Week 7 – Clearing skin with friendly gut bacteria

Skin and gut health are so closely related, that without healthy digestion, it is unlikely your skin will be at its best. Whether your digestion is just sluggish, or causing you serious discomfort, there’s often room for improvement.

Is it IBS?

We’re often told that persistent bloating, stabbing cramps and diarrhoea or constipation are something we simply need to put up with, or these collection of symptoms are often labelled as IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). 

IBS is not actually a condition, it is a term given to mysterious gut related symptoms, with no known cause. The reality is, up to 90% of these IBS cases can be quite easily solved with diet and supplements. 

What’s the cause of bloating?

While digestive enzymes, gut lining integrity and sensitivities to food all play a role in gut health, one of the main culprits to bloating, cramps and constipation / diarrhoea is an imbalance in gut bacteria. For some individuals this may mean a bacterial, yeast or parasite infection taking over the gut lining. For others, it may be as simple as low levels of healthy gut bacteria and a slow gut transit time.

What’s the ideal gut transit time?

Gut transit time is the time it takes from eating a meal, to having a bowel movement. A healthy gut transit time is considered to be around 12-48 hours, any shorter than this is likely to be due to an allergy to a food or an infection which would cause water to be quickly absorbed into the gut to flush out the offending food / infection, often causing diarrhoa.

 In contrast to this, a long gut transit time, longer than 48 hours would suggest either low levels of healthy bacteria, low fibre intake, or both.

A regular intake of fibre is key for regulating your bowel movements. Too much can speed up the process a bit too fast (e.g. too much dried fruit!) and too little can leave you with hard to pass pellet type stools.

How many times should you be going each day? 

Most people only have a bowel movement once a day (and some people even less), but 2-3 times a day is considered much healthier. 

While the recommended intake of fibre is 30g per day, most of us only reach just over half this amount.

If you think your intake may be low, try tracking your fibre intake on the ‘MyFitnessPal’ app.

High fibre foods:

  • Lentils
  • Beans
  • Chia seeds
  • Flax seeds
  • Vegetables (especially peas and other green veg)
  • Fruit
  • Dried fruit (dates, dried apricots, prunes)
  • Oats
  • Brown rice
  • Quinoa

Challenge 13

Challenge 13 – Prepare big glass jars with at least 3 of your favourite high fibre foods

  • Have high fibre foods in clear view in your kitchen to remind you to eat them
  • e.g. brown rice, chia seeds, nuts, dried fruits, oats
  • Have high fibre foods at least twice a day

ADVANCED Challenge 13: Measure your gut transit time with ‘The Sweetcorn and Beetroot Test’

  • Eat 5 tbsp sweetcorn and approx 100g beetroot (cooked, raw, or pickled)
  • Eat with or without a meal and note down the time
  • Expect a purple stool with sweetcorn, usually 12-48 hours after (ideally 24 hours)
  • To shorten transit time, increase fibre intake and prebiotic foods
  • (NOTE – urine may turn purple / red which may pass through a few hours after eating the beetroot)

Foods high in prebiotics:

Prebiotics are the food for healthy bacteria (probiotics). Prebiotics are types of dietary fibre found in specific foods, which are very healthy for your digestion due to their ability to feed your healthy bacteria to ensure healthy levels.

  • Onions
  • Leeks
  • Bananas
  • Chicory (by far the highest source – best cooked in coconut oil and garlic!)
  • Artichoke
  • Shallots
  • Spring onions
  • Asparagus
  • Oats

How does bacteria affect my digestion?

While water, fibre and other food matter makes up about ⅔ of your stool, the remaining ⅓ is bacteria! Bacteria not only helps to bulk up your stools, keeping your bowel movements more consistent, but the type of bacteria also impacts how well you break down your food and how healthy your gut lining is. 

A healthy level of beneficial bacteria (probiotics) also helps to protect the gut against bacterial infections, keeping the immune system strong.

Fermented drinks such as kombucha and kefir are one of the best ways to get huge amounts of healthy bacteria (and yeast too) into your gut on a regular basis.

Challenge 14

Challenge 14: Eat live foods or supplements containing healthy bacteria every day

  • Eat live probiotic yoghurt (sugar free)
  • Buy a fermented drink e.g. kefir or kombucha
  • Try sauerkraut (fermented cabbage)
  • Or simply take a probiotic supplement containing at least 10 billion bacteria

ADVANCED challenge 14: Ferment your own batch of kombucha or kefir 

  • Kombucha is fermented tea
  • Kefir is fermented cow’s milk
  • You will need to buy a ‘scoby’ or ‘kefir grains’ online to start the fermentation

How to make Kombucha (<< click here for instructions)

NOTE – for most people, fermented drinks really help to calm inflammation, but it is worth considering that they may not be suitable for you. Some individuals that have a sensitivity to histamine (most common with rosacea and eczema) may instead have a worsening of skin symptoms. It may be worth trying a shop bought fermented drink first before making your own big batch to test if your skin is ok with this. We are all so individual so it’s worth trying things out to see what works!