37 Ways To Heal Your Leaky Gut

goodbyeleakygut.com/heal-leaky-gut-syndrome

Last Updated: July 15, 2019 | Download my Leaky Gut Recovery Guide

The #1 thing I hear people with leaky gut ask for, is an all-in-one list of simple ways they can heal their gut fast.

And I get it. After all, when I suffered from leaky gut I found myself drowning in a sea of 100s of different research
papers, reports and books.

Jumping from one report to the next was time consuming and trying to tie it all together took months.

Well, that’s why I created this list of the best ideas for leaky gut.

It will save you 100s of hours of research and most of all, get you taking real action today. I’m excited you’ve found it
and I hope you love it.

My best ideas for leaky gut syndrome

I cover a lot of ideas below (37 in fact).

And I know life is busy. So I don’t expect you to read through the full list right now or start implementing all the
ideas today.

So here are my 2 big tips to save you time:

1. The ideas below are listed in order from most important to least. So focusing on the top 10 to start with is
probably the way to go.
2. I wrote a great summary of this post with my very best ideas and you can download the summary ebook here

Jump to your favorite idea

1) Stop eating wheat / gluten – this is the #1 way to cure your leaky gut

2) Do a 48-72 hour bone broth fast this weekend

3) Avoid ALL grains and legumes for the next month

4) Megadose L-Glutamine for 8 days and then maintain at 10g a day

5) Ditch all sugars & dairy – except for some gut-friendly dairy

6) Take 1-2 broad-spectrum digestive enzyme supplements with every meal

7) Eat my clean leaky gut diet of vegetables, fish, meats, nuts & good fats

8) Sleep 8-9 hours every night no matter what

9) Abstain from all alcohol for 30 days and say goodbye to beer forever

10) Take a probiotic supplement daily

11) Speak to your doctor about NSAIDs, antibiotics, antacids & other drugs

12) If you have candida overgrowth, focus on this first

13) Channel your inner Dalai Lama and cut work stress out of your life

14) Replace your morning cup o Joe with some herbal teas

15) Pay the premium and eat organic veg, grass-fed meats and wild caught fish

16) Do breathing exercises before and after each meal

17) Specialize in cooking just 7 simple paleo-ish meals when starting out

18) Chew each bite of food 20 times, like Gandhi

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19) Get your German-Korean freak on and feast on fermented vegetables

20) Throw out all the processed vegetable oils in your cupboard

21) If bored, only eat the tastiest gut-friendly meals

22) Ignore the conventional advice and devour coconut products

23) Cut all the borderline foods from your diet, especially if you have AI issues

24) Eat prebiotic foods 2 weeks after starting your leaky gut healing protocol

25) Consider tests for your microbiome, food intolerances, parasites etc

26) If a functional doctor diagnoses, fight conditions related to leaky gut

27) Try a green powder drink daily

28) Consider eating smaller meals and matching food groups better

29) Avoid eating foods that are processed or filled with preservatives

30) Look into other supplements like zinc, licorice root & slippery elm

31) Pop a high quality multivitamin every day, if needed

32) Add high quality fish oil & vitamin D to your daily supplement regimen

33) Avoid excessive cardio or heavy weight lifting – leave that for Arny!

34) Use a BRITA jug or other filtering device for your water

35) Consider these other ways to eliminate toxins from your life

36) After 12 weeks, reintroduce foods to see what your gut likes and doesn’t

37) Develop a long term eating plan & lifestyle to keep leaky gut away

1) Stop eating wheat / gluten – this is the #1 way to cure your leaky gut
For those of us with leaky gut syndrome, wheat (along with rye and barley) is public enemy number one! Nothing compares. And that’s because these 3 types of grains
contain gluten.

Gluten is hard to digest, pierces holes in our gut lining and thanks to gliadin it raises levels of the hormone zonulin, thereby increasing the size of the openings of our
tight junctions.

Before you say “Woah, woah, slowdown egg head”, I will explain that our ‘tight junctions’, are kind of like the gatekeepers of the openings in our gut lining.

Think of them like the Night’s Watch in Game of Thrones.

And when we add those 3 actions above together, we can start to see just how gluten can make your gut more permeable or ‘leaky’ – i.e. letting more things through.

Which in turn means more toxins have the potential to slip through your gut lining and into your bloodstream, thus causing inflammation and a raised immune response.

So even though I used to love spending my Sunday evenings gorging on a large Margarita pizza followed up by a series of different colored donuts, these days I would
rather eat the cardboard box the pizza comes in!

I’m pretty sure my gut would digest it better.

Here’s a chart of the most popular foods that contain wheat:

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You’ll hopefully join me in a moment of sadness as we see some of the all time tastiest foods included above, like bread, cereal, pasta, pizza, cookies, crackers, cakes,
muffins, beer etc.

(Aka what I thought the entire food pyramid consisted of during college).

If you are Celiac or otherwise significantly gluten intolerant (which could be up to 30% of the population), you should look out for wheat-derivative products like
couscous, durum, semolina etc and products containing trace amounts of gluten especially hidden as fillers, eg sauces, soups etc.

Dr Perlmutter has an extensive list of foods that contain gluten, including in small amounts.

I don’t want to sound like some kind of crazy new age hippy, but here’s my sincere advice…

Unlike a lot of the other ideas in this article, I genuinely believe this should be a permanent lifestyle change.

For example, whilst alcohol is something your gut can most likely take in moderation when you’re back to good health, I really don’t think gluten is for most of us.

Of course, everyone is different and you will find out pretty soon if you reintroduce it into your diet after 30-90 days.

I will note that currently I do consume some gluten. But it is usually as trace/small amounts. For example, if I eat some oats for breakfast that are not certified gluten
free.

P.S. if you find it hard to ditch these types of foods completely, fear not. As there are some fantastic recipes to make a lot of these foods gut-friendly.

For example, checkout my gut-friendly, gluten-free pancakes recipe. Foodgasm incoming!

2) Do a 48-72 hour bone broth fast this weekend

Whenever people email in asking “What’s the fastest way to heal my leaky gut?”, I always have one go-to answer.

Fast. For 2-3 days. Drink only bone broth. And bon appetite!

It’s not the answer people want me to give. Everyone after all wants an easy fix. And let’s be honest…fasting is not fun. Whilst for many, the sound of ‘bone broth’ is
even less appetizing.

But guess what?

Your gut will love it! Not only will the fast give your digestive system a much needed break, it will also ensure no more big food particles are making their way through
your leaky gut and into your bloodstream.
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That means inflammation can cool down and your immune system will also get a chance to regroup.

But the real benefit comes from the broth itself. You see, as long as you cook a nice beef bone based broth, you’ll enjoy a big serving of collagen, proline and glycine.
And these 3 work great together to mend the damaged cell walls of your gut.

So this weekend here’s what I recommend you do…

1. Buy 2 pounds of grass fed beef bones, including some with meat/fat/marrow. Plus some ‘stock vegetables’, eg carrots, onions, garlic.
2. Brown the bones off in a pot. Add the rinsed vegetables. Cover with water. Add salt, pepper and 3-4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar. Bring to the boil. Let
simmer for the 4-8 hours.
3. Then consume a cup of it every couple of hours over the next 2-3 days.

I typically only fast for 48 hours. It is more than enough time to get all the benefits of the fast itself and the servings of broth.

Let me just wrap up by saying, please speak to your doctor before undertaking any fast or any other leaky gut syndrome treatment in general.

3) Avoid ALL grains and legumes for the next month

Life without any grains or legumes whatsoever can be tough. Whenever you plan a meal that is just meat/fish and vegetables it feels like something is missing.

But if you’re suffering from leaky gut and are really motivated to repair it fast, then leaving grains and legumes off the table, at least temporarily, is a no brainer.
Especially GMO grains, which by design are the highest in anti-nutrients like lectins.

Now, I will say, most grains & legumes don’t irritate the gut lining and create all kinds of havoc quite like those with gluten (thanks gliadin!), but they are still loaded
with anti-nutrients like lectins and phytates, which your digestive system simply can’t handle when it is in already poor shape.

Here’s a list of the most popular grains and legumes you need to temporarily cut (on top of wheat/rye/barley per above):

Rice (white & brown), oats, corn AND beans, lentils, peas, peanuts, respectively.

Make sure you avoid all the derivative products too, eg soy sauce (beans), eg hummus (peas) etc.

Then in 30 days time you can consider adding them back in and seeing how you respond. My advice would be to add these back one at a time so you can see how you
react to each specific type of grain or legume.

Here’s how to make this happen…

1. During the 30 days without all grains and legumes, you should consider eating some quality starchy vegetables like sweet potato. These do a great job of giving
you that content feeling you would normally get from eating grains and legumes.
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 2. Then over the long term, if you decide to add them back in, just make sure you only eat fermented/sprouted grains and soaked legumes.

4) Megadose L-Glutamine for 8 days and then maintain at 10g a day

Just like protein powder feeds your muscles so they can repair and grow stronger, L-Glutamine fuels your gut lining so it too can repair damaged cells and come back
healthier.

In fact, the cells lining your gut love L-Glutamine so much that they’re able to absorb it directly, making supplementation very effective.

By feeding these cells the fuel they love, your body is able to produce more intestinal mucus and Secretary Immunoglobulin Type A (SIgA), as well as tighten up the
openings in your gut lining themselves, thereby stopping things like large undigested food molecules and other toxins crossing the gut barrier and into your bloodstream
(ie stopping leaky gut syndrome).

When the gut barrier strengthens like this, the inflammation in your body starts to slow down since fewer and fewer toxins are hitting your bloodstream.

Plus your immune system starts to enjoy some relief – and unsurprisingly it is able to strengthen. And that’s when you really start to enjoy the benefits that come from
L-Glutamine.

I often hear people say L-Glutamine doesn’t work for them

But the minute I ask them what sort of dosage they are taking, I straight away find out why.

You see, when it comes to leaky gut in order to get the positive effects from L-Glutamine you can’t simply take 1-2g a day. Instead, you may need to consider taking a
high dosage and then a significant maintenance dosage.

Of course, it is worth saying that some people just don’t agree with L-Glutamine. And so as with everything on this site, it is worth talking to your doctor first.

