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In this episode, I answer three podcast listener questions, namely:

• What can you do if you are diagnosed with Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis or psoriasis?
• How can you naturally strengthen your immune system with a healthy diet?
• How can you gain weight even though you cannot tolerate many foods

The answers to these questions have a certain similarity, because in all cases I recommend a gut-healthy diet and a gut-healthy lifestyle.

And yet there are aspects that can also be taken into consideration depending on the issue.

In general, keep calm, don't lose heart and get a second opinion

Question 1: What should I do if I get a diagnosis such as Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, psoriasis, etc.?

I have been asked this question several times, so I thought it was time to answer it now.

The 'good news' is that these diseases have something to do with the gut. The gut is our root, our center, our middle and most chronic diseases have something to do with the gut. This means that there are options that work relatively easily and relatively quickly. That's why my first tip with such a diagnosis is to stay calm and not panic. Put on (metaphorically speaking) the preview glasses and think to yourself 'Mmh, interesting. What is this trying to tell me? How could I approach this situation? Don't lose heart! Think positive thoughts.

Have the diagnosis explained to you. Make sure it has been clarified properly. If you have a strange feeling, I would recommend getting a second opinion and in any case it is important that you have a doctor you can trust. That would help to put your mind at ease again.

Make sure you eat a gut-friendly diet and lead a healthy lifestyle

Focus on your gut and ask yourself what you can do to benefit it. I have developed the Gut Happiness Formula, which I have also done a podcast episode about. This formula is about approaching the whole thing from three different angles. On the one hand from the mindset, from the way I think, from the subconscious, but also from my why and from my goals.

The next pillar is a gut-friendly diet and also taking probiotics, prebiotics - things like that. Anything I can do to benefit my gut. The third pillar of the whole concept is to look at your lifestyle. The topic of stress is very important, which has a direct connection to the gut. If you approach the issue from these three angles, you have a good chance of achieving a rapid improvement!

As I said, these are all complementary measures that you add to your medical therapy. Don't let anyone tell you that diet has nothing to do with your condition! From a gut perspective, I would always recommend that you support your body and your immune system by ensuring good gut health.

Why a comprehensive stool analysis, a "microbiome analysis" is so helpful

Another thing you can do is to consider a microbiome analysis. It's a stool analysis where you look at what your gut looks like in terms of good and bad bacteria, fungi, parasites and inflammation, whether there is evidence of a permeable gut and much more. I have also talked about this several times.

The advantage of a microbiome analysis is that if you have measured something, the motivation to implement it is much higher - if you can see in black and white what is wrong in the gut, you are more willing to do something.

The second advantage is that if you can see where the problem lies, it gives us clues as to where we should take another look at our diet. With regard to probiotics and prebiotics, it is easier to choose which products to use. I've only briefly touched on the topic of nutrition - I would recommend that if you have a chronic inflammatory or autoimmune disease, you read up on a gut-friendly diet.

Valuable tips for a gut-friendly & anti-inflammatory diet: avoid dairy and wheat products

You can find a few episodes in the podcast that talk about this. I can give you a few tips on what you can pay attention to immediately without having to search for information for a long time:

Basically, a gut-friendly and anti-inflammatory diet means eating natural foods and not industrially manufactured products. You should only eat three times a day and take a break of at least 4-5 hours between meals so that the intestines can recover during this time and digestion can function properly.

The third point of a gut-friendly diet is to avoid foods that promote sensitivity, and I definitely include sugar in this!

Buy fresh food that does not contain sugar. Yoghurt is often listed as containing sugar. This is lactose if it is natural yogurt. If you want to cleanse your gut, you should avoid sweetened yogurt. I would also avoid dairy products as a precaution the moment you get a diagnosis. Milk and wheat are the two main triggers that keep coming up when it comes to inflammation. That doesn't mean that you should never eat these foods again in your life!

In this case, it's about a fairly drastic illness and you should take it easy on your diet. Smoking and drinking alcohol should also be avoided. If you have an illness, it is not beneficial and it does not support your self-healing powers.

Reduce your fruit intake and eat warm and cooked food

I would also recommend that you eat warm and cooked food. It doesn't always have to be warm, but it's always good to eat a little raw food. Raw food is harder to digest. Eat soups, cooked vegetables, etc. instead.

I would recommend a little restraint with fruit, because some fruit contains a lot of sugar and many people eat more fruit than is beneficial. A maximum of 2-3 portions a day is enough and I would make sure that you don't eat extremely sugary types of fruit (bananas, dates, figs), but rather types that contain a lot of water and therefore less sugar. That's all the information you need so far.

If you put this into practice, you'll feel a whole lot better. If you want, you can see if you would like to take additional probiotics. If you need help or support, you are welcome to contact us. This podcast is called Darmglück, you get recipes, weekly plans, my support, my recommendations etc.

Just take a look at our Homepage an. If you actually have a condition like the one listed in the question, it will definitely help if you take your gut health into your own hands. Don't replace the doctor! It's a supplement.

How to boost your immune system with homemade probiotics

Question 2: How can I boost my immune system?

I said at the beginning of the episode that the immune system is closely linked to the gut. It is said that 80% of the immune system is located in the gut! What I answered in the first question is actually the answer to this question.

Another thing I can say is: if you want to strengthen your immune system, I can definitely recommend probiotics. Of course, there is also the option of making your own probiotics in the form of fermented foods.

This can be vegetables, for example - you can ferment carrots or cabbage (which turns into sauerkraut). You can make kombucha or kefir (you can also make kefir with water).

