tune that engine of yours.
Aguulp is a supplement that aims to improve, bolster and support a healthy gut; any supplement selling itself as a fix for an unhealthy diet should be avoided – there is no such thing!
This week… we’d like you to take a look at when you’re eating and diversifying your diet; we won’t take you too far down the rabbit hole (yet) of Intermittent fasting (as it is not necessarily suitable for everyone), but shortening the window in which you eat can encourage your cells to repair instead of replicate – reducing the chances of many diseases.
Don’t fear though, we don’t expect you to forego everything you enjoy, nor will we ever tell you that you can never indulge again! That’d be far from our ethos, at Aguulp we believe it’s more about picking your battles and making sustainable lifestyle changes; a healthy gut can be easier to maintain than it is to obtain, so balance and routine are key.
Try keeping your first and last meal within a 10-hour window this coming week and see how you get on
If possible, stop eating 3 hours before sleep. This will allow your body to grant you a more restorative sleep than if it had to digest food overnight. If you suffer from reflux this may be especially beneficial.
We’d also like you to take a look at the diversity of your diet. Variety (as well as being the spice of life) contributes to a flourishing gut – flora, as does soluble and insoluble fibre.
Fruits and vegetables are full of fibre, vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals and antioxidants. The health benefits of eating a plant-based high fibre diet are robust and well known. Eating a wide variety of plant-based foods has numerous health benefits, with nutrients and antioxidants working to protect the body from harmful free radicals, alongside improving gut health.
Having a diverse diet with extensive plant-based foods and fibre rich foods will all assist to increase the diversity of your gut microbiota. Microbes which are fermented in our gut are protective and produce nutrients such as short-chain fatty acids which act to provide energy for cells in the colon. Additionally, certain fibre rich foods can have a prebiotic effect on the gut, which means they work to feed beneficial gut microbiota. Dietary fibre intake, through various processes, can improve GI tract mobility and function, immune regulation and colonic fermentation.
Diverse diets such as the Mediterranean diet; rich in plant-based foods, whole-grains, lean protein, oily fish and extra virgin olive oil promote a healthy gut by building diverse microbiota.
To build your gut-flora, when you are menu planning or cooking, try new recipes, experiment with new ingredients and build up that diversity across your diet.
Simple changes like adding in new herbs and spices can play a positive role in your gut and work to build up flourishing gut-flora, equally these can add in powerful antioxidants within the diet which again work to prevent diseases.
If you’re intrigued and would like to understand more about… Please do tag us on Instagram so we can engage with you online, or as ever we’re always on hand at
We’ll be back next week to check in, find out how you are
and to provide you with the next steps.