How I megadose L-Glutamine powder

1. Days 1-3 – work up over the first 3 days from 10g to 30g. This gives your body time to get used to the L-Glutamine and should stave off any upset stomach
effects. Simply mix the powder with water. Make sure you spread the dose throughout the day and take each serve on an empty stomach so that the L-Glutamine
does not have to compete with other amino acids for uptake.
2. Days 4-8 – take 30g each day. This is best done via 1 rounded teaspoon (approx 5g) every 1-2 hours.
3. Days 9+ – take a maintenance dose of 10g a day. Split this into 2 serves, so you take one 5g serve when you wake up and the other later in the day whenever is
convenient and you have an empty stomach.

As you can see from the dosages required, it is best to buy L-Glutamine in powder form. And ideally one that is highly absorbable (uses pure, free form L-Glutamine),
mixes easily, and has no additional ingredients that will compete with the amino acid for uptake and obviously comes with no nasty fillers, sweeteners etc.

It is not always easy to find one that ticks all those boxes, so my research team and I created this high qualitypure L-Glutamine powder (currently available in USA
only).

I think you’ll really love it. In fact, I know you will, because it is the #1 supplement readers tell me made THE difference for them.

5) Ditch all sugars and dairy – except for some gut-friendly dairy

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First I asked you to ransack your house and bin all the grains and legumes.

Now I’m asking you to find anything with sugar or dairy in it, and add that to the scrapheap as well! By the end of today you’ll probably have no food left in the
house…

…But that’s alright.

In fact, the process of elimination is without doubt the most important step towards healing your leaky gut and feeling great again.

Say goodbye to sugar, in all forms

Not only will excessive sugar consumption fuel the growth of yeast / candida, but also bad bacteria in your gut.

Whilst refined white sugar found in popular foods/drinks like soft drink, ice cream, sauces etc is obviously bad, when you have leaky gut so are the more innocent
sounding sugars like brown sugar, raw sugar etc.

Simply put, avoid all blatantly sugary products like sodas, sweets, desserts, etc, and also avoid the less obvious ones like sauces, ‘low fat’ products.

Limit all cow milk based dairy

So there are 2 reasons to consider avoiding this bad boy of gastrointestinal health.

For starters, cow’s milk comes packed with lactose. This is the milk sugar that the majority of us (approx 70% of the world) struggle to digest. It is a high FODMAP
ingredient too. So if you’re on a low FODMAP diet, it is out as well.

Secondl – and less importantly – normal cows milk also comes with another potentially troublesome sidekick… a protein called A1 Casein. It often does not play well
with our guts, especially in the early healing phases.

In response to both issues above – you can consider lactose free milk, but then you have the casein problem, or you can consider A2 Casein milk, but then you still have
the lactose problem.

All a bit confusing I know. So my approach in the first 30 days of a gut healing diet is simply no cows milk dairy, eg milk, milk chocolate, ice cream, cheese etc.

Once you start feeling pretty good, consider trying gut-friendly dairy products

Here’s the ultimate list of gut-friendly dairy you can consider. But make sure to stick to organic dairy products (if you can).

The beautiful thing with the list above is most are lactose free or very low in lactose. For example, yogurt undergoes fermentation which eats up the lactose sugar. Or
for example, grass fed butter is an end product with minimal inherent lactose.

Also others above, can be low in A1 casein.

To work out what is best for you, I recommend strongly working with a registered dietitian. They are magicians at helping us pinpoint the good from the bad.

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For example, with my RDN we worked out I can tolerate goats cheese or buffalo mozzarella quite well. And also, a probiotic-rich organic unflavored yogurt works
wonders for me as a dessert.

But everyone is different. And I implore you to first do 30 days completely dairy free, so you can then introduce one dairy product at a time and see how your body
responds to it.

6) Take 1-2 broad-spectrum digestive enzyme supplements with every meal

Digestive enzymes are one of the best supplements out there for gut health. Not only are they so effective, but they’re also relatively inexpensive, which makes
supplementation a bit of a no brainer. Here’s why they work so well…

Firstly, they take the food we eat and break it down into individual nutrients so our body can actually absorb the amino acids, vitamins, minerals etc from our food.

This is super important for those of us with leaky gut, because our damaged gut lining is not absorbing nutrients properly, and yet needs the nutrients to repair itself.
Digestive enzymes help us get out of the vicious cycle!

By breaking down food particles more, digestive enzymes also ensure less irritation and thus inflammation of the gut lining.

In fact, they will safeguard against large molecules making their way down into and through your gut barrier and into the bloodstream. That means less inflammation
and less immune system issues.

A bonus benefit is that digestive enzymes will clean up the mucosal lining of your gut as they can remove toxins, bad bacteria and damaged cells. And they will also
help the body weed itself of pathogens that may contribute to leaky gut syndrome.

You can find an in-depth explanation of all of this in my article on digestive enzymes and leaky gut.

In terms of taking digestive enzymes, here’s what I recommend…

Take 1-2 with each meal. I do this just before my meal.

If you are still having digestion issues, consider upping the dose to 2-3. You most likely will be fine with 1-2.
During the early stages of leaky gut recovery make sure you take them before any meal or snack, even a simple protein shake for example. The idea is to really
give the digestive system a helping hand at every turn.

Most importantly, look for a digestive enzyme supplement that contains the best enzymes for supporting digestion of all food groups. Here’s the list:

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Since there are 100s of different digestive enzymes on the market I often get asked, which one is worth taking.

Well, as you might have read in my article on digestive enzymes it is really important to choose a digestive enzyme complex that ticks 3 boxes.

The 3 things to look for in a great digestive enzyme supplement

1. It must have a broad range of different enzymes. That way it will help you digest multiple food groups, ie protein, carbs, fiber, fats. I would always look for a
product with over 10 different enzymes.
2. It should be plant based, NOT animal or fruit, so it survives the low pH environment of your stomach AND is strong enough to effectively break down your food.
3. It should be dosed strongly across ALL enzymes in the formula, but especially the kings of enzymes, being protease, lipase, amylase and cellulase.
4. BONUS – it should be gluten free, dairy free and soy free – and most importantly, this should be independently verified by a 3rd party laboratory.

Up until recently I struggled to find a specific product that met all 3 points, plus the gluten, dairy and soy free point. Unfortunately, the market is just saturated with
weak, low quality, allergen-stuffed digestive enzymes.

So together with my research team at Essential Stacks we decided to create our own high quality, premium digestive enzyme complex, that ticks all 4 points.

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And of course it contains all the different enzymes listed in the image above.

As you can imagine this was a monumental challenge. It took months of research and product testing. But after working with our expert team of formulators and the
most experienced enzyme manufacturer in the country, we finally got there!

If you’re interested you can learn more about our digestive enzyme supplement here on Amazon.

7) Eat my clean leaky gut diet consisting of vegetables, fish, meats, nuts & good fats
Before we jump into this, I just want to say the way I’ve ordered the food groups in the heading is pretty important.

i.e. it’s crucial that you make vegetables and fish priority #1, instead of eating a never ending diet of meat, meat, and more meat.

Okay, let’s get into this.

So I don’t understand why people say the leaky gut diet is complicated. Out of the top 10 leading diets out there it’s probably the simplest.

Obviously my version is a riff on the paleo and SCD diets, with the big differences being how much it emphasizes liquids (shakes, juices, soups, broths), how mind
blowingly simple the solid meals are and how much tighter the list of approved foods is.

Here’s what the shopping list looks like

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And here’s how I recommend you tackle this diet…

For starters, grab my free leaky gut recovery guide to see my top 7 recipes. During my times of poor gut health I’ve simply rotated amongst these 7 meal ideas.
They’re easy to cook, taste amazing and require very few ingredients.
Focus on green and colorful vegetables above all else. Obviously some of you will suffer from leaky gut syndrome so badly that even many vegetables out there
will irritate your gut to no end. In which case simply eat what your body responds best to, and err on the side of liquid meals. But for most of us, the focus on
vegetables is crucial as they play such a big role in healing fast. If you’re anything like me, you’ll want to get a big part of your vegetable intake from juices,
green powders and soups/broths, insofar that too much insoluble fiber intake can be a bad thing for a sensitive digestive tract (very irritating) and it is easier to
stomach during the early stages.
Fish and meats are your new BFF. This is where the majority of the flavor in your new diet comes from. Take the advice below in idea #14 seriously, and try to
buy high quality meat and fish as much as possible.
Some starch is okay…in vegetable form that is. Depending on how you react try to eat some starchy vegetables like sweet potato, yam, yucca etc. I find the
mouth feel and way they fill me up to be most satisfying. And they really round of dishes made with the 2 food groups above. But above all, these fermentable
fibers are great for feeding your gut’s good bacteria.
Everything else. Nuts, eggs, nightshades (eg tomatoes, potatoes etc), low sugar fruit (eg berries) etc can all have their place in your leaky gut diet too, but they’re
not for everyone. And as I explain below in idea #22, some of you may never fully heal if you keep these borderline foods in your leaky gut diet.
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No matter how good your diet is though, I highly recommend you take 1-2 digestive enzyme capsules before each meal per point #7 above.

8) Sleep 8-9 hours every night no matter what

If you’re anything like me, this idea at first seems nothing short of crazy. A pure fantasy in fact! After all, life is hectic and our commitments across family, work and
social are extensive.

But it is perhaps one of the top 2-3 foundational lifestyle changes you need to make if you’re serious about solving your leaky gut, because nothing – and I mean
nothing – can help your body repair faster than sleep. (Conversely, few things will cause leaky gut syndrome faster than sleep deprivation).

That’s why I committed to sleeping a good 8 hours every night several years ago and still stick to it today, even when my schedule is overflowing.

