Happy Healthy Gut (17 page)

These are some things that water is needed for most:

• It aids digestion and prevents constipation
  
• It keeps your blood thin enough to flow through your blood vessels
  
• It
  helps to eliminate toxins
  
• Water regulates your body temperature by controlling perspiration
  
• It keeps mucous membranes moist, and lubricates joints
  
• It helps your bladder clear out bacteria
  
• It aids in maintaining the health and optimum function of every single cell in your body
  
• Water carries nutrients and oxygen to your cells
  ²⁰⁸
  

If you are chronically dehydrated, you inadvertently increase your risk of developing kidney stones, constipation, urinary tract infections, and certain cancers.
²⁰⁹
Also, chronic dehydration has been linked to obesity, dwindling mental and physical performance, and decreased salivary gland function. Not a great prognosis for something as easily solvable as throwing back a few glasses of water each and every day.

If you are wondering if you might be dehydrated, check yourself for the following symptoms: headaches, migraines, lethargy, weakness, irritability, dry or cracked lips, dark-colored urine, and thick or foamy saliva. These are all signs of a body that is crying out for some liquid gold, stat!

We all know that drinking water is good for us. So, why does it seem that it is so difficult for so many people? I am willing to bet that most people living in North America drink less than sixteen ounces of water a day. Our bodies are made up of 60–70% water, depending on our age and the body part. (Example: babies are composed of more water than adults, and adult brains have more water than other adult body parts.) Water helps us stay hydrated in order to eliminate toxins through our urine and perspiration. It helps us keep cool, and our digestive tracts run smoothly. It keeps our skin clear and our other organs happy; particularly the liver and kidneys, which do most of our detoxifying for us.

I cannot stress enough how important water is. My challenge to you is to record for a week how many eight ounce glasses
of water a day you drink. I’m not talking about juice, iced tea, coffee, alcohol, or pop. I’m talking straight-up water, or herbal tea (non-caffeinated). Hint: your daily total should reach around eight, and should be consumed at room temperature.

If you are one to pound back the coffee, soda, black or green tea, and/or alcohol and forgo water, then you would still be dehydrated, despite consuming a ton of beverages throughout the day. Between our obsessions with sun tanning and chronically dehydrating ourselves, we’re turning transforming ourselves into giant prunes. Ew!

If you feel you might benefit from some hardcore, cosmetic reasons to consume more water, then drink this up: regularly providing yourself with adequate amounts of water actually sends a signal to the body telling it that you are not in danger of dehydration, and that your body can afford to let go some of its extra fluid. Water retention is often to blame for puffy eyes and skin, particularly in the face, neck, hands, and feet. If you feel that your appearance could improve by losing some of this puffiness, then one of the easiest things you can do is to step up the water intake. It will flush out all of that fluid that your body has been holding onto, and the result will be a smoother, slimmer, more hydrated appearance. Drinking oodles of water also helps with acne and dry skin, since the skin is your largest organ, and water helps your organs to rehydrate and detoxify. Also, many doctors will agree that increased water intake helps to reduce the appearance of cellulite. Why pay for lipo? Go get your drink on! (Water, that is . . . )

The other sneaky substance that we should be aware of that greatly contributes to dehydration is salt. Salt is over-abundantly in
everything, from canned soups to frozen entrees. Commonly listed as sodium chloride or sodium benzoate, many consumers don’t realize that this ingredient is actually table salt. Try purchasing products that don’t have added salt, and that will lend a small hand in the hydration department. Also, if you are in the habit of adding salt to recipes, try sprinkling a little bit on
after
cooking your meal, not
while
cooking your meal. Research shows that even if you use salt in your cooking, you will probably still add more salt to it once the food is plated. Skip the salt in the middle, and just add it if you must at the end. Lastly, use sea salt instead of table salt, the latter of which is very refined.