These are all things that we no longer have in today's modern diet. People used to eat a lot more fermented foods. Fermenting means preserving, for example by cutting carrots into small pieces, adding salt and kneading until water comes out - you put it all in a jar and let it ferment. This creates lactic acid bacteria and these bacteria are very important for our gut and therefore also for our immune system!

This is an option if you don't want to buy probiotics. But you can also buy fermented foods in the good, unpasteurized form. If you heat fermented pasteurized food, bacteria are killed and that's not the point. It actually takes 1-2 forks a day to provide the appropriate bacteria. I would recommend everything I said earlier. Above all, reduce sugar and also leave out industrially manufactured products, eat more cooked food, etc.

Get less ill through exercise, stress reduction, positive thoughts and a low-carb diet

Actually more or less the same as I said earlier - then you're definitely doing something good for your immune system! I always get this in the form of feedback from my customers who have changed their diet. Since I've been advising, I've given advice on low-carb (low carbohydrates, lots of vegetables, good proteins, good fats) and I've always received feedback that my clients get much less ill. If you want to do additional things now, you can really look into taking a probiotic or a prebiotic. That way you're doing something very good for your immune system with your diet. Of course, there are other things that have nothing to do with diet, such as exercise and sport, being outdoors a lot, reducing stress, thinking good thoughts, etc.

Why the sentence: "I'm not putting on weight anyway" is a fallacy

Question 3: How can I prevent myself from losing more weight? How can I manage to gain weight again?

Gaining weight is a little more difficult than losing it.

We are talking about healthy weight gain here! We're not talking about eating as unhealthily as possible in order to put on a kilo more. We don't want to gain fat, but above all body mass in the form of muscle.

I can't do that by I eat an unhealthy diet - on the contrary. It's usually the case that people who tend to be too thin can't absorb food properly and then sometimes have a tendency to eat a lot of sugar and convenience foods.

These things tend to lead to even more inflammation of the intestinal mucosa. This question is about food intolerances, among other things. And it's not uncommon for someone who is struggling so much to gain weight to suffer from intolerances - or for people to be hungry very often and constantly experience low energy and hypoglycaemia because they consume a relatively high amount of sugar.

How you can gain weight even though you can't tolerate many foods

They often eat sugar because they like it and think 'I won't gain weight anyway'. This is a fallacy. Just because someone doesn't put on weight, or just because someone isn't overweight, doesn't mean they can eat as much unhealthy food as they like. On the contrary: sugar always has a pro-inflammatory effect in excess, which means that the intestinal mucosa cannot recover.

It's actually more or less the same answer I gave to questions 1 and 2.

I would highly recommend considering or implementing a gut-healthy diet - as I explained in this episode. What you should be aware of when gaining weight and food intolerances is that this is very often an indication that the gut is permeable ("leaky gut") or that there is inflammation in the intestinal mucosa.

How you can gain weight and build muscle in a healthy way

What you can do is to have a microbiome analysis and then take appropriate measures by eliminating the things that promote a permeable gut (sugar, wheat, dairy products). It takes a bit of confidence that you're doing the right thing.

Imagine if you want to fill a bucket of water and you want more and more water in there; it can't work if the bucket has holes everywhere. It's the same with the intestines. If you want your body to build up mass, it has to get these components from somewhere. It takes the components from the food - but it can only absorb them if the intestine is able to absorb them.

If there are intolerances, this is an indication that something is wrong with the intestine. If you want to gain weight in a healthy way, there is no way around building up your intestinal mucosa and balancing your intestinal flora. For this, nutrition, as I have repeatedly described in this whole episode, is really the be-all and end-all.

What you can do is eat a little more fat to increase the calorie count a little. Good fats! (coconut oil, olive oil, ghee, nuts, avocado, etc.). And L-glutamine is helpful to keep the intestinal mucosa tight. This is an amino acid that you can find in bone broth. You can of course also buy a supplement (also made from plants). If you use bones, please pay attention to where they come from (organic farming? species-appropriate farming?).

But you can also buy bone broth. You are welcome to write to me if you would like a personal recommendation! That's one tip. The other tip is: if you want to build up (muscle) mass, strength training is essential. I was told that muscle building is only possible if you train at least 3 times a week. There are certainly different Approaches.

Know

your why and take time to change

I would recommend that you consult a specialist who can support you. There are ways to build muscle with relatively little effort, depending on the type of training. It should be something that you enjoy and where you don't have to overcome yourself every time.

I know, these are all things where you say 'I don't have time' or 'I don't feel like it'. At the end of the day, there's a reason you have the symptom that you have. There is also a reason why you want to get rid of the symptom. If you find out this reason and really give it space and go inside yourself and think 'What do I actually want in my life? Why do I want this problem to go away?" you will see that you are ready to take the necessary measures.

There is nothing more important than health in life! Most of the time we only realize it when it's not so good anymore. There is no effort that is not worthwhile for your own body. If you feel good, you can achieve anything in your life! Then you'll have the strength, energy and motivation to live your life the way you want to.

As I said, gaining weight is not that easy, but I would also focus on gut health and then you'll notice how something changes in a positive direction. Perhaps I should also say that gaining weight takes patience and often people who have to deal with their gut are not the most patient of people.

Take your time and give yourself space to make this change step by step and allow a period of at least 3-6 months to see how it works and whether you achieve initial success. You will find a way, it may just take a little time. Don't give up so early!

I hope I was able to answer the questions well. If not, feel free to get in touch with me!

Now I recommend you subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss an episode, and if you like what you hear, I'd really appreciate a review on iTunes or Apple Podcast. Because these reviews also help other people find the podcast so we can spread the knowledge about gut and health more.