Here’s how you can achieve it too…

Firstly, you need to cut things from your life. This is the only way you can make time to get the sleep you need. I cut weekday social dinners out completely,
cut my TV down to 20 minutes a day max, reduced my exercise sessions to tight 20 minute blocks (good for leaky gut too!), capped my reading time at 1 hour a
day. There were a few other things too, but these big cuts were enough to boost my time available for sleep from 6-7 hours to 8-9 hours a day.
Get to sleep on time and stay asleep. That’s the only way to get a good quality 8-9 hours. To do this follow my sleep protocol. Simply turn off all electronics
around 9pm (no computer, tablet, phone, TV etc). Limit liquids. Pop 200-400 mg magnesium citrate. Eat a handful of fat, eg some walnuts. Pop a teaspoon or two
of honey (if your body can tolerate it). Meditate for 10-20 minutes using Headspace app. Read a relaxing book, especially fiction, until you fall asleep. This
should get you to sleep and keep you there nicely. Of course you might want to add in sleep mask and ear plugs for noise.
Sleep is also built on what you do during the day. So each day I recommend you get some light exercise in, enjoy some sunlight or Vitamin D supplement and
don’t drink too much caffeine (which shouldn’t be a problem if you’re following idea #13 below).
Finally you want to make sure you are sleeping fairly similar times each night, so you don’t disrupt your circadian rhythm too much. I try to keep a very tight
10:30pm to 7am schedule.

9) Abstain from all alcohol for 30 days and say goodbye to beer forever
Your gut is not a fan of alcohol. And that shouldn’t be a surprise given alcohol itself is the natural result of yeast overgrowth and sugar!

I go through a detailed explanation here in my article on alcohol and leaky gut syndrome, where I explain how alcohol messes with your digestion (decreased secretion
of pancreatic digestive enzymes), reduces your ability to control inflammation (decreased production of prostaglandin), and it makes the openings in your gut lining
larger (changes gene expression of the proteins involved in tight junction function).

Oh yeah, and alcohol is fantastic at depleting your levels of mucosal-supporting zinc too!

These effects are magnified if you drink alcohol on an empty stomach, which is so often the case when people go for after work or pre-dinner drinks.

So here’s my guide to alcohol and leaky gut

Abstain from all alcohol for 30 days

When you are just getting started in your recovery to good gut health, I think it’s best to completely stop drinking for a month.

Given alcohol can be nearly as bad as grains for our gut lining’s integrity, it makes sense to include it in the list of NO’s during our elimination month.

My best advice for making this easy…

For the next 4 weeks consider avoiding any occasions where you’ll be tempted to have a drink. i.e. Take yourself out of the drinking environments and make this
month of saying no as easy as possible. It’s just a month after all!
If you can’t or don’t want to avoid these situations, then make sure you have your reason for not drinking ready to go. As it can be a real pain to have to explain
some long winded story about intestinal hyperpermeability to every single person who asks – and they do ask!
Use other state-changing techniques to replace alcohol’s role. You see, many of us like alcohol because of how it changes our emotional state. Whether its
blowing off a hard week at work or wanting to relax on the weekend with friends, it is a state change we’re after. Thankfully you can get as good a change from
exercise, meditation, breathing, yoga etc. (Kinda)

After 30 days experiment with adding relatively gut-friendly alcohol back in

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If you like beer, then try to find a gluten free beer

Sadly, normal beer should be a permanent no go for us leaky gutters. Seriously. It is literally the worst alcohol you can drink as it combines gluten and yeast and sugar
all into one horrible package.

If you decide that the nice bitter taste of beer on a hot summer’s day is just too good to say adios to, then search out a gluten free beer.

Let me firstly wish you good luck in finding one that tastes good.

And secondly, let me remind us that gluten-free beers are still made from grains, still come packed with yeast and although not as bad as gluten-based beers, they sure
as heck aren’t helping our guts stay in good health.

So my best advice is to just avoid ALL beer indefinitely.

Admittedly, I personally have a gluten-free beer a couple times during summer. But that’s just about it.

If you like spirits, then make sure you drink them heavily diluted

Spirits are not as bad as many think, especially if you drink them like I do – i.e. heavily diluted.

For example, I typically order a tall glass with 400ml soda water, a shot of vodka and a fresh wedge of lime. Plus minimal ice. That combination is so diluted you can
barely taste the vodka. And that’s how you know you’ve nailed it.

Importantly, I never use pop/soda/soft drinks as a mixer due to the sugar content.

But if I get sick of mixing with soda water, then I will mix with something like kombucha. This can be pleasantly delicious, especially if you get a little naughty and
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choose kombucha with natural flavoring in it!

If you like white wine, add ice cubes or water or seltzer

This ‘spritzer’ idea might seem sacrilegious to my French readers, but hey, it is an easy way for us to keep our total wine consumption limited, whilst still being able to
enjoy a few glasses on a Saturday night.

The ideal amount of dilution would be 50%. So it is half wine, half non-sugar mixer (like water/ice).

Probably the #1 thing to look out for when choosing a white wine, is dry v sweet. The former contains much less sugar. That means sauvignon blanc and pinot grigio
are your new BFFs.

I personally tend to limit my white wine consumption to the summer months, and so generally only drink red wine, which leads us to the next point…

If you like red wine, great…so do I

Like with white wine, the crucial thing here is to choose dry over sweet – so we cut down our sugar intake.

My favorite choices of red are thus pinot noir (for warmer weather) and a nice big shiraz (for winter). But other dry red wines include merlot and zinfandel.

What I perhaps like most about red wine is that it has a lot of ‘taste memory’, meaning it is relatively hard to over indulge.

And if you want to support your poor ol’ gut, get some probiotics

If you’ve ever drunk a little too much alcohol, then you’ve no doubt felt firsthand how it can cause havoc to the delicate balance of bacteria in our guts (and have us
spending our day hungover on ye olde throne!).

So taking probiotics (good bacteria) can be a smart idea to keep things in better balance and more able to deal with those couple of glasses of pinot.

Now, if like me you can’t stomach eating sauerkraut every time you drink (like some crazy German at Oktoberfest!), then consider trying a probiotic supplement, which
we’ll look at in the next point.

10) Take a probiotic supplement daily

Unless you’re going around eating sauerkraut all day like some crazed German Popeye, your gut will be crying out for probiotics, aka good bacteria.

In fact, long term you’ll find probiotics are the #1 thing to get more of in order to help maintain good gut health.

The reason probiotics work so well is something I dive deep into in my article on probiotics and leaky gut syndrome.

But one of the most interesting roles it can play is its ability to fight leaky gut by enhancing the production of tight junction proteins as mentioned in Frontiers In
Immunology’s 2017 research paper on leaky gut.

In addition, the good bacteria (probiotics) can help to fight off bad bacteria and yeast overgrowth, so that your gut flora can start regaining a healthy balance.

And best of all, continued use of probiotics can help ensure the ratio of good to bad bacteria stays in the healthy range, which means bad bacteria and excessive yeast
may not return and cause leaky gut again. A bonus benefit is that a healthy gut flora will also aid digestion.

When all 3 benefits are taken together you can see why probiotics are at the heart of any leaky gut recovery protocol.

My advice on taking probiotics is simple

Take a high strength probiotic supplement with 40-50 billion CFUs.

Make sure your probiotic contains multiple strains / species of bacteria (at least 10 different strains), so that you are feeding your gut a healthy balance of bacteria
and not drowning it with just one type. Importantly, look for a probiotic containing my 7 favorite strains: L Plantarum, L Rhamnosus, L Acidophilus, B Bifidum,
B Longum, B Lactis and B Coagulans.
Look for probiotics with 100-300mg of prebiotics, eg Jerusalem artichoke, as they will support the probiotic and help it makes its way down to where it is needed
most in the digestive system. Also eat prebiotic rich foods (see idea #23 below).

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If you’re looking for a probiotic supplement that ticks all the boxes above, you can try Smart Probiotic – it is a next-generation probiotic-prebiotic supplement that my
research team at Essential Stacks and I spent 3 months developing.

It is the exact probiotic formulation I’ve always been looking for.

And that’s because it is strong enough to meet our requirements (50 billion CFUs), has 11 different high quality strains (including my 7 favorite strains mentioned
above), contains 2 premium prebiotics (Inulin and Jerusalem Artichoke), and uses delayed release capsule technology to help the probiotics survive the journey.

This combination means you get your probiotics delivered to the place where they’re actually required (ie your gut). And this optimal delivery process makes all the
difference.

You can learn more about Smart Probiotic here on Amazon.

11) Speak to your doctor about NSAIDs, excessive antibiotics, antacids and any other unnecessary drugs
From Advil to ‘the pill’ to corticosteroids, there are so many drugs that contribute to leaky gut and/or gut flora imbalances. Obviously, not all of these are entirely
optional.

For example, when I had asthma attacks as a young child I couldn’t simply say “My hyperpermeable intestines and I are not interested in your corticosteroids Doc”.
(And it would have been pretty weird to hear a 6 year old say that as well!)

Obviously you should speak with your doctor about what is and isn’t necessary for you. And I’ll talk below about how to find a doctor that gets leaky gut better than
most.

Wherever possible try to do as the drug-averse Europeans do and…

Cut down drug intake and rely on more natural remedies. For example, breathing exercises and meditation can work well to replace mild pain relievers.
Prevent the causes happening in the first place. This is the big one! So for example, NSAIDs are often taken during hangovers. Solution: don’t get drunk. Or
headaches often flair up on days where you don’t have enough sleep, eat / drink too little and OD on caffeine. Solution: ah well, you get the point.
Take probiotics. Many drugs by design will strip your digestive system of bacteria, both good and bad, eg antibiotics. So after use, make sure to mega dose
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 probiotics for a week and then maintain with a smaller daily dose.

Speaking from personal experience, I found that even seemingly ‘necessary’ drugs were no longer necessary (or at least necessary in much lower doses) if I addressed
the deep root cause.

For example, when working on a new doctor-supervised asthma protocol several years ago, I found it possible to cut down my corticosteroids intake by 80% within 30
days by addressing leaky gut itself.

The funny thing is by following many of the ideas on this page you will naturally find your use of these drugs reduces, ie the vicious cycle stops. Gut happy!

WARNING: just to repeat…please consult your doctor and never stop taking any prescribed drugs or other drugs without doctor approval. Immediate cessation of
drugs can cause all kinds of problems.

Struggling to find a doctor who gets leaky gut?

Then take a moment to checkout our directory of doctors who have written about leaky gut and are knowledgeable on how to fight it from start to finish.

