Be a boss of your GUT

Be a boss of your GUT

If you’re a living being, you need food. PERIOD!!! Why’s that? Let’s dive into your gut and see how you can be the boss of it in the perspective of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and of course, be able to enjoy food that everyone needs and loves.

Traditional Chinese Medicine and your gut

In TCM, the spleen and stomach take care of the gut health. Therefore, how you treat them will then reflect on how you feel in general. Whatever food you eat, the stomach takes care of differentiating what’s good and what’s bad, in terms of useful and useless component.

The good component will then be transported to the spleen. The spleen will then transform these goodies into nutrients, Qi (energy), blood as well as body fluids according to the needs of the body. The bad component will then be flushed out of the body via excretion.

See how the spleen and stomach works hand in hand together in terms of transport and transformation? If any of these two organs, of course in the TCM perspective, aren’t happy, you’re not going to be feeling happy either.

Symptoms you’ll probably experience would be, diarrhoea or constipation, flatulence, bloating, insomnia, etc. These all depends on the nature of the symptoms which will form a clinical diagnosis. Once we have a clinical diagnosis we can help you achieve balance and guide you to which foods are best for you.

Emotions and your gut

The Qi of the spleen and stomach is closely linked to one’s mood, worry. So, the more worried you are, the more prone you are in impacting your gut health. Notice how you tend to get diarrhoea, bloating, or even the loss of appetite when you’re stressed and worried? This signifies that there’s an imbalance of digestive Qi.

This is also why so many people out there struggling with weight loss or even weight gain, are not seeing results after trying so hard. Being depressed and worried, somewhat puts the body at the state of confusion to what to and what not to transport and transform. The body and brain can't do 2 priorities at once, if you are stressed this will be first priority and digestion will become second.

Therefore, rather than focusing on the scale or anything that is worrying you, try to enjoy being joyful and embrace the process and you’ll then yield the desired result in no time. Here is a tip that I have been giving to my patients: -

“Do not compromise your enjoyment of food; instead of cutting meals, increase meal counts and decrease the intake amount of each. This will then give you the joy of eating whilst having your digestive system working on optimal, which then increases your metabolism. Win-win.”

Flavours and your gut

Now, what kind of food would sit well with your gut? Before I move further, all flavours are good when used in moderation. Well, that’s what TCM is about anyway.

Lifestyle and your gut

We are all born to move. Imagine the excitement, seeing babies taking their first step. Therefore, it is important to be on the move. Exercising and sports are very much recommended when it comes to taking care of your gut health. This is vital for engaging your metabolism.

It can also be a good outlet to tackle negative emotions as well as getting good health in general. There you go, two birds with one stone. Why not?

There’s always the two side of things. Remember how I’ve mentioned about moderation? To overcome “excessive moving” one shall rest. And here is why it is important to have adequate sleep for your spleen and stomach to catch a break and re-energise after a whole day of attending to your energy needs.

Furthermore, be mindful of the food you eat and when you eat. The spleen favours dryness, hence, it is important to not introduce too much dampness into the body. This is going to sound odd, but cold and raw food are those that creates dampness in the body. So, be wary when you are about to consume the cold yoghurts, raw sashimi, cold water etc. And again, moderation is key. Instead, cooked food is much more recommended. Also, try not to eat close to bedtime, you wouldn’t want to stress your spleen and stomach while you’re sleeping. Our digestion starts to slow down after 3pm. So help reduce the pressure on your gut for a better sleep at night.

Key take away

1. Stay happy and joyful, embrace life as it is. Life is beautiful.
2. Eat more frequently and in moderation, treat your palate with tender love and care. Enjoy your food and eat slowly.
3. Find a balance between movement you enjoy and rest, listen to your body.

I’m here to help you achieve your goal. Feel free to reach out on 038383 6500 with any queries with regards to your gut health. Your holistic health matters to me!

If you would like to self assess your current gut health, why not fill out a Self-Check Questionnaire and see where you are at!

If you are interested, simply opt in below and we will send you a Questionnaire right away.