FIBRE – MORE THAN JUST A LAXATIVE
Following on from my previous article on Gut Health and Probiotics, I thought it appropriate to talk about the lesser-known benefits of FIBRE in relation to gastrointestinal health. To establish and maintain a balanced gut flora, fibre is just as important as probiotic foods.

What is Fibre?

Dietary fibre is the structural part of plants and is therefore found in all plant foods – fruit, vegetables, whole grains and legumes. Like starch, dietary fibre is a polysaccharide (many sugar units), but it is different from starch in that digestive enzymes in the gut cannot break it down. This indigestible characteristic is what gives fibre its unique function of fermentation. However, not all types of fibre can achieve this.

Soluble vs Insoluble Fibre

Fibre can be classified as either soluble or insoluble. Insoluble fibre is especially helpful in relieving constipation and for stool regularity. Because it does not absorb water, it provides bulk to the stool, accelerates transit time through the gut, and stimulates peristalsis, all of which contribute to increased stool frequency. The most common food sources of insoluble fibre are whole grains (e.g. bran) and vegetables.
Soluble fibre, as the name suggests, dissolves in water and forms a gel. It slows the passage of food through the digestive tract, allowing time for proper digestion. It is this type of fibre that ferments in the colon and produces short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) as end products. SCFAs have multiple potential functions and benefits including:
• Immune system enhancement
• Improvement in liver function
• Reduction in the risk of irritable bowel syndrome
• Reduction in the risk of cardiovascular disease
• Reduction in the risk of some cancers
• Reduction in the risk of diabetes
• Prevention and treatment of Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative Colitis.
What are prebiotics?

Beneficial bacteria in the gut need a food source to grow and multiply. Prebiotics, in the form of soluble fibre, provide the nourishment for these bacteria. During fermentation, the gut bacteria act on the soluble fibre to produce the SCFAs. The most beneficial sources of prebiotics are found in the following foods.
• Resistant starch from oats, barley, brown rice, beans, lentils, green bananas, cooked and cooled potatoes or pasta
• Pectin from apples, apricots, blackberries, and citrus fruit
• Fructo-oligosaccharides and inulin from Jerusalem artichoke, onion, leek, garlic, rye and asparagus

Consuming a variety of these prebiotic foods on a daily basis, in combination with fermented probiotic foods, will boost your immune system, reduce inflammation, and help prevent many chronic diseases.

 

If you took all the labels off who you thought you were, who are you? Are you still you? Are you still capable of what you think you can do, or has that changed?

What labels have you given your power to?

What labels have you given yourself that you have given your power to?

What labels have you given yourself?

•  I am too old
• I am too young
• I am no pretty enough
• I am too fat
• I am not fit enough
• I am a mum
• I am a wife
• I am a husband
• I am a son
• I am a dad
• I am a waiter
• I am a taxi driver
• I am stupid
• I am dyslexic

You get my point!

What if we woke up each day with no labels that we had attracted to ourselves or others? How would you live your day? What would you do if you had no expectations of yourself? No limitations with no preconceptions with no judgments! Every day to get a fresh day – you get to live as you want. So why is it we let the past ideas control us?  Why is it we let the past experiences define who we think we are and what we are capable of and how we show up each day!

Labels are being thrown around as soon as we are conceived.  Our parents start talking about what they hope for us when we grow as soon as they can feel us in the womb.  It then kicks up a level! They are hyper all night, wont let me sleep, wish they would calm down a bit, or they are so chilled I just want them to move more? So already we have labels and expected behavior put on us before we are even born in to this world of ours!

Just take that in for a minute……………………before we are even born there are expectations and labels put on us and what is already being asked of us!

Don’t know about you but I think this is a whole lota crazy!

So here are my labels in my life!

•  Your dyslexic
• You’re a disruptive child
• You’re loud
• You’re crazy, you have no attention span
• You can’t spell, your writing is terrible.
• You’re angry
• You’re rude,
• You’re a traveler
• You’re not going to amount to anything
• I am fat
• I am not pretty enough
• I am not smart enough
• I am not enough…
• I don’t where the right clothes
• I don’t have the right taste
• I don’t fit in!
• I am always a happy person
• I am always positive
• I am the friend that’s always there if you need me!
• I am the one with the loud laugh
• I am a vegan
• I don’t drink

I am sure there are many more but these are the ones I can think of right now!

WOW! How are we defining ourselves on a daily basis?  I feel like its totally crazy and we aren’t leaving room for us just to be us without BS attached.

What are your labels that you have given yourself or have been put on you?

You are more than welcome to look at mine and see if they resonate.