As with everything on this site, the directory is free to both readers and doctors. So there is no bias in recommendations or ‘sponsored’ doctors and whatnot!

12) If you have candida overgrowth, focus on this first

Most people don’t realize it, but candida overgrowth is actually one of the primary causes AND maintainers of leaky gut.

Here’s the plain English explanation of how that works…

1) First of all, it’s important to realize candida is a fungus, which is a type of yeast, and it is an opportunistic (and aggressive) pathogen.

In other words, when candida senses a weakness in you, e.g. those of us with an autoimmune disease or general poor gut health (us leaky gutters!), it starts going rogue.
And growing like crazy.

2) Candida starts to cause real problems when it grows and forms long hooks, that allows it to not only attach itself to your intestinal lining, but also start drilling and
piercing holes through your intestinal wall…hello leaky gut!

(Apologies if this is sounding like a Quentin Tarantino inspired gastrointestinal horror film)

3) And we all know how it can go from there right, especially when the immune system is weak…

…candida, along with toxic by-products (mycotoxins), then make their way into our bloodstreams where they then proceed to wreak havoc on our poor detoxing
organs, eg liver, and also send the autoimmune system into overdrive.

And eventually they may even end up finding their way into our organs and tissue (brain, skin, joints, nerves, muscles etc), which can lead to chronic conditions
developing over time.

Plus, under this kind of constant attack the gut lining is never going to be able to heal. Instead it will remain hyper-permeable, i.e. leaky.

So for us leaky gutters, chronic candida overgrowth is thus something to take seriously and to watch out for.

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How do you tackle candida overgrowth?

I’ll run through the protocol briefly below, but they say an image can tell a 1000 words, so the summary of it all…

1) Starve the candida of the foods it loves, especially sugar

Sugar is without doubt candida’s go-to fuel source. And just like we wouldn’t feed a deranged Popeye more spinach, we shouldn’t feed our candida spoonfuls of sugar.

Obviously you want to avoid eating the main culprits. i.e. simple sugars like soda drinks, fruit juices, sweets, desserts and even fruit.

But you also want to stop consuming all refined carbs (which quickly turn into sugar), processed foods, alcohol, ‘low-fat’ products (since they’re often high in sugar),
condiments and any foods with yeast.

Meanwhile, if you can also stick to the leaky gut diet we’ve talked about above, you will give your gut the best chance of healing and thus fighting back against
candida.

2) Kill the excess candida with a variety of tools

Since we only want to kill the overgrowth, and not all the candida (as we need a certain amount of candida to have a healthily functioning digestive system), I like to
follow a natural and gentle approach.

Coconut oil – the caprylic & lauric acids in coconut oil have antimicrobial properties that can poke holes in the wall of candida/yeast cells causing them to die
off. You can consume it orally (eg tablespoon in your morning shake) or topically (eg apply some to your skin where a candida-related flare up is, eg athlete’s
foot). If you have signs of candida on your tongue/mouth (hello creamy or white patches!), try swishing 1-2 teaspoons of coconut oil around in your mouth for
10-20 minutes daily until it goes. But if you do this, make sure to spit out all of the coconut oil at the end and brush your teeth thoroughly. This ensures the
toxins pulled into the coconut oil don’t make their way down into your leaky gut.
Apple cider vinegar (ACV) – the acid and enzymes contained in ACV can also break down yeast/candida cells, so this can be worth adding to dishes or mixing
in your drinks. Note: this is basically the ONLY type of vinegar or fermented food you should consume during a candida cleanse.
Garlic, ginger, oregano leaf and turmeric/curcumin – these are also worthwhile natural anti-fungals. Especially garlic, which can inhibit both growth and
function of candida albicans thanks to the ajoene compound formed from allicin. But unlike coconut oil & ACV, I would probably take these in supplement form
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 instead of eating them. That way you can get a high and effective dose without smelling like some crazy eyed Vampire-vigilante!
Lemon – another anti-candida hero we can rely on. And to get a good dose of it each day I recommend starting the morning with the juice of a whole lemon
squeezed into a glass of water. It’s cheap and effective, and boy will it wake you up!
Omega-3 fatty acids – they may also help inhibit the growth of candida / fungal infections, especially in the mouth, as noted in a 2010 published study in
Molecular Oral Microbiology. Plus they carry anti-inflammatory benefits as well. However it is important to make sure you get your omega 3s from a source
low in toxins like mercury and PCBs. That’s why I like to eat wild salmon and take a molecularly distilled fish oil supplement like this one, instead of eating
farmed fish potentially high in toxins like mercury, not to mention antibiotics etc.
Pau D’arco tea – this is also a fantastic concoction to sip on throughout the day, thanks to a multitude of anti-fungal compounds in it, such as Lapachol.
Enzyme supplements – with the right mix of enzymes, you can help your body take down candida cells with a 1-2-3 punch. For example, whilst cellulase and
hemicellulase enzymes can support break down of the cell wall (since it is composed of fiber & glycoproteins), other enzymes like amylase, lactase and
glucoamylase will support breakdown of the polysaccharides in the biofilm of the cell. And then once the protective layer is exposed, protein digesting enzymes
like protease can march onward and actually ‘eat’ the protein nucleus of the candida cell. That is serious team work! But the key to making enzymes work like
this is to take them between meals, NOT with meals. You see, if you only take them with a meal, then all they will do is focus on breaking down your food. i.e.
they’ll never have the chance to focus on breaking down your candida overgrowth cells. This is a point unfortunately just about everyone misses or doesn’t quite
understand. If you’re looking for a plant-based enzyme supplement that has all the specific candida-fighting enzymes mentioned above – and that you can take
with AND between meals – then checkout Pure Enzymes.
Candida support supplement – these can be very helpful since they combine many of the ingredients above into one. i.e. making things very convenient. My
team and I developed this candida supplement, which has all the big fighters above like caprylic acid, oregano leaf, candida-focused enzymes like protease etc.

3) After the starve & kill phases, reinoculate your gut

This is such an important step, because if we mess up here – or simply avoid step 3 altogether – then all the hard work we’ve done up until this point may end up being
for nothing.

You see, in order to support healthy candida levels (after you’ve eliminated the overgrowth), we need to reinoculate our gut with good bacteria. This ensures the good
bacteria, just like bouncers at a club, will be strong enough in numbers to support a healthy balance of the candida population going forward. Meaning we will have no
need to constantly be fighting candida with antifungals.

To reinoculate your gut all you need to do is…

1) eat probiotic-rich foods like fermented vegetables several times a week and;

2) consider taking a 40-50 billion CFUs probiotic supplement with 10+ different strains, like this probiotic my research team at Essential Stacks and I developed.

13) Channel your inner Dalai Lama and cut work stress out of your life
For the majority of us, our main source of stress is work.

And as we know, chronic stress is one of the top 5 causes of leaky gut, because it has a crippling effect on digestion and in general makes it very hard for your body to
fight off the bad bacteria and yeast overgrowth causing leaky gut.

Not to mention the inflammation that flares up because of leaky gut.

Here’s how you can cut work stress to a minimum:

Use an email blocking app on your computer like Self Control or Freedom to guarantee you don’t check emails outside of work hours. I set my Self Control app
for 22 hours a day, which means I can only ever look at email between 3-5pm. Maybe you can’t go so extreme because of your job, but definitely try to push the
email-free hours using an app.
Remove email from your phone. Feels amazing.
Go outside every lunch time, walk for 20 minutes whilst doing deep breathing exercises (or sit somewhere quiet and meditate!), eat lunch slowly, and then rest
somewhere in the sun for a while. Alternatively, do a quick and light gym session, followed by a 10 minute sauna and a slow lunch. You can fit this all into your
lunch break. And I think this idea alone could cut your stress levels in half!
If it’s possible listen to relaxing music throughout your work day. This is especially great for office workers. In fact, if you look at one of the most high stress
office environments on Earth – the open plan floor of an investment bank in New York – you’ll find half the analysts sporting noise canceling headphones. It
really does help you drown out the noise and stress of work.
When you get home from work go through a de-stress routine. You need to do this to switch off from work. I know when I get home I like to take 20 minutes out
for myself, stretch, breathe, write down all the things in my head on paper, and then I’m good. I’ve transitioned. Stress of the day melts away.
Most of all set expectations clearly with coworkers. It is not easy, but if you stick to your guns whilst being reasonable, you’ll get the point across.

14) Replace your morning cup o’ Joe with some herbal teas
This need not be forever, but it should definitely be your approach for the next 1-3 months whilst you are recovering from leaky gut.

You see coffee, including decaf, is not good for your intestinal lining. (And even worse if you tend to drink your coffee with cow’s based dairy!).

You can read my in-depth article here on coffee and leaky gut, but the exec summary version is that coffee irritates the gut (it is a seed after all), causes inflammation
(once you hit 2+ coffees a day), gets confused by our bodies as gluten (highly cross-reactive food) and the caffeine itself spurs on adrenal fatigue.

Here’s how I quit coffee for my leaky gut & what I drink now

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 Week 1 – substituted my morning coffee with decaf coffee (love Swiss) and my lunchtime coffee with Yerba mate (or black/green tea without cow’s based milk).
The decaf was simply to wean me off the taste and the Yerba mate off the caffeine. Plus I drank my morning shake/juice (see idea #16 below), which gives a
huge amount of natural energy. Alternatively, you could stop it all, and just wean off using caffeine tablets.
Week 2 – herbal teas only, but if you really need it, Yerba mate can be thrown into the mix. (And shake/juice)
Week 3 onwards – only herbal tea. (And shake/juice)
Once healed / long term – then just continue on with the week 2 protocol, but occasionally (like once or twice a month) you can try and have coffee and see how
you feel. For example, about once or twice a month I will have a Bulletproof style coffee (coffee with a teaspoon each of grass fed butter and MCT oil), because
my gut can handle it now and wow, does this blow my mind in the taste department. A real treat! Just make sure to avoid coffees with cow’s based milk – you
can substitute in almond milk, macadamia milk etc.

(I told you leaky gut syndrome treatment was not always going to be fun!)

