Your Digestive Health – What is your body doing with the foods you eat?

I just returned from a week long visit with family. I got to spend some time with my brother who is only 1 year older than me.  My brother works hard running his business and has a wife and two children and doesn’t really take time for himself.  Although my brother is not overweight or obese, he complained that he’s starting to develop a “gut”.  He also told me that he pops TUMS like they’re candy from having heartburn and indigestition, and his energy levels are low.

The first thing I told my brother is that he needs to stop using over the counter Anti-acids as they will do more harm than good for his digestive system and immediately asked him what his diet was like.  Turns out my brother’s diet consists of simple carbohydrates from mostly white flour products and was lacking in many of the nutrients his body needs.  His main diet staples are, takeout/fast food, pizza, bagels, pasta, break and cereal.  Apples, berries, oats, brown rice, greens, healthy fats from nuts and fish, good sources of lean proteins were absent from his diet.  It was no wonder my brother was having digestive issues and lacking energy.

I realized that my brother was like most people who didn’t know what a simple carbohydrate was from a complex carbohydrate and didn’t really put much thought into what he was feeding his body with.  It’s not what you eat, it’s what your body does with the foods you eat.

All this white flour my brother was consuming was causing the yeast in these products to produce gas and bloating, indigestion..  Hence, acid reflux.

I then asked my brother if he was taking a multi-vitamin, to which his answer was no.  With that, I told my brother to put down the anti-acids and introduced him to digestive enzymes, probiotics and whole food vitamins. 

Digestive Enzymes

Digestive enzymes are naturally produced within your body. But sadly, there are far too many people whose enzyme stores become depleted for one reason or another. Then you can't digest your food optimally. The cycle of occasional bloating, indigestion, and other minor digestive issues begins.

To help introduce my brother to the world of natural health, I referred him to someone I reference a lot in my articles and research, Dr. Joseph Mercola.  I sat with him at his computer and showed him Dr. Mercola’s article on Digestive Enzymes to give him a better understanding of how his diet was affecting his digestive system. In the article, Dr. Mercola gives a quick quiz of symptoms and my brother answered yes to all.  

Check out the article about Dr. Mercola’s article about digestive enzymes and yes, I use them and have found them to be very beneficial for my high protein diet.  Benefits of Digesive Enzymes 

Whole Food Vitamin Supplements

I also recommended for my brother what I use and what I recommend for all my clients, a good quality Whole Food Multivitamin which will help him get the nutrients his body has been missing and help provide him with the energy he’s been lacking.

A Whole Food vitamin is very different from the synthetic vitamins you see in the stores.  Whole-food vitamin supplements are what their name suggests: Supplements made from concentrated whole foods.  Whole-food supplements supply our bodies with nutrients we are not getting from our diets—all the vitamins, minerals, trace minerals and phytonutrients that foods possess in a way that nature intended—in a whole-food form. 

These whole-food vitamins contain the synergists—cofactors—that exist within the whole-food complex. Without which, the body continues to be starved of micronutrients needed for healing, repair and prevention of illness.  Vitamin supplements (which are only PARTS of foods) contain only vitamins, leaving out these natural, life-supporting nutrients.

Basically, your body more easily absorbs whole-food vitamins and supplements over synthetic.  Whole-food supplements offer a concentrated source of nutrition, which includes vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids, phytonutrients and enzymes to aid digestion and the list goes on and on. Whole-food supplements, in my opinion, are clearly the superior choice for supplemental nutrition.

Again, I referred my brother to Dr. Mercola’s site about Whole Food Vitamin Supplements for more information.  Here is the article about Whole Food Vitamin Supplements I referred my brother to. What are Whole Food Multivitamins and Minerals

After educating my brother about his diet, how it’s been affecting his health, helping him order the products I take and recommend from Dr. Mercola, he asked if I can do a supermarket tour with him so he would know exactly what foods he needed to buy in order to get on the right track.  Aahhh… nothing like some quality, Brother-Sister bonding all in the name of good health.

By the way, I checked in with my brother and he said he's starting to feel better :)

Click here to check out Dr. Mercola's Products. 

(note: the above links are sponsored links however, I do use these products, trust them and recommend them)


(disclaimer: Please note that I am not a doctor and not prescribing anything.  This is for informational purposes only.  You should always speak to a doctor to rule out any serious medical issues)