Good gut health, energy, and long-term health are all inter-connected when it comes to optimizing your nutrition for success. Your gut is vast and is often called your "second brain." It contains trillions of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes that are essential for good gut health. They can directly improve your health and performance when they all interact harmoniously.
Unfortunately, a poorly balanced gut can quickly spiral into a dire situation. You may develop poor immunity with frequent illnesses, digestion, inflammation, chronic illnesses, and plummeting energy. Studies even show your mental health is directly impacted by your gut and could cause or aggravate depression and anxiety. The good news is you don't necessarily need costly intervention to set your gut right. Good meal prep for gut health can also dramatically improve your health.
Balance Your Gut with the Right Meal Prep Services
Not all meal prep services focus on nutrition, quality ingredients, and gut health. Although convenience is crucial to optimizing a healthy eating lifestyle, sometimes that's all meal prep services are really offering.
FitTrax is different. We focus on meals that optimize your energy, whether you're a busy parent or athlete. Some items, like our Ground Beef with Roasted Red Garnet Potatoes and Broccoli, contain grass-fed beef for more antioxidants than the traditional fat-soluble variety. Eating more grass-fed meat can lead to enhanced detoxification, the development of good bacteria, and a reduction in inflammation.
Or a dish like our Chimichurri Steak with Almond Quinoa Salad can promote good growth activity of beneficial gut microbes. Quinoa consumption is also linked to microbiota rebalancing and could alleviate inflammatory disorders like colitis symptoms.
Blend Quality Ingredients and Convenience
If you're going to do more meal prep for gut health at home, make sure you reach for the right ingredients and make it easy at the same time. Convenience isn't everything, but meal prepping on your own can make or break your gut health experience. If it's too hard, it's going to be hard to stick to.
Opt for ingredients and homemade dishes that work for your lifestyle. For example, stashing bean burritos with beans, veggies, and salsa on a whole grain tortilla in your freezer are easy to heat up in the morning or after work.
Or chop up some wild-caught tuna and high-fiber Cannellini beans paired with whole wheat crackers. With a splash of lemon juice, you have a tangy, flavorful, and gut-friendly lunch at your fingertips.
Allow Yourself Some Indulgences
Improving your gut-healthy doesn't mean you have to eliminate all of your favorite indulgences. Treats like dark chocolate with a high percentage of cocoa polyphenols serve as a probiotic. When you consume it in moderation, you satisfy your cravings while supporting good gut health.
Kefir and yogurt are also quality sources of probiotics that can improve your gut. Add some almonds for a satisfying crunch and get more protein into your diet at the same time. A drizzle of honey could also help promote populations of good bacteria, including Bifidobacterium and Lactobacillus, to alleviate constipation and ulcerative colitis.