15) Pay the premium and eat organic veg, grass-fed meats and wild caught fish
Yes, I know. This can get expensive. Especially if you are hitting up Wholefoods weekly and going all raging bull in there! Unfortunately, there is just such a wide gap
between conventionally farmed food and the organic stuff.

For starters, organic meats and fish will come packed with more omega-3s, vital for taming the inflammation being caused by your leaky gut.

And these foods, devoid of the toxins from conventional farming (eg pesticides, antibiotics), will ensure fewer poisons make their way into your gut and through to your
blood stream.

That’s a double win for leaky gut syndrome.

One other advantage is that these products don’t suffer from the omega imbalance found in conventional meats and fish – ie the overload of omega 6 that is so
pervasive throughout the Western world.

Best of all, you can eat quality foods if you practice the art of purchasing, which means sticking to…

Farmers markets. Particularly if you go towards the end of the day. Hint: everything is negotiable by this point! And slightly bruised and deformed produce is
your friend.
Box deliveries. I don’t always have time to go to farmers markets, so I make use of an online food delivery service as well to get a weekly box of organic
vegetables. So easy. All I do is simply pick them up from a neighborhood collection point every Wednesday. Bonus: every week the box contains a surprise of
what is in season and tastes great.
Bulk purchases and freeze. You can find great deals on everything from bison to wild Pacific salmon throughout the year. They key is to keep an eye out for
them and have the freezer space ready to go when they’re available. Whilst for vegetables bought in bulk, learning how to pickle/ferment them is a great idea.
Quality online food stores. Since they usually don’t have the cost of a retail operation, they can pass on the savings to you. Plus, with national delivery
available from many of them, they are a super convenient solution for those of us that don’t live in big cities. This is my favorite option, so we made a directory
of the best online food suppliers in the USA here.

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16) Do breathing exercises before and after each meal
100% natural solutions to health problems are the best. They cost nothing and they’re always available to you. And this probably rates up there with the most effective.

The benefit to your leaky gut from this idea is that deep breathing before and after a meal will reduce stress on the body so it can focus on digestion. And as a side effect
it will get you ‘in the zone’ to eat mindfully, eg chew more, eat slower etc.

Here’s how I recommend you do the breathing exercises

Download the The Breathing App (iTunes link) app and do it before and just after each meal. Although it is
somewhat annoying to remember or take the time out to do this, all you need to do is try it out for the next 30 days.
If you really struggle to do it, then at least try to nail it once a day with your biggest meal.
As insurance, make sure you take a digestive enzyme or two just before each meal.

17) Specialize in cooking just 7 simple paleo-ish meals when starting out
Everyone out there is probably telling you to eat all kinds of crazy things to repair your gut.

From broccoli shakes to liver & brussel sprouts, it can seem quite unappetizing and perhaps a little daunting.

Worse yet, the cookbooks out there focused on clean eating usually contain some of the most complicated recipes you’ll
ever find. (And they encourage you to try them all!)

From all my own trial and error, I’ve found that picking and then sticking to a meal roster of just 7 meals is perfect,
especially if you make sure they are easy and quick to cook, and only require a couple of ingredients.

You can find my 7 cornerstone meals in the free guide, but here is a brief overview of how they breakdown.

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How I cook so simple, but healthy every single day

Breakfast is simply a shake or juice. This is how I start every morning. It’s easy for the digestive system to take, helps the body rapidly absorb much needed
nutrition and is so easy to make, which means you’ll actually do it every day. Plus I always make sure my shakes/juices contain some good fats, eg MCT oil or
coconut oil, and protein, eg high quality protein powder, which brings about some remarkable improvements in morning energy (bonus: you don’t miss that
coffee so much anymore!).
Soup and bone broth make up 20-30% of meals. Alternating between these 2 liquid meals throughout the week works a treat. You can batch make and easily
freeze both, making them so convenient to take out whenever needed.
Meat/fish + vegetable + vegetable starch (optional). Simple combinations of the 2 (or 3) paired with some nice flavors from garlic, onions and herbs, is just
perfect. These dishes sit so easily in your stomach that they are seriously addictive!

18) Chew each bite of food 20 times, like Gandhi

“Chew your drink and drink your food”, Gandhi.

Taking a digestive enzyme supplement will help breakdown your food when it reaches your stomach and intestines. And I think you should definitely take them – I
know I do.

But to really give your gut a helping hand (and the ultimate kind of head start), you should basically pulverize your food in your mouth by chewing each bite around 20
times.

The more you chew the more it gets pre-broken down and the more digestive enzymes (specifically the carbohydrate focused ptylin) you yourself produce via your
saliva glands.

By chewing your food like this, you’ll find your gut is better able to process it. Most of all, your body will be able to absorb more of the nutrition and your leaky gut will
not be bombarded by so many large undigested food particles.

And of course, 20 chews per bite of food is just a rough average. So if you’re eating something really tough, like Uncle Bob’s well done steak (why, oh why do you do
that Bob!), then up the chew count, eg to 30.

19) Get your German-Korean freak on and feast on fermented vegetables

Fermented vegetables like sauerkraut (cabbage) and kimchi (mix of vegetables inc cabbage, daikon etc) are a fantastic way to feed your gut with good bacteria.

As you read above, I advise leaky gut sufferers to hit the probiotics approx 2 weeks after they’ve started healing their gut (and yeast overgrowth) via fasting, no sugar,
L-glutamine, sleeping more etc.

How to get your kraut in

You can ferment your own vegetables. But this is going to take some work. I’ve tried to make the simplest possible recipe for you, which you can see in the
graphic just below.
Alternatively you can buy it ready made. The key is to avoid the canned stuff in the supermarket dry aisles, as it is pasteurized and thus devoid of live
probiotics. To buy the good stuff you’ll need to hit your local health store and look for glass jars sitting in fridges. You’ll know you’ve found high quality
products when you see the price tag! But trust me, it’s worth it. One large jar should easily last a week for 1 person, ie 3-6 servings.

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Some cooking notes for this recipe

Make sure to run your fermenting jar through the dishwasher before using it – a hot wash will help remove any bacteria that could interfere with the fermentation.
For starter culture, you can use a vegetable or dairy based one. I tend to personally opt for the former. Each sachet will likely have a couple of grams of culture.
And come with instructions on how to prep it, before adding it to the jar.
Your kraut can be stored for more than the 2 week period mentioned in the graphic. In fact, unopened, you could keep it for 6-9 months easily.
But once you open your kraut, keep it in the fridge, and for max 2 months. (But who’s not eating all that delicious kraut during that time?!)

P.S. If you ever get sick of eating fermented vegetables take a probiotic supplement and of course, just be thankful you don’t have to resort to a fecal transplant to
restore your gut flora!

20) Throw out all the processed vegetable oils in your cupboard

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Hit up your cupboard right now and ditch all these oils immediately: corn oil, soybean oil, cottonseed oil,
canola oil, grapeseed oil, peanut oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, sesame oil and basically any oil marked
simply ‘vegetable oil’.

These industrial vegetable oils are high in omega 6s, and known to be a vast contributor to the imbalance of
omega 3s to 6s in the western diet (that now sees us typically consuming 20:1 omega 6s to 3s, when
historically we consumed 1:1 or 2:1!

By contrast extra virgin olive oil and coconut oil – which are non-industrial vegetable oils – deliver much
more balanced omega fatty acid profiles.

Most industrial vegetable oils are also susceptible to oxidation when cooked (hello inflammation my old
friend) and typically GMO based.

Best of all, you can easily replace the bad fats with quality fats, including fats that are just as suited to cooking.

For example, coconut oil, ghee and lard hold a very high smoke point (and taste great!).

Whilst you can use the other healthy fats listed in the graphic to the right, eg extra virgin olive oil, avocado oil
etc, for cold dishes or to finish on top of heated dishes.

In many ways, your lovely plate of veggies and meat/fish, is really just a delivery vehicle for these healthy
fats. So apply your EVOO liberally to a finished dish!

21) If bored, only eat super tasty gut-friendly meals

Most people fall off the leaky gut diet and into a donut/pizza/bread-filled abyss, because they find the flavors
bland.

And hey, I’m not suggesting for a minute that chicken and broccoli tastes as good as a pepperoni pizza, but…

…If you stick to paleo-esque meals with big flavors, you’ll find it easy to stick to a clean diet.

For example, when I’m craving pasta, especially a nice bowl of rigatoni with rich lamb shank ragu, I simply cook my pasta sauce as normal, but then instead of using
spaghetti with it, I will shred 2 courgettes into thin strips and then pan fry them till they have some color.

I know this does not sound good. But guess what?

Courgettes take on the most meaty of flavors when done like this, and when added to a not-overly-wet ragu, they come together to create a flavor explosion.

Getting big flavors from other otherwise bland dishes is easy too. You just need to think about smart flavorings like garlic, herbs, capers, anchovies etc.

For example, pan roasted salmon with garlic and capers, paired with lemon dressed rocket and oven roasted sweet potato fries dusted in some chilli flakes, is hard to
beat.

That pepperoni pizza I mentioned earlier…forget it…give me that salmon dish any day!

Obviously, make sure to stick to flavorings that you can tolerate. eg some people don’t do well with garlic, since it does rank on the FODMAP scale. Learn,
experiment and see what works best!

22) Ignore the conventional advice and devour coconut products

For years coconut milk was seen as some obesity boogy monster.

It seemed if you just picked up a can you were going to turn into the next Michellin man overnight!

Thankfully the science behind coconut products, and good saturated fats in general, has emerged in clear sight since the 80s.

In fact, the science has jumped ahead as we now know that the caprylic acid / medium chain fatty acids in coconut products are rich in antimicrobial properties that
work fantastically well to decrease levels of bad yeast and bacteria in the gut (and help us say goodbye to candida and SIBO).

I should note that you can also get isolated caprylic acid (eg via MCT oil or a caprylic acid supplement), which might be more helpful if you are tackling something like
candida / yeast overgrowth head on.

