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Posts Tagged ‘bloating’

Find a new favourite food

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

Avoiding foods that disagree with your gut can play an important role in fat loss.

Have you started your 3 weeks without wheat or dairy yet? To be able to carry out an elimination challenge diet without pain and suffering you need to stock up your kitchen with alternatives!

Preparation is the key to success with this diet.

But the good news is that there are a huge amount of alternative products on the market nowadays.

Wheat alternatives

Rye bread, rice, quinoa, brown rice, millet, corn, buckwheat pasta.

Wheat and gluten free pasta and bread.  Spelt is an ancient form of wheat and contains less gluten.  You might feel better with spelt but it’s probably best to avoid for 3 weeks.

Read labels carefully – sometimes buckwheat pasta or rye breads contain wheat.  You will be surprised at how many products contain wheat.

I love quinoa – I add it to soups to fill me up.

Dairy Alternatives

There are a lot of calcium alternatives to dairy.

Soy milk (Bon soy is the best brand), Oat milk, Rice milk, read labels carefully to check for hidden sugar and additives

Goat milk and sheep milk can be good for your gut, cows milk can cause problems.

Fresh Almond milk is easy to make at home.

Easy & yummy  fresh almond milk recipe

1 cup of almonds soaked over night (6-12 hours)

Wash almonds and and blend with 2 cups of water.  Blend on high speed for 1-2 minutes

Sieve through a muslin cloth or cheesecloth. Delicious!

Foods that cause bloating, gas and heaviness make impure energy (Damp) in Chinese medicine.

The digestive system does not like damp energy and fat is the accumulation of damp energy in Chinese medicine.

Avoiding these damp forming foods such as wheat, dairy or banana is something worth trying to see the effect on your body.  When you reintroduce the food in your system, you need to investigate how much is too much for your system.  Once a day? Or once in a 3 days?  Half size pasta is Ok? Or  can you cope with quarter of a pizza?

I keep out wheat and dairy at home to enjoy Italian restaurant with my friends or to eat sandwich at café if there is no other choice.

I am fine now. I have established good relationship with my dear wheat & dairy, and so I believe knowing what foods that suit your system plays a big role on sense of well-being as well as weight loss.  Foods you like not necessarily agree to your gut but there are a lot of other choices make you healthy and happy.  Please  take this opportunity to enjoy  new discovery of foods for your gut.

Food should give you energy and smile not trouble.

Ayano Izuta, Naturopath

☆If you need any help or support, want to ask questions, please do not hesitate to grab me at Marylebone Physio.

Posted by admin, 1st June, 2010

GUT INSTINCT

Friday, May 28th, 2010

What’s your Gut Instinct?

Some of the foods you may love actually don’t agree with your stomach.  If you have one or more of following symptom(s) such as

  • gas and/or bloating
  • heaviness
  • sleepiness
  • headaches
  • backaches
  • shoulder tension
  • low energy
  • lack of concentration
  • dark circle under the eye
  • water retention
  • generally feeling of  unwell

It  could be caused by the foods you regularly eat.  We call this food sensitivity or intolerance, the more technical name is IgG.  It is different from IgE which causes an allergic reaction with 24 hours of eating a food.

The IgG reaction occurs slowly within 72 hours and is not life threatening, but your immune system still needs to fight against it, causing symptoms listed above.

Protein from foods leak out of your gut, and your immune system kicks into action to attack this substance which is not harmful.  IgG reactions can be detected using a blood test, unfortunately it costs around £200.

I can help you use simple and effective techniques to find these foods that might be disagreeing with you.

The Elimination Challenge test.

Firstly, eliminate a food which you think is ‘suspicious’ from your diet completely for 2-3 weeks. Then reintroduce the food. When you eat it again pay attention to your body and see how you respond. Your body quickly reacts to what you reintroduce and you will be able to notice this reaction, if any, immediately.

Repeat the same process to another food group or type and see whether your symptoms improve or not.  If the food reintroduced causes you any of above symptoms, it is better to avoid a little longer and help heal your gut wall.

Unfortunately wheat and dairy are often the cause – try eliminating one of these at a time.

In my next blog post, I will tell you what alternatives you can eat while you are eliminating wheat and dairy.

In my personal case I have to eliminate dairy, egg, banana and garlic!!!! These ‘healthy and nutritios foods’ caused me bloating, gas, heaviness and pain. I was surprised – omelet is my favourite! At first I refused to believe this, but gave it a go to stop eating them. Now I feel so much better – no more bloating and discomfort. More energized I feel light and strong. So believe me I know how hward it is to give up something and break the habit, but unless you try you will never know.

This is the opportunity to discover new products in the market, communicate with your gut and create new eating habit, and of course, I am here to help your transformation!

Let’s not just eat for the sake of filling your stomach

Let’s eat to get energy, healthy and passion!

Posted by admin, 28th May, 2010

Supporting your digestive system

Monday, April 19th, 2010

As we all know Chris works all day every day and one Tuesday evening I thought he was in urgent need of some acupuncture!

In the picture below I began tonifying Chris’s digestive system and relaxing his nervous system after a long day of work. He had 5 needles in his tummy and 8 needles in his legs.  This created a blood supply to even the small capillaries in his abdominal area.

Ayano treating Chris with Moxa heat

The black stick I’m holding is smokeless moxa – this gently heats up the body’s points to move blood and Qi (energy) to his digestive system.

The digestive system needs 50% of our energy to work properly!

Breaking down the foods, get them all into liquid, absorbing nutrients and eliminating the waste products is a lot of hard work!

Do you think you are giving your digestive system a chance?

In the city life, we are chased by time, tasks, information, communications and responsibilities.

How many of us have such a luxury to sit and enjoy our foods with no disturbance?

How many of us are guilty of eating our lunch on the go? Or in front of the computer checking our emails?

As a result of this hectic lifestyle the blood supply and energy goes to your head and arms, rather than your stomach and intestines, foods take longer to be broken down, start fermenting in the stomach and create internal toxins.

Gas, bloating, tiredness, sleepiness and headache can strike soon after lunch and over the years our digestive systems can weaken and tire.

Start paying attention to your body’s marvellous work and support your stomach from the heart.  In Chinese medicine we make our energy from foods and fresh air. Without absorbing the nutrients from foods we cannot feel alive, stay young and stay healthy!

Create pure energy for yourself after a long and stressful day. If you’d be interested in a treatment for your digestive system then get in touch!

Ayano Izuta

Posted by admin, 19th April, 2010