By: Dr. Michelle Irwin

Healthy weight loss is about proper nutrition and exercise.

Sounds simple right?

We eat right and exercise we will lose weight, but how many of you are like me and this doesn’t always work the way we think it should or has in the past?

This can be due to an issue with how your digestive system is processing the good nutrients you are providing. There can be absorption issues due to leaky gut, constipation, diarrhea, bad gut microbiome, or a combination of all of them.

You can work out all day long and not move the needle on the scale if you can’t get rid of the bloat or the food you are eating to fuel your body.

Something that sounds difficult to do when you are working out is to do a bit of fasting.

When we are fasting, we are allowing our body to reset and rejuvenate. We can clear out the waste in our gut and clean out the old cells in our body and start creating the healthy body and system we want.

You don’t have to go to extremes like a 40 day fast with only water and no food; you can if you want but don’t do it unless you are working someone who knows the safe way to do it.
What you can try is micro fasts or intermittent fasting.

I have done 5-day fasts, 24-hour fasts, and typically during the week I will do intermittent fasting for 16-18 hours. I feel more energetic when my gut is not weighed down and I certainly don’t have the acid reflux that can plague me when I know I overindulged on my bad foods.

Just recently I did a 24 hour fast and cleared up a lot of issues from the holiday weekend and have been feeling more focused and energized to be able to get more out my workouts and get more done during the day.

To be clear, I am not talking about starving yourself for weight loss, what I am talking about is resetting your system like rebooting your computer when it becomes slow and not performing correctly.

The important thing to remember is that when you break your fast, do it with gut healthy foods with high nutritional value. This will help you avoid falling into the pit falls of your sugar cravings that can crash your weight loss goals.

Here is a list of good foods to incorporate for a nutrient dense diet and a healthy gut:

• Non-starchy vegetables- artichokes, asparagus, brussels sprouts, broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, onions, salad greens, squash, tomato, and others
• Some fruits- berries, citrus fruits, peaches, plums, apricots, cherries, and pears
• Grass fed meats, free range poultry, and wild caught fish
• Range fed eggs
• Natural healthy fats- olive oil, avocado, palm oil, coconut oil, and grass-fed butter
• Some nuts and seeds- almonds, cashews, pistachio, sunflower seeds, and pumpkin seeds
• DRINK WATER - good rule is about half your body weight in ounces of water a day
• Live culture yogurt
• Kefir
• Miso
• Aged cheeses (60+ days)
• Kimchi
• Sauerkraut
• Pickles
• Kombucha
• Chocolate (higher cocoa content the better)
• Underripe banana
• Blueberries
• Apples
• Dandelion greens
• Spinach
• Onion
• Garlic
• Leeks
• Chia and Flax seeds