Here’s how I incorporate coconut products into my daily life

I use 1 tablespoon of non-hydrogenated organic coconut oil in my daily shake/juice. Tastes insanely good and as weird as this sounds, gives a lovely ‘mouth feel’
to the shake. Just make sure you get quality coconut oil that is not rancid and not filled with all kinds of crazy chemicals.
Now and then I will have half a can of coconut milk in my shake instead of the oil. Probably 2 times a week. This is the taste of island holidays in food form!
Since my gut is able to handle (and in fact loves) oats these days, I will cook up some oats with coconut milk on gym days. Of course, there’s a lot of energy in
this sort of concoction, so best to pair with commensurate training.
Coconut oil is my go to cooking oil for many dishes, eg a mild Thai-style chicken & broccoli stir fry.
You might even enjoy coconut kefir – fermented coconut milk/yogurt.

23) Cut all the borderline foods from your diet, especially if you have Autoimmune issues
Some leaky gut cases are just a lot tougher than others to solve. What usually helps tip these hard cases over the edge is an even stricter diet.

This is especially true for those of us who suffer from autoimmune issues.

So you might also want to consider cutting…

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 All nightshades. Potatoes, tomatoes, eggplants, peppers etc. These guys come packed with their own form of bug repellent, glycoalkaloids. Suffice to say, not
everyone responds well to them and they can cause real inflammation and digestive issues.
Eggs. These can spike a high allergy response in a lot of people, and egg white especially may not be helping your leaky gut.
Nuts. Like eggs, these may not react well with your body.
Seeds. Even the sprouted ones.
All vegetable starches. Even that innocent looking sweet potato has to go.
All fruits. That low sugar berry shake you started loving on the leaky gut diet…well, that is out!
All dairy. If you were eating raw unpasteurized yogurt for the probiotics or sheep cheese, stop. It’s out as well.

Of course the best news is that these eliminations aren’t necessarily permanent.

In idea #36 below, we’ll look specifically at how to reintroduce these borderline foods in later to see if they still cause issues or whether some (or all) can be
permanently added back into your diet.

24) Eat prebiotic foods 2 weeks after starting your leaky gut healing protocol
Prebiotics are foods that are indigestible (to us), but digestible by the bacteria in our colon, which just love to break it down and ferment it all day long. As such it is a
type of soluble fiber.

Since prebiotics feed the good bacteria in our digestive system (colon/large intestine), we can think of them as being equal with probiotics. In fact, they’re a team!

And although they are indeed amazing for us, during the very early stages of fixing your gut health, you should probably first focus on rapidly repairing the gut lining
(before looking at reinoculating the gut/bacteria).

So that’s why I recommend holding off on the prebiotic rich foods in your first 2 weeks of the leaky gut recovery protocol.

The smart way to get your prebiotics each day

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 Green vegetables. Make sure you keep your intake of green and colorful, non-starchy vegetables up. All that delicious spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus
etc that I recommend above will give you a nice dose of soluble prebiotic fiber.
Prebiotic-rich vegetables. If you can, try to also eat raw Jerusalem artichoke, raw garlic, raw onions, chicory root, leek, avocado, dandelion greens etc. These
are extremely high in prebiotic fiber on a pound-per-pound basis. Eating these raw may sound like a big ask, but the two ways I do it are: shave thinly and top on
salads, or chop up in a food processor and use as a sauce, eg make a chimichuri style sauce with raw garlic & leek, plus extra virgin olive oil, parsley, salt etc. A
sauce like that on top of some nice meat is perfect! Or if you just want to mix things up a little, then you can roast these vegetables. Although this will change the
prebiotic yield somewhat, it is still worth it. And roast Jerusalem artichoke is awesome!
Resistant starch-rich fruit & veg. If your gut can handle prebiotic-rich resistant starches, like green bananas, cooked & cooled potatoes and rice etc, add them in
too. But go easy and build up slowly, as they can lead to a little too much fermentation down below – hello night filled with bloating, abdominal pain and blaming
way too many smells on your poor pop, Mr McSchmoogles!
Prebiotic powders. If you find it hard to cook and eat the above foods, then you can buy a prebiotic powder. That could be a special prebiotic supplement
powder, eg Natural Stacks Resistant Starch complex, or it could be something real simple like a 1-ingredient powder, eg potato starch powder. Whatever you
choose, simply add it to your morning shake or in a glass of water, and you’ll be in prebiotic heaven in no time. Once again, just be very careful to slowly work
your way up to the serving size recommended on the label of your prebiotic powder!

And of course make sure you are taking a probiotic with a prebiotic like this one.

The type of prebiotic you will find in your probiotic can range from inulin to FOS (fructooligosaccharides) to pectin, and right through to a combo like OEI
(oligofructose-enriched inulin).

But my favorite is good ol’ Jerusalem artichoke!

25) Consider tests for leaky gut, food intolerances and microbiome
As I explain in this article on leaky gut tests, there are 2 direct tests you can do for leaky gut being the lactulose & mannitol test and the blood zonulin tests.

Lactulose & mannitol test for leaky gut – basically you drink 2 solutions of 2 different non-metabolized sugars and then your urine is subsequently analyzed to
see which sugars passed through your system and in what amounts. From this information (in particular the ratio) your gut’s level of permeability can be
somewhat ascertained.
Blood zonulin test for leaky gut – in this test your blood is being analyzed for levels of zonulin, which regulates the size of the openings across your
gut/intestinal wall. Too much zonulin and there is a good chance you’ll be experiencing intestinal permeability greater than normal, ie leaky gut.

These tests are definitely interesting, but can be quite expensive and sometimes inconclusive. So as with everything, speak to your doctor to see if they make sense for
you.

A related test to consider is microbiome testing

Although it is not specifically looking at intestinal permeability, it is taking a birds eye view at the state of your gut health and can possibly pinpoint underlying causes
of leaky gut (eg bacterial or yeast imbalances) as well as hidden food intolerances that are potentially sustaining leaky gut.

Like the above tests, this can be expensive.

But if you want to get an interesting look at the state of your gut health, then consider a microbiome service like Viome – they ship the testing kit to you, so the whole
test can be done in the privacy of your own home.

Viome is my favorite microbiome company, since they are able to not only pinpoint imbalances, but also give you plain English advice on which foods to eat and which
to avoid based on your unique gut bacterial balance.

What about old fashioned food intolerance tests?

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My big problem with them is that they often come back positive for just about everything I’ve already listed under the ‘banned foods’ list above, as well as countless
other ‘good’ foods, and are often temporary intolerances resulting from the fact that your gut is hyperpermeable (or leaky).

So instead of getting old fashioned food intolerance tests, I personally believe you’re better off doing an elimination diet per the above ideas, healing your gut and then
gradually – and one by one – reintroducing foods to see how your now-healed gut deals with them.

i.e. doing an elimination & reintroduction diet (which I talk about more under idea #36 below).

No doubt you will find it far more tolerant!

If you really do want to get tested for intolerances/allergies, then my best advice is to speak with a functional doctor.

They can work 1-1 with you to piece together your overall health history and current state of affairs, and from there decide what is the best leaky gut syndrome treatment
plan.

But that said, always keep an eye on the economics of testing, because getting a battery of tests done, followed by a $1000+ bill is sure to cause stress…and ironically
more leaky gut.

Finally, compare yourself against the 10 symptoms of leaky gut

Given that testing can be somewhat inconclusive, a quick way to work out the probability of leaky gut is to speak to your doctor about your symptoms.

And then of course, contrast them against the most common symptoms of leaky gut:

1) Food allergies / intolerances

2) Autoimmune conditions
3) Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO)
4) Inflammatory Bowel Disease, eg Crohn’s Disease, Ulcerative Colitis etc
5) Digestive problems
6) Skin problems like eczema, acne, Rosacea, Hives, Psoriasis, rashes etc
7) Brain fog or general fatigue or chronic headaches
8) Mood swings and depression
9) Allergies, eg seasonal, pet etc
10) Nutrient deficiencies

26) If a functional doctor diagnoses it, also fight other conditions related to leaky gut
Very few people just suffer from leaky gut.

That’s because intestinal hyperpermeability often causes further conditions (eg autoimmune flare ups) or is caused or exacerbated/maintained by other conditions (eg
candida overgrowth).

So you should be working very carefully with your doctor, or other health professional, to hunt out related conditions and then fight them head on as well.

8 related conditions to leaky gut to watch out for

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 Reflux/GERD – treating this alongside leaky gut can lead to some profound lifestyle improvements, as not only does the reflux reduce, but so does your
absorption of the nutrients from the food you’re eating.
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) – this is a real bedfellow of leaky gut, and when you take on the leaky gut recover protocol (download the free ebook here) you
will usually find great relief of IBS symptoms. Obviously, this can be a game changer since it frees you from being a prisoner of ye olde golden throne. Hello
freedom!
Candida overgrowth – a surprising cause and maintainer of leaky gut, and definitely worth fighting if diagnosed. Keep in mind that candida overgrowth can take
months and months to go away, even if you follow the above suggestions under idea #12. So attacking it directly may be smart. Once it is fixed, it becomes a lot
easier to completely repair your leaky gut.
Parasites/intestinal infections – it is really essential to work with your doctor to see if this is in fact an issue, because fighting parasites et al usually requires an
advanced protocol, including potentially strong pharmaceutical drugs.
Food intolerances – these are usually a sign of leaky gut. Inversely, continuing to eat foods that you don’t tolerate will maintain permeability issues and thus
slow down any leaky gut recovery protocol.
Autoimmune conditions – they can be preexisting (and thus exacerbated) by leaky gut, or leaky gut itself can cause them to arise or at least be symptomatic /
‘felt’. Tackling both simultaneously is thus essential.
Small intestinal bacterial overgrowth (SIBO) – the symptoms of SIBO overlap so strongly with leaky gut, that the two could be called brothers in arms!
Treating an overgrowth of bad bacteria in the small intestine (often due to colonic bacteria making its way back up to the small intestine), is a crucial step to take.
Bloating, gas, diarrhea – the 3 amigos of digestive distress are often a result of one or more of the conditions mentioned above. Working out which of the above
conditions is leading to either or all of them is key to treating them.

27) Try a green powder drink daily

If we were hanging back in the 1990s, I would suggest that you hold your nose and drink your green shake as fast as you can. Because historically that’s been the only
way to stomach this fairly putrid, but amazingly healthy concoction.

