My new year ‘gut’ resolutions

Hello and happy new year! I took a break over the last few weeks but since it’s now officially 2018, I know lots of you will be interested in tips and advice on getting your digestion back on track! Now, I’ll admit that this Christmas, I definitely lived up to the ‘balance’ part of my blog. In that, I decided to balance out all the good I’d done the weeks leading up to the big day by living solely on turkey, crisps, chutney and prosecco!

                         I ate turkey, drank prosecco and wore Christmas jumpers-what’s not to love?

I am joking! Well, kind of. I managed to eat reasonably well but there was a low point when I was tempted to try sparkling prosecco crisps from M&S-I would not recommend these! Surprisingly edible gold stars and glitter are not particularly kind to your digestion.

I had a lovely Christmas but there’s no denying that a few days later, my choices caught up with me! I’ve noticed this happen every year regardless: whether it’s the lack of rest, the increased alcohol intake or just the excitement; a few days after the big day I’m rushing to the toilet. Almost as if my bowels are saying ‘I was too caught up in the presents to notice you had 3 glasses of prosecco on Christmas eve, but now I’ve realised, I’m not happy about it!’

So today, rather than share my life resolutions, I wanted to blog about my ‘gut resolutions’ to get myself back on track. Not in a judgmental ‘YOU NEED TO DO MORE’ type of way because I’m trying not to blame myself and feel guilty (in fact, let’s call that resolution number 1) but some things I’m going to start doing to hopefully benefit my health…

2.Test my gut microbiome 

I’m fascinated by all things gut microbiome and I always advise people to consider testing before taking probiotics (since there’s so many different strains-who knows which one you’re deficient in?) I have had this kit sitting in my office for months but haven’t got around to using it yet.

The reason? I hate tests! I feel like I do so many of them that I’m constantly waiting for some result or other. And I’m always anxious I’ll discover something truly terrible (hello anxiety!) However, learning about my microbiome would help me find a probiotic that works- and as someone who has had lots of antibiotics, I know this would be really beneficial to me– so I’m going to get this organised and I will blog my experiences!

3. Increase my Vitamin D levels

So last month my Vitamin D levels were low- so I need to get this sorted! I started taking a vitamin D spray by Better You but around the same time I was having stomach issues, so I stopped this. It’s a bit of a chicken and the egg situation- was the vitamin D impacting my gut or is supplementing vitamin D helping my gut get better? Either way, I need to reintroduce it and arrange to get retested in a few weeks. Read more about vitamin D and your gut here.

4. Reintroduce exercise (and get over my fear of it)

At the moment, walking my dogs is pretty much the only exercise I do. Yes, I know, pretty awful for a health blogger. I’m planning a separate blog post on exercise and IBD specifically later in the week-but exercise is incredibly good for your digestion and stress relief.

Yet, I’m also cautious to increase my efforts. Intense exercise like running makes me feel great but can cause diarrhea afterwards (this is because exercise triggers gut movement) and since my fistulatomy (yes, I know it’s been years, I need to get over it!) I’m careful of getting sweaty and irritating the wound. I appreciate this may well be in my head-but those of you have had fistulas know how horrible they are, and I’d do anything to avoid it coming back.

But I know I need to do exercise; so I’m going to try slowly ramping this up!

5. Stop over-supplementing

One of my problems is that when I’m feeling unwell, I automatically go into ‘ problem-solving’ mode and try to find a solution. Newsflash Jenna: if you had the solution, you’d be rich by now. I over-analyse massively (why do I feel unwell if I only ate x) and tend to throw things at it by starting different supplements. So one resolution is to have more patience with my flare-ups and scale back rather than charge forward. And also stop trying to play Sherlock with my bloody body. 

6. Eat a greater variety of foods (how much chicken can a girl eat?)

I feel at times it’s definitely easy to rely on the same foods time and time again-especially when it comes to protein. Obviously protein is really beneficial-especially for IBD but since I struggle with red meat, I  I feel like I’ve reached a rut with my meals and they pretty much revolve around chicken. So this year, I need to get my creativity back in the kitchen! I’m currently reading The Clever Gut Recipe Book. and I just purchased this Healthy Meal Planning Bundle ;which is full of healthy recipes. I’m going to try to make more of an effort to bulk cook so I’ve always got things to hand.

7. Make my own Sauerkraut

I keep reading how easy it is to make. Yet, I still continue to buy a jar for £5 and leave it in the fridge and forget about it. So, I am going to attempt to make it for myself this year!

So those are my gut resolutions for 2018! I have an MRI scheduled for 2018, so hopefully I’ll know more then about anything else I need to do in terms of medication; but I’m hoping these simple resolutions get me started on a happier and healthier 2018! What are your gut resolutions?