On the digestion front, increasing your water intake could be the best thing you can do to help a lazy, temperamental bowel. If you have issues with constipation or hard stools, then a little extra water would definitely work wonders for you. In fact, drinking an eight ounce glass of warm water infused with a squeeze of lemon first thing upon waking is the very best way to stimulate your bowels and get an early start to your day. (Especially if you sprinkle some cayenne pepper in there.)

If you are suffering on the other end of the spectrum, and experience a lot of diarrhea, then water is equally important to rehydrate your body after the sudden loss of so much fluid. If this is the case for you, try adding a pinch of sea salt to the water, or try your hand at coconut water. It will replace lost electrolytes that your body desperately needs.

An important note on bottled water: although tap water may contain high levels of chlorine and other nasties, it is still strictly regulated. Bottled water is not. Bottled water often comes from municipal taps, and once it’s stored in packaging that contains harmful chemicals such as BPA (Bisphenol A) and PET (polyethylene terephthalate), the water becomes contaminated with those chemicals,
as well
as the original levels of chlorine. Bottled water is a little scary. Again, your best bet is to have a filtration device installed in your home for tap water.

Pause your reading of this book for a minute, and go drink a glass of water. (Hopefully filtered, so it has a good pH level . . . )

Question:
How many glasses of water do you drink in a day? If you don’t think you drink enough, what will you do to ensure proper hydration?

I have fibromyalgia. For those who don’t know what fibromyalgia is, it is a medical disorder that is characterized by chronic, widespread pain and allodynia, a heightened and painful response to pressure. The pain affects muscles, tendons and joints, as well as causes stiffness. Chronic fatigue, restless leg syndrome, and a long list of other symptoms make this disorder very uncomfortable to live with. It is also aggravated by noise, weather change and emotional stress.

My journey with this disorder began in 2006 when I was diagnosed. Over the space of six years my condition worsened, until at the beginning of 2012, when I was at the end of my tether with it. My pain had become unbearable most days. Sometimes I would shut myself in the bathroom, away from my husband and just sob, as I was finding it harder and harder to cope from day to day. Not being able to sleep properly at night was not helping, either. To add misery to the pain, I also found that certain foods I ate seemed to make it worse. Because of stiffness, it was becoming increasingly difficult to climb stairs or walk long distances, especially if the ground wasn’t flat. Travelling long distances in a car or on a plane was almost unbearable. The day to day chores became harder. By lunch time most days I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep.

On the first day of February 2012, I decided that I had nothing to lose by trying a total change in the way I eat. I went vegan . . . I didn’t try easing myself into it as I knew from past efforts to eat differently that it wouldn’t work for me. It was all or nothing. I also went gluten and wheat free, as both of these have proved countless times to makes my pain worse.

I have been on this new way of eating for almost ten months and I can only describe how I feel as a miracle.

After just one week of eating this way I started noticing changes in how I felt. Pain started to disappear, sleep patterns improved, and I had energy to burn. Now I find I can run up and down three flights of stairs to our condo, whereas just before I had started this eating plan, my husband had decided that we should move into a building that had an elevator or at least live at ground level. Travelling is no longer a nightmare. I can walk for miles, up and down hills.

I have no intention to ever eat meat or any animal by-products again. My diet is full of fresh fruit and vegetables, beans, legumes, nuts, lentils and whole grains. I also take a supplement to cover my B vitamins.

I am living proof that what we eat affects our health.

B
efore we get started with this chapter, here’s the deal: this book is not really about a diet, so let’s not focus on that particular word. When I hear the word
diet
I envision calorie counting, food weighing, and being hungry all the time. Well, that’s not how I roll!

This book is about changing your life, one lifestyle choice at a time. You need to ask yourself, “Am I willing to work at this? Do I want to ditch this poor digestive crap? Do I want to feel good, and maintain a good, healthy body weight? Do I want to sleep better, breathe deeper, and think more clearly?” If your answer is a resounding “Yes, please!”, then you are looking for a solid foundation of wellness: a full-on platform, which is where this book comes in. Why feel good, when you can feel awesome?