Thankfully though, green powders have gotten a lot more palatable thanks to smarter ingredient combinations and of course, better and better natural sweeteners like
stevia.

For example, this green powder product is not the worst thing you’ll ever drink in your life. Although it is expensive!

So what is a green powder drink?

Well, it is basically a concentrated powder made from a collection of blended plants, fruits and herbs.

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It often comes with added digestive enzymes, probiotics and vitamins too, making it some kind of uber Frankensupplement! (In a good way)

I personally drink one every day – or sometimes every other day – because it is such a convenient way to sneak in a few extra servings of veg.

One scoop added to a protein shake or fresh vegetable juice is simple enough and the body can easily absorb the nutrients, which is very important when your gut is
leaky and thus not absorbing nutrients as well as it should.

To be honest though, this idea is far from essential when it comes to solving your leaky gut, especially if you are following the ideas above on what to eat and what to
avoid.

That’s why I see it as more of an insurance policy.

And since good quality green powders can be expensive, definitely only consider this idea if you still have money leftover after buying L-Glutamine, digestive enzymes
and probiotics (they are links to articles on my 3 favorite supplements for leaky gut support).

My ultimate green powder shake recipe

If you do want to indulge in green powder drinks, then try my recipe. It is a great meal replacement idea, since it comes packed with nutrients, protein and healthy fats.
(And it is super quick to make).

How to make the green hulk shake

Grab a decent blender, something that can crush ice, and toss the 1/2 avocado, handful of spinach and lemon juice in.
Then put a big handful of ice cubes in and fill with 14 oz / 400 ml water. You might want to experiment with the amount of water, as some people like their shake
less thick than mine.
Now add your green powder in, followed by any of the optional add ons. I personally add in all of them, unless I’ve already eaten a big meal. And when I do
this, I find the green shake keeps me full for hours as it packs a beautiful macro combination of clean protein and healthy fats. What a way to lose weight!
Finally, make sure to properly blend it of course, to avoid any green chunks of food or powder dancing around your glass as you go to take your first sip.

28) Consider eating smaller meals and matching food groups better
When trying to repair your leaky gut, attention to detail matters. That’s why even the more trivial ideas are worth trying out.
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So with this idea I’m basically suggesting…

Eat 4-5 small meals a day, as opposed to 3 big ones. A day of eating would then look something like: green hulk shake (recipe above), snack (handful of gut-
friendly nuts, like macadamias), small lunch (eg smoked salmon, avocado and rocket salad, with extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice), afternoon snack (eg small
portion of leftovers from dinner last night) and dinner (eg 4oz/120g shredded chicken, garlic broccoli and 1 small sweet potato).
Combine food groups smartly. This is pretty easy when you’re eating a leaky gut diet. i.e. the foods that are hard to combine (namely grains and legumes, as
well as fruit) are pretty much out. But just in case you are eating fruits (eg low sugar fruits like blueberries), make sure they are eaten by themselves, and thus
away from other meals. This ensures foods digest properly and don’t end up ‘stuck’ (slowed down in transit) and sit in your gut fermenting – and then
subsequently feeding the yeast and fungus in your digestive tract.

Now with all of that said, it is worth noting that I am not completely sold on eating smaller meals and more often.

That’s because I do like the thinking behind 2-3 meals a day only, since this gives the digestive system plenty of time for breaks.

So like with all ideas on this list, it really comes down to personal experimentation and seeing what works best for you.

29) Avoid eating any foods that are processed or filled with preservatives or flavoring
I think we all know that saying goodbye to foods high in refined flours and sugars, low in nutrients and filled with chemicals, will help our gut health improve.

But I also understand that saying adios to these and hello to a diet focused on real whole foods is not a cheap exercise. But to be honest, it all comes down to what value
you put on your health.

In terms of practically implementing this idea…

…well, it should not be too hard to do if you simply stick to the leaky gut diet above. And that’s because everything in the leaky gut diet I recommend is whole food
based.

The real struggle comes down to avoiding eating out too much. From grabbing lunch at your local food court to ordering Uber Eats, these time saving ideas have to be
canned for now. After all, the food industry is driven by processed and preservative-packed foods.

30) Look into other gut supplements like zinc, licorice root and slippery elm
Even those these 3 little guys don’t get the same leaky gut limelight as probiotics, enzymes and L-Glutamine, I still love ’em!

10-15mg of zinc for leaky gut

Supplementing zinc can be very helpful when you are deficient, which will likely be the case with most people
suffering leaky gut.

The specific way zinc supports the health of your intestinal lining, is how it promotes mucosal secretion, which in
turn helps protect your gut lining.

You don’t necessarily need to take a zinc supplement though, since it is readily available in some very tasty foods
like beef, lamb, chicken, mushrooms, spinach etc.

And just as importantly, you want to make sure that your zinc intake doesn’t get too high, as this can actually hurt
your immune system.

I personally get my daily zinc intake through my high quality multivitamin (which also contains another essential
mineral, copper, which pairs beautifully with zinc) and real foods like grass fed beef.

400-500mg of licorice root (DGL) for leaky gut

This strange sounding fella is an adaptogenic herb and it helps our gut in 3 ways…

…It supports the mucosal lining of your GI tract, helps acid production in stomach (low stomach acid is a big
contributor to leaky gut) and offers a powerful anti-inflammatory effect.

It has been in use for thousands of years to treat digestive issues, is well researched and is a pretty simple & safe
supplement to add to your protocol.

I especially like it if chronic stress is a driving force behind one’s leaky gut.

200-300mg of slippery elm for leaky gut

I know, I know.

The supplements are getting weirder as this list grows! But here’s the thing with slippery elm…

…like the good guys above, it also stimulates mucus secretion. Plus it delivers antioxidants, which can offer some protection for your intestinal tract against toxins.
Some people also claim this in turn “soothes away irritation”.

I don’t want to talk in hyperbole, so I will just say, slippery elm is a respectable supplement that can definitely help with intestinal health. And like DGL, it has been
used for eons.

31) Pop a high quality multivitamin every day, if needed

I know a lot of people are anti-multivitamins. And hey, I agree with the general school of thought that ‘food is medicine’.

But there’s a couple reasons why taking a multivitamin when you are recovering from leaky gut can be a good idea.

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3 reasons why a multivitamin may help when suffering leaky gut

Support impaired nutrient absorption – if you have leaky gut, then it is quite likely that your ability to break down food into nutrients and your ability to
absorb these nutrients is sub-optimal. That means, even if you’re eating a lot of great nutrient-dense food, you won’t necessarily be fully benefiting from them.
So a multivitamin is a great backup source of nutrients.
Safety net – No matter how hard you try, your diet will never be perfect. I know in any given week there will be times when I miss out on a serving of organic
vegetables with lunch or dinner. There may also be times where the food I’m eating is not necessarily from a great nutrient-dense source, eg most restaurants. So
during these times, I’m missing out on my full quota of vitamins and minerals, and that’s where a multivitamin can be extremely handy.
Gut supporting ingredients – High quality multivitamins will also contain gut-supporting nutrients, like vitamin A and good ol’ zinc, which I talked extensively
about above. This makes them a super convenient way to further support our guts.

So definitely consider adding a high quality – and that usually means higher priced – multivitamin to your leaky gut protocol.

As with green powder, think of it is an insurance policy more than anything else.

And whilst we’re talking about green powders – keep in mind that if you get a really good green powder full of vitamins and minerals, this can almost replace the need
for a separate multivitamin supplement.

32) Add high quality fish oil and vitamin D to your daily supplement regimen
You can be the ultimate supplement skeptic and still love these two.

And that’s because they are among the most researched and supported supplements in the world.

But how do they help with leaky gut?

Why I love fish oil’s omega-3 fatty acids for leaky gut

For starters, omega 3s are an anti-inflammation powerhouse (not least because they do a great job at balancing our omega 3 v 6 ratio), and unsurprisingly this has been
shown to extend to supporting intestinal inflammation.

In addition, studies are now showing these essential fatty acids can support gut bacteria (microbiome) through an increase in butyrate-producing bacteria (Case Reports
in Medicine, March 2016).

And even help reverse gastrointestinal mucosal injury (Gastroenterology Research & Practice, April 2016).

Most importantly for us though, is the earlier PLOS One study showing how the fatty acids in fish oil can support optimal intestinal permeability as they improve tight
junction function – which means better control of the openings in your gut lining.

So adding it to a leaky gut supplement protocol makes sense.

But there are 2 big problems with fish oil for us leaky gutters…

1. Many fish oil supplements are high in toxins like PCBs, mercury etc. Which is not a good thing, when our gut lining is overly permeable and more open to
passing toxins through to our bloodstream.
2. Most fish oil products are extremely good at giving those of us with sensitive tummies, reflux…hello fishy burps my old friend!

To solve these 2 problems you need to find a molecularly distilled fish oil AND one that uses enteric coated capsules (meaning the oil gets released further down the GI
tract). Together that means less toxins and less reflux.

My research team and I make Smart Omega fish oil to satisfy both these points.
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Best of all, we push ourselves much further in terms of distillation to the point that our formula is triple strength (meaning you get a lot more of the omega 3 fatty acids
in every capsule) and meets the strictest purity standards in the US as set out in California’s Prop 65.

That’s why I use it every day and experience no fishy burps. Perfect!

And what about Vitamin D – how can it help leaky gut?

Well, vitamin D, has been shown to support our gut’s epithelial barrier (United European Gastroenterology Journal, June 2015), this being the lining that protects your
bloodstream from all the food, toxins and other bacteria making their way through your gut.

In addition, like with fish oil, it can support tight junction integrity, meaning more help for the gatekeepers of the gut lining (the guys that decide what goes through and
what stays out) – J Infect Dis, October 2015.

Also, per that study, vitamin D can help fight against bad bacteria due to the way it tackles inflammation. Pretty cool, right.

Despite all those benefits, you may not need to take it in supplement form if you are getting 20 minutes of safe sun exposure each day.

e.g. 20 minutes of sun at 11am, without sunscreen (so you can actually absorb/produce vitamin D).

So consider skipping the vitamin D supplements during summer.

That said, to truly benefit from vitamin D during this repairing stage you’ll want to be getting higher than normal amounts of it.

