Summer Holiday Gut Health

It’s the time of year when we all start to look forward to a much needed summer holiday, but for many, our longed-for vacation can turn into a health nightmare that ruins the break. The change in diet, routine, time zone, and even just the flight can adversely affect the gut and digestion, resulting in constipation, or the other extreme, diarrhoea, quite often as a result of stress.

It doesn’t have to be that way! Just making some simple choices can make the difference between a holiday you never want to forget…and one you really do. Award-winning nutritionist, Lucy Williamson specialises in gut health and has provided some tips for staying gut happy, as well as resisting unwanted bugs, feeling energised and glowing… so you can have the break you need to thoroughly restore and refresh, both physically and mentally.

Can I help my gut before we have even left home? A resounding yes!

Address your stress: It can play havoc with our digestion, not least when we’re busy preparing to go away on holiday. Have you heard of the term ‘Rest and Digest’? This is a very real need by our body: carrying tension creates a poor digestive environment. Compare this to a wonderfully calm gut. Our relaxing vagus nerve, part of our vital gut-brain axis, has nerve endings all along our gut wall and if we give it a chance to work well with simple daily relaxation techniques, our gut health and digestion will thank us for it. Simply enjoying a 10-minute breathing meditation or listening to music can be enough to break the stress cycle each and every day.

Gut health: Eating a bigger variety of plants (this includes spices and herbs as well as fruit and vegetables, beans and pulses, like lovely lentils and chickpeas, nuts, seeds and grains) is the single, best thing we can do to nurture our gut health. Why is this worthwhile? Most of our immune system sits within our gut wall so looking after our billions of beneficial gut microbes really helps to build our resistance to those holiday bugs.

Getting into good habits: Problems getting to sleep? Avoid eating anything after 7.30pm (herbal teas and water are fine though) and try a simple box breathing exercise when you get into bed. Once you’re away, keeping going with these habits of ‘self-love’ can be really helpful. Sleep is a vital part of your gut health.

Eating to feel holiday-ready

Skin: It feels good to glow! Our body has a very natural detox system to clear everyday toxins that build up. Eating to nurture our gut health really helps; a great rule of thumb is the 3Ps – 1. Probiotic 2. Prebiotic and 3. Polyphenols

In other words:

• Fermented food little and often (food with live cultures like kefir, yogurt, kombucha and sauerkraut).
• A wide variety of plants (see above).
• Antioxidants in all colourful fruit and veg like berries, beetroot and sweet potatoes are rocket fuel for our good gut microbes. Plant oils are a fabulous way to get skin[1]boosting Vitamin E too – enjoy olive oil on your salads or use cold-pressed rapeseed oil for roasting.

Weight control: we all enjoy feeling our best before we jet off; try this simple advice for a few weeks before you leave:

• Avoid very processed foods which will be higher in additives, sugar, energy and less healthy fats, all of which tend to drive weight gain. Sweeteners (yes, sweeteners!) can be a real enemy to our waistline because they actually trick our body into absorbing more sugar from the food that follows.
• Always choose the more natural version of a food – for example, whole yoghurt is far more filling than fat-free so you’re less likely to snack between meals.
• Swap energy-rich carbs like pasta, rice, potatoes and bread for their high-fibre equivalents – try buckwheat, quinoa and sourdough for gut healthy alternatives.