What does your stomach have to do with your skin? You may have heard about gut health and how important it is but still don’t really see the point. After all, you might not have digestive issues or stomach aches – what you really care about is your skin.
It might surprise you then that food intolerances are a big cause of acne and skin health. The root cause of food intolerances are digestive imbalances (mostly in your Gastro-Intestinal Tract aka GUT), toxins, and stress. Removing food intolerances from your diet is a great first step to healthy skin, but healing your gut will allow you to achieve long-term skin health. This can also prevent you from developing food intolerances in the future, support your skin, and the health of your whole body in the long run.
Here are 5 top ways to improve your gut health, help to heal your food intolerances, and get clearer skin.
Take A Probiotic And Eat Probiotic Rich Foods
There are 2 different kinds of probiotics: native and transient. Native flora are probiotics that reside in the gut while transient probiotics enter the gut through probiotic-rich foods and also help to shape the terrain of the microbiome.
In general, lactobacillus and bifido bacteria are examples of transient flora that you can find in yogurt, sauerkraut, kimchi, coconut kefir and other fermented foods. Native probiotics are similar to the microbes found in healthy soil. Research shows that our gut contains the same probiotics as the earth! We truly are what we eat. In light of this, it’s important to source local organic produce that still contains healthy soil residues to improve your own gut flora. You can also purchase soil-based probiotics like TerraFlora and MegaSporeBiotic.
Cut Out Sugar And Processed Food
This step sounds simple, yet it can honestly be the most challenging part of healing the gut and your skin. Our society is known for eating a “SAD” diet (Standard American Diet) which is full of sugar, toxic oils, and refined flour. Health is often not encouraged or made easy/convenient in western cultures. In order to reduce our intake of sugar, my clients and I have found it helpful to avoid dishes with sugar unless they’re made from scratch. If I choose to make something sweet I’ll use high-quality ingredients and no refined sugar. Instead I will use raw local honey, 100% maple syrup or fruit to sweeten my treats…..Read more