•  I am just a mum
• I can’t do that
• I don’t know how so I am going to say I can’t because then I won’t look bad

What has society labeled people as;

•  Homeless equals useless
• Egotistical
• Narcissistic
• Angry
• Workaholic
• Drunk/druggy
• Socially awkward.

What labels are keeping you stuck

What have you labeled yourself with or been labeled with that are not you, that have boxed you in, that have now put you in a place of limitations, that you have given your power to?

My two big ones are that I am fat and I am stupid! Like what the F@#K seriously! I have given them my power on a daily basis. We give these labels power! Everything in are lives are just a label that we care to give it. What we have been told to give it, what is socially accepted, (Just a side note here we are all gifted!!!!!!).

What has someone told you growing up that has been imprinted on your soul (or what feels like it). Then without even knowing it, it has then been an undercurrent of how you are living your life, of how you are showing up, how you move and navigate your way day by day through this amazing experience called life!

I had a comment once when I was 24 by someone in my family whom I loved and respected deeply – they told me I would never amount to anything! Not in a funny way like ha-ha, not in a joke, but dead serious they just turned to me and said you are never going to amount to anything in your life! I was like I am at collage what do you mean.  I won’t lie my memory of my life history is terrible but I remember that as clear as day.  I remember where I was and who I was with.  Its came up recently and I was like holly F@#K!  What the F@#K! That was someone else’s opinion of me based on me being 24 going through a hard time in my life as my mum was dying from cancer. Up until I realised that I still remember the comment, that I still had the energy of that comment with me, that the label they had given me that day honestly sucks SHIT. Who are others to tell us what we can and cannot be, who are others to tell us what we are or what we are capable of.

If there is a time you can recall a situation in your life that someone has said something that has left an imprint? Could be from anytime in your life not just when you were young.  Maybe this has been blocking you in some way, it’s really time to say farewell to that label, to that energy that no longer serves you.   It no longer deserves being your energy!

If I look back on my life and think of all the things I think I can or can’t do who has put those ideas in my head – me, school. If you think what we are told at school what has been imprinted, it takes just one comment to stick if it hit us hard at the time.  This could have had an effect on you until now.  Where does the labeling begin? Where does the conditioning start?

I call on you now to love it and let it go IT DOES NOT DEFINE WHO YOU ARE AND IT DOES NOT DEFINE WHAT YOU CAN BE!

 

Even when I have the thought that I can’t do something or that I can do something, where has that perception come from? ME?……….…or from the input of others as I was growing up? Interesting huh!

There are so may labels out there that we have given our power to see what we can or cannot do what we can and cannot achieve. We, my epic humans have the power to change all that we have the power to. F@#K labels off and live without them to live life as we choose. I wont lie it’s a process of loving what is, seeing what is and then making different choices each day. You are not your label, you are not your make and model (where you come from, how you speak). I am a uni student, I am doctor, I am a schoolteacher, I am a bin man. These things are just what you do they are not who you are you are.  You are not your job; your job does not have the power to define you. You have a gift, a genius inside you that is yours and yours alone.  It’s time to shed your labels, they don’t mean anything.  It’s time to bring your power back to you, to realise what’s at your core, your true being has come to show the world.

Time to shine in your truth my dear epic humans! You have permission to see what you need and let go of what no longer serves you!

So much love and light.

Jaimee

 

 

 

 With the fear of judgment, the wanting to be accepted and validated by our peeps, the need to be needed and loved and to feel like we are doing a good job (whatever that might be) where is there room for you to be you without fear?

 I think sometimes we don’t even know ourselves so how are others going to know the real raw us if we ourselves are hiding away from who we truly are – from our own truth.

 Being real and raw with yourself can be painful.  What I have found is that its more painful saying things don’t hurt when they do. Trying to hide from the pain and suffering we may have had during any kind of relationship. The loss of someone whom we loved dearly, maybe even an experience that could be the cause of a trauma that’s happened to us. Someone close to us pretending that we are all OK when in fact inside we might be hiding a pain so deep that it then takes years or may never be felt. This pain just sits there rotting away in our being and showing up in other parts of our life where we might get angry on a regular basis or lash out for no reason!

 The thing is we may not feel anything at all, not sadness, not joy, because when we don’t allow ourselves to feel sadness we also don’t allow ourselves to feel joy and happiness.  We numb ourselves to all our emotions not just the ones we don’t want but the ones we do want, the ones that make our lives loving, joyful and engaging. I can only speak from my own experience but I can definitely resonate with this research. If we shut down our emotions, we can’t then choose which ones we want and don’t want, we don’t work like that.

