Gut Microbiome, Fasting & Your Cravings

Did you know the bacteria in our gut contribute to the production of vitamins in the body?  Gut bacteria can make you sick or healthy depending on which bacteria are present and in what amounts!  Your gut bacteria can influence your brain function & your mood in significant ways!  During fasting some of those bacteria die and some survive feeding on intestinal mucus and cell debris, particularly 24-hour fasts are what help your good bacteria flourish and bad bacteria die.  Now, it’s extremely important that you work up to fasting for 24 hours before you jump into that endeavor.  If you’re not used to fasting, you can begin by pushing back your breakfast for a few hours, once you’re comfortable going 13 hours, 16 hours and up to 18 hours of fasting, then is the appropriate time to add in a 24-hr fast.  An example for 24 hour fasting would be eating lunch one day and then not eating again until lunch the next day, but making sure you’re making it to the 24-hr mark for full benefit.  And those benefits are amazing!  Your cravings for carbs and sugar can actually change based on your good bacteria beginning to flourish and any leaky-gut that’s present beginning to heal.  How your break your fast is incredibly important, though!  You want to feed your body a high quality bone broth first, then a good high-quality probiotic-rich food, then good fat…long before you ever reintroduce meat.  Here’s my go-to:  drink a cup of grass-fed beef broth (or free range chicken broth) with sea salt and some butter, then eat a serving of organic sauerkraut, then have some lightly steamed veggies and a fresh avocado sliced with garlic sea salt on top.  Once you’ve eaten those healing foods as your first meal, then you can slowly begin to add regular foods back in…being super careful to avoid processed foods, processed sugar, sugary drinks, and toxic oils (like vegetable, canola, safflower, etc) stick with high quality olive oil or avocado oils.  I believe so strongly in the power of fasting even intermittently every week (anywhere from 13-24 hours)  For tons of information on fasting & health check out Dr. Mindy Pelz on YouTube and particularly for females, I highly recommend her book, “Fast Like a Girl.”