Get "Good to Go" for Thanksgiving

Fiber can be a blessing for holiday digestion.

Thanksgiving’s just around the corner, and besides the joy of spending time with beloved family and friends, and expressing gratitude for our many blessings in life, there’s something else to look forward to…food, and lots of it!

Americans consume nearly 740 million pounds of turkey every Thanksgiving, and that’s on top of the plethora of other traditional (and generally carb-laden) side dishes and desserts. With so much food to enjoy, you can sometimes pay the price by being bloated for hours, and worse, backed up for days.

Ideally, food should remain in your system for only twelve to eighteen hours before your colon eliminates it as waste. But, the wrong kind of diet, especially the dishes so synonymous with the holidays, makes it difficult for the colon to do its job. When you eat large amounts of refined carbohydrates or sugar, its gluey, starchy residue binds with mucus to create a layer of hardened feces that builds up on your colon walls. In addition, consuming lots of heavy meat, turkey and dairy products can bury your colon under a load of putrefying protein.

Add this to all the toxins, medications, pollutants and heavy metals already in your system, and your colon can literally weigh you down. You may be carrying extra pounds in excess waste, which from the outside looks like tummy fat, but from the inside is dried, encrusted fecal matter. Adding insult to injury, this encrustation keeps you from getting the most out of the food you eat, preventing your body from fully absorbing and assimilating nutrients. Many people notice that when their colons are cleansed, they can eat a third to half the amount they used to before, yet feel even more satisfied, energized, and nourished.

Thank Goodness for Fiber

We all know that fiber helps to keep food moving swiftly through the GI tract. Fiber binds to belly-bloating yeasts, toxins, unexpelled wastes, and excess fluids. It helps to flush them out of the body like no other “non-nutrient.”

Just as helpful for maintaining a tiny waist, soluble fiber contained in the skins of fruits, root vegetables and seeds, functions as a prebiotic that nurtures the beneficial bacteria. Soluble fiber also provides a feeling of fullness that can help control your appetite.  As probiotics ferment fiber, they form short-chain fatty acids, among their many benefits. These natural substances can inhibit growth of Candida (the fungus among us that can pooch out the belly) and reduce bad bugs like E. coli while helping to heal the digestive tract. Best of all, short-chain fatty acids tamp down inflammation which can contribute to asthma, inflammatory bowel disease, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis and type 2 Diabetes.

Recommended Fiber Options:

Chia Seeds - many consider to be nature's perfect food!
Flax Seeds
Apple Pectin
Psyllium Husk Powder or whole Husk
Hemp Protein
Fiber Blends