Not just about food, the decision to make a dramatic change in one’s health is about tapping into another world, one of being closer to the earth, closer to others, and above all, closer to yourself. It’s about finding the foods that feed your soul, not just your appetite. It’s about introducing practices into your daily routine
that strengthen you from the inside out, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. It’s pretty empowering! The following are some basic instructions to help you build your perfect happy-gut platform:

Don’t worry. I’m not suggesting that you try to calculate how much protein versus carbohydrates a food should contain, or how many calories you should be consuming on a daily basis. That’s the great thing about eating well; you don’t have to care about calories or carbohydrates. I’m not even suggesting that you begin deciphering the nutrition labels. I’m talking about actually reading the list of ingredients, observing how many there are, and noticing the ones you’ve never heard of before. Also, make sure to be on the look-out for a few specific ones. Here are some general rules to follow when choosing your food:

1. Don’t buy anything with a long list of ingredients. The fewer the better. Less ingredients means less processed. You’d be amazed at the difference in ingredients for the same type of food. For example, some yogurts on the market have about twenty-five ingredients in them; some have three. If you cannot live without yogurt, buy the brand that has three. (Liberté Organic Plain is one example.)
   
2. Don’t buy anything that has sugar listed in the first three ingredients. Remember that sugar comes in a plenitude of forms, with many, many different names. Try and memorize the list before shopping. Who am I kidding? Take the list with you! You will cut out an outstanding amount of sugar from your diet this way. Naturally occurring sugars, such as sugar that is found in fruit (fructose) is okay. (For example, homemade fruit leather is high in sugar, but it all comes from the fruit itself.)
   
3. Ingredients that are nutritionally unnecessary should be avoided. This includes any preservative, artificial flavor
   or color, gelatine, and sugar (especially high fructose corn syrup, which is extremely processed and more often than not, genetically modified).
   
4. Be wary about anything that you cannot pronounce. These ingredients are lab-created, and not food. As I have read many times in previous books on this topic, you should not have to have a chemistry degree to know what’s in your food.
   
5. Know that food manufacturers are sneaky. “Apple drink” sounds like apple juice, but it’s not. “Enriched flour” sounds like it could mean “whole grains,” but in fact is stripped of any nutrients whatsoever. Organic cane sugar might sound like a great health alternative, but it is still sugar. Remember that just because something has an earthy sounding name, does not mean it’s from the earth. A lot of these fancy names are from the lab; don’t judge a food by its cover!
   
6. Shop the perimeter of the grocery store. It’s actually better if you can buy a large percentage of your food from farmer’s markets, but if you’re at the grocery store, the best products are found on the outside edge of the building. The entire middle section is what I call the “processed pit,” and should be avoided if you can help it. (Except the health food aisle.) Your grocery cart should contain approximately 50% whole grains, nuts, seeds, and beans, 40% fruits and vegetables, and about 10% of your favorite less-processed foods, like dried fruit, organic soups, organic dark chocolate, olives, hummus, or yummy, crispy, grainy crackers. We’re only human; we need us some goodies!
   

“I don’t care about spots on my apples, leave me the birds and the bees . . . ”
²¹⁰

—Joni Mitchell

It took me years to fully understand the deal with organics. Even a couple of years ago, I was only half convinced. I didn’t like that the products were sometimes significantly more expensive (sometimes $1.99 per pound for apples versus $.99), and I didn’t understand what that difference meant to the health of my tummy, and to my family. Now I do.

Certified organic products contain no toxic chemicals, herbicides, pesticides, artificial colors or flavors, and certainly no antibiotics, growth hormones or genetically modified ingredients. They are more expensive because they are more difficult, and generally more expensive to produce. Because organic vegetable farmers do not use pesticides, they must keep little critters and hungry bugs away using different methods, which can be labour intensive and definitely requires more creativity in the prevention department. In other words, it’s way more difficult to grow organically than to grow conventionally. However, it is much better for the consumer, and for the environment. Chemicals used