So popping a 2000 IU supplement of vitamin D3 like this one each day, might be worth considering.

Note: vitamin D3 is the more absorbable form, so make sure to look for that in your supplement.

33) Avoid excessive cardio or heavy weight lifting – leave that for Arny!
If you’re slogging through 3 or more intense exercise sessions a week like a Arnold Schwarzenegger-Richard Simmons crazed lovechild, you could easily prevent your
gut from healing fast or even fully.

It’s kind of counterintuitive, but if you’re a bit of a fitness fanatic, then less exercise could actually be better for your health!

You see, the strain that hardcore cardio or lifting really heavy weights puts on the body (especially the central nervous system) delivers the same shock as any other
kind of stress, eg working 14 hours a day for a maniacal boss.

And as we talked about in idea #12 above, stress is one of the top 3 causes – and maintainers – of leaky gut.

That means we really want to be saying goodbye (at least for now) to exercises like P90X, Insanity, Freeletics, Soul Cycle, Bikram Yoga etc. And adios to crazy sports
like marathon running, triathlon etc (I’m talking to you Mr wannabe Ironman!).

Basically any physical activity where your veins pop out of ye old noggin mid session should be a no.

Also, as a general rule, work out lightly, but more often.

For example, try a daily 10-20 minute workout, instead of 3 x 60 minute spin classes a week.

4 gut-friendly exercises I recommend for leaky gut

Yoga & pilates – Definitely try to incorporate some yoga (normal hatha or yin yoga, not bikram!) or
pilates into your weekly training protocol. With breathing, stretching, meditating and relaxing aspects all
rolled into one, these two are the kind of exercises your leaky gut wants to help it restore. Tara Stiles
might just become your new best friend.
Short HiiT – If you love cardio, then try doing short HiiT training sessions, instead of never ending
steady state cardio workouts. eg 7 x 30 second sprints, with 2 minute moving breaks in between. You
could do this as run sprints, or bike sprints or even swimming sprints. I personally do this across all 3.
Not only is HiiT training much more time friendly than long cardio sessions, but it is increasingly being
shown to improve cardiovascular health and speed up fat loss more!
Light compound weights – If you love lifting weights, then consider shorter workouts with just
compound lifts – meaning no wasting your time with isolation exercises. For example, a simple 5×5
workout with weights at about 60% of your 1 rep max weight (not at 80%!) and big 3 minute breaks
between sets, can work just perfectly. I use Stronglifts 5×5 app for this, but do not do progressive
overload nearly as aggressive as the app recommends.
Short circuits – And if you love both cardio and weights, try short 20-minute circuit training sessions
with light weights or simply body weight (eg Kayla Itsine’s BBG or training with a functional PT). They
are great ways to do full body exercises that build strength and push your heart rate up into the cardio
zone – but only for a short period of time.

34) Use a BRITA jug or other filtering device for your water
This is definitely not the most important idea on this list for leaky gut!

But it is still worth considering given that the chlorine & fluoride in your tap water is a toxin and when it enters
your body and potentially travels through your overly permeable gut barrier and into your bloodstream it can
contribute to chronic systemic inflammation.

Most of all, this idea is so simple and cheap, why wouldn’t you add it to your bag of leaky gut tricks!

All you need to do is buy a $10 BRITA jug or bottle, which usually comes with 2 cartridges. Then keep an eye out for filter cartridge sales. When they pop up snap up a
dozen!

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And if you want to up your filtered water game, get something super convenient like the big BRITA water tank – this is great because you don’t need to refill it
multiple times a day and wait for the water to filter.

Bonus benefit is that these filters make water taste so much better (thanks mainly to filtering out most of the chlorine) and by having a jug constantly next to you it will
encourage you to down your 2-3 liter a day target.

35) Consider these other ways to eliminate toxins from your life
Toxins can potentially cause leaky gut, but more likely is that they can exacerbate leaky gut and its many flow on effects, since they can get through your permeable
intestinal wall and and into your bloodstream.

Obviously the first step to eliminating toxins is not consuming them in the food, drinks and drugs you take – which we’ve discussed in the ideas above.

But after you’ve done that it can be worth investing in a few products to decrease the amount of other toxins that get into your system.

In fact, you should think about this as the final missing piece in your leaky gut recovery protocol.

And thankfully unlike the earlier steps you took – eg throwing out all delicious bread and milk – this will be easy! You simply need to buy a few things and you’re
done.

The easiest ways to fight off toxins every day

Install a shower head filter. This keeps out the chlorine, which can be particularly important when you consider chlorine vapor (from hot showers) hits the body
quite directly both inside and out. Plus it reduces heavy metals, bacteria and pesticides that may be present in your local water supply.
Switch to organic or natural personal care products. Use the EWG’s personal care guide to work out which toothpaste, shampoo, body wash etc you and your
family should be using. It takes a bit of research, I know. But just keep in mind that the conventional products on your supermarket shelves are filled with all
kinds of chemicals that should not be entering your body, let alone passing your leaky gut barrier and into your bloodstream. Make the switch, decrease the toxic
load and your gut barrier and immune system will thank you.
Get your house tested for mold. This has become a hot topic over the last couple of years (checkout Dave Asprey’s Moldy movie), because of the amount of
damage hidden mold can do to the body. Leaky gut is just one of many casualties of this urban menace.
Buy an air filter. I’d argue that this is only necessary if you live in downtown or in a fairly high traffic area. eg I live in the middle of downtown and getting truly
fresh air ain’t easy! So whether you live in San Francisco or Shanghai, definitely consider this if your budget allows. And if you do, just make sure to buy one
with a HEPA filter and one that is big enough (in terms of filtering capacity) to cover the room it is destined for.
Use an infrared or normal sauna. You can’t keep all toxins out. It just isn’t possible. So sweating out the ones that still manage to get through, in a not-too-hot
sauna for 30-45 minutes (sitting at mid level) can work a treat to aid the bodies natural detox. I don’t own a sauna given the cost and maintenance requirements,
so I just make use of my gyms one. Perfect.

And of course follow all of the other detox ideas above – avoid unnecessary drugs, eat organic, filter your tap water etc – as much as possible, so you can avoid other
toxins like pesticides, antibiotics etc hitting your system.

36) After 12 weeks, reintroduce foods and see what your gut likes and doesn’t
This is the fun part!

So you’ve done the elimination diet, you’ve healed your gut and now it is time to see what you can put back into your diet without causing any troubles.

This is called an elimination-reintroduction diet. And some people call it a provocation diet (that is the reintroduction phase they’re referring to).
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How to reintroduce foods the smart way

Order of foods – Start with the least potentially reactive foods, eg in week 1 maybe start by adding some soaked and pressure cooked legumes back into your
diet.
Time for each food – Wait 2-3 days after eating a new food, until you reintroduce the next food. That’s important, because some foods can take a day or two for
any ill effects to be felt. So this means you will typically add just 2 foods back into your diet each week.
Track with a diary – Use a food diary to keep track of what foods you’ve added back in and how you’ve felt the hour after eating it, the next day and the day
after. ie a food and symptoms tracking journal.
Review with a health professional – Once you’ve reintroduced everything, take your journal to your doctor or other health professional, and work out which
foods can be permanently allowed back into your diet, which ones can be allowed now and then (eg weekly or monthly) and which ones really shouldn’t ever be a
part of your diet.

37) Develop an easy-to-follow long term eating plan and lifestyle to keep leaky gut away
Curing your leaky gut is not going to be easy. As you can see above, there are dozens of ideas you may need to follow in order to get there.

But here’s the thing about leaky gut…

…It can come back at any time in the future if you return to being a digestive diablito (lil devil)!

And the more you deviate away from the ideas above – read: eat Dunkin Donuts like a fiend – the more chance this will happen.

How to live leaky gut free, forever!

1. Eat clean 98% of the time. Sure, most of you will eventually be able to eat some grains and legumes from time to time, maybe even some gluten you naughty
little thing! Heck, you may even be able to have some ice cream during the summer. But for the most part you really need to stick to the safe food groups and
avoid the dangerous ones. It really is a slippery slope, so be vigilant.
2. Drink clean 90% of the time. Some glasses of wine or an occasional coffee will probably be fine for you over the long term. But slipping into old habits of 3
cups of Joe a day or nights spent at the bar guzzling some sweet sweet merlot, just won’t work.
3. Avoid toxins from unnecessary drugs, conventional meats, tap water, chemical-ridden personal care products etc.
4. Practice healthy habits at least 6 days of the week. That means doing things like sleeping 8 hours, meditating away stress, exercising (lightly) etc. You need to
hit these habits most days of your week for the rest of your life. If you start ignoring most of them you’ll find your body slipping closer and closer back to leaky
gut. And I can’t stress this point enough…your lifestyle is just as responsible for leaky gut as the things you consume.
5. Use effective supplements daily. Even if you eat and drink clean, avoid all toxins and practice a healthy lifestyle, you’ll probably also need to take some
supplements to give you some buffer room. Although there are dozens of different options, there are only 3 ones that are really worth your attention. 1) L-
Glutamine to fuel your gut lining cells so they stay strong. 2) Digestive enzymes to break down food so no large undigested food particles are bombarding your
gut wall. 3) Probiotics to keep the good bacteria on top of the bad bacteria, so your gut flora and gut lining remain strong.

Finally, don’t forget to use a habit tracker to make sure you’re doing your 10 favorite ideas from the list above every day.

I use Habits List for iOS, but there are dozens of options for both iPhone and Android.

Best of all, not all of the ideas above need be permanent

For example, giving up coffee sucks, I know.

But the good news is when your gut is back to rude health then you can try coffee again and see how your body reacts to it.

Because as we know for most people, when their gut is back to strong health it can easily handle things like coffee in moderation.

I hope you enjoyed this all-in-one list of the most effective and practical ways you can go about healing your leaky gut fast.

P.S. If you are a bit overwhelmed by all the ideas above, then I recommend downloading my simple leaky gut recovery guide (it’s free and it’s a super quick read!).

You’ll be able to see my entire approach to tackling leaky gut in this guide and I’ve only included my very favorite ideas from above.

Happy reading!!

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