 I just ask you to be open to what I am saying. I am not saying that you have to stay in the emotion for longer than needs to be but allow yourself to feel, allow yourself to love that part of yourself without judgment and fear. Acknowledge that part of yourself, allow yourself to be real and vulnerable.

 Why are we sitting in fear to be our true self? What is it for you that keeps you from living in your own truth? in that place of love, acceptance, compassion and kindness and trying to live up to someone else’s opinion of who they want you to be or who you think you should be.

 The only reason I bring this conversation up is that I have found myself at a point in my life where I want to be real raw and vulnerable with myself and with others. Most of my life on the outside I have looked like I have it altogether (I think) who was I really fooling? I wasn’t being true to who I was or what was going on within me.

 I was always pushing those unwanted feelings down, thinking this was the best way to deal with pain, suffering, guilt, frustration to name a few.  I chose distraction, I chose to escape from all.  I was hiding from it in all kinds of ways. Anything that kept my mind and body occupied, I was happy being busy, busy running from one thing to the next not giving myself a moments peace for anything. That way I didn’t have time to feel or engage with my unwanted feelings.

 What would be being real raw and vulnerable look like to you?

 For me its owning and loving all parts of myself, the part of me that I have shied away from like the pain from suffering and OMG never really ever being vulnerable in my life. No! I am OK, I am fine, I got this I don’t need any help thanks – when clearly I did. The need to show that I was strong and independent was instilled in me growing up. What you want to help me! no! no! no! that’s really OK I don’t want to be seen as weak thanks but no thanks!

 Mum just died! you OK? yep I am fine, I got this….

 My fiance had a heart attack and brain trauma was in hospital and rehabilitation for 3 months, you OK? yep I am good, I got this……  CRAZY!!!  

 So first, loving all that is, with my whole heart. Being my truly authentic self with myself and the world. Honestly, this scares the hell out of me.  The fear of being rejected, losing friendships, people not understanding where I am coming from.  Being open enough for people to see right through me, being totally vulnerable – Its time!

 What is keeping me going now is that I couldn’t go back to the surface level of myself if I tried, does that makes any sense?  Once you start uncovering who you really are your true authentic self, there is no going back! This may be scary and uncomfortable at times but once you start stepping in to your truth your power, it’s like you find a new way of being. You feel supported in ways you never thought possible, you find this inner strength, the knowing that all is going to work out for the greater good.

 This is a call to action – if there is a part of you that resonates with this post I ask you to do one thing today.  That you see you, being your real raw vulnerable self. It can be a small action or a massive one I’ll leave that up to you, just go with it go with what feels right.

 Who are you being called to be? with no filter, no judgments, no fear, no apologies, with just total love and respect for where you are in your life right now and where or who you want to be!

 Being real raw and vulnerable is the new normal, the new way to show up with love, acceptance, respect, integrity, compassion, kindness, joy, bliss, happiness, this will sky rocket you to a whole new level.

 I have so much love light and respect for all you amazing souls out there!

 BE REAL BE RAW BE YOU!

My hiatus hernia does not seem to flare as much with this way of eating compared to daily issues with it previously. I would say I only have issues once a fortnight.

I went to doctor just to renew a script for gastro issues that will be forever ongoing due to an additional health issue, and whilst there he notices in the family history (dad dying of a heart attack at 47years).  He asked if I had done any heart checks? I said other than usual cholestrol and BP not really, so suggest we do a coronary CT scan to assess risk factor for blocked arteries called a “calcium score”.  I think cost effective at $150 for peace of mind and only took 10mins. Went back to doctor to get results. I was actually a little apprehensive as my LCHF (Keto based) is as to plan as it should be.  I eat a hell of a lot of bacon and eggs and cheese so although you know this is the way you want to eat and you find it so beneficial in all ways, I still had the thought in the back of my mind mmmmm should I really be eating this way! (My coach calls this fat phobic due to the marketing of having to eat a low fat diet over the last twenty years or so).

Results;

Calcium score is rated on a risk factor 1-10 (10 high risk). Mine came in at 0 so that was good no that, that is unusual for 45 year old Caucasian woman.  My cholesterol was good.  My bad cholesterol was a little high at 3.8 BUT my good cholesterol was 1.9 so doctor said fantastic basically the good counteracts  the bad so she was not worried at all. 

So message in that was keep eating your bacon and eggs lol.  Note to add;  I do need to tweak my LCHF diet and add more carbs in the form of some greens as I am not consuming enough (spinach,broccoli,cucumber,cabbage). I would like to try for a vegetarian day (see how that goes) and a fish day as my protein.  I believe I will then be a lot healthier and also start doing some exercise!!!