Indigestion, poor energy, bloating, stubborn weight loss, skin problems, poor immunity, inconsistent bowel patterns, mental fog, low mood…sounds like a typical week, right?

Wrong. Just because many of these ailments are common, does NOT mean they are normal.

Our entire body suffers when our digestive system is not operating as designed, and it can be extremely difficult to optimize gastrointestinal (GI) well-being if you don’t have a comprehensive plan for doing so. A good GI health protocol should help you set a strong foundation for the three main areas of the GI tract: digestion and absorption of nutrients, gut barrier integrity, and bacterial biodiversity. A good protocol should also make use of a smart nutrition strategy, a targeted supplement approach and specific lifestyle adjustments to promote better gut health.

Because we coach so many individuals with signs and symptoms of disrupted gut health, we developed a program and supplement system designed to support your efforts to reset your digestive health. The GUT.FIX℠ program is a month-long program that integrates our top 3 recommended supplements for restoring digestive integrity and gut health.   

Article ShortcutsDigestive EnzymesL-GlutamineProbioticsBonus: GABA & 5-HTPNeed a Gut Fix?

Here are the reasons why these specific supplements made it into our GUT.FIX protocol.

Digestive Enzymes

Enzymes are biological molecules that speed up or facilitate thousands of chemical reactions within the body. There’s an entire class of enzymes our bodies make that are responsible for breaking down our food into the smallest possible components (proteins --> amino acids, carbohydrates --> glucose, fatty acids --> free fatty acids) and freeing up vitamins and minerals for absorption. Without sufficient enzyme activity, the food we eat literally cannot nourish us.

It’s been observed that as we age, our natural production of digestive enzymes declines rather significantly, which can seriously alter how your body breaks down food and absorbs nutrients. What’s causing these declines? Many believe that chronic stress, over-the-counter and prescription medications, and poor eating habits all may contribute to diminished digestive capacity as we age.

I’ve worked with many clients who make excellent quality food choices, but still suffer from digestive distress, whether it’s gas, bloating, indigestion, or belching. Other clients seem to be completely free of these upper GI ailments but suffer from abnormal or inconsistent bowel patterns. Sometimes they suffer from alternating constipation or diarrhea, urgency, or if they dare to admit…undigested food particles in their stools.

As graphic as this sounds, if someone’s poop isn’t a “3” or

“4” on the Bristol Stool Scale,

there’s something about their digestion that could/should/needs to be addressed.

 

The easiest strategy to implement for any of these cases is to introduce supplemental digestive enzymes at any and all meals (since it seems so many people neglect to chew their food well enough to facilitate proper breakdown and absorption of nutrients). Digestive enzyme supplementation for digestive disorders is well-documented and widely accepted by health practitioners and it can offer some surprisingly quick relief for many of the aforementioned instances.

Supplemental digestive enzymes are a relatively low-risk

strategy to help improve the digestive capacity of your gastrointestinal system

because they are literally just exogenous (external) sources of the enzymes your

body should be manufacturing already.

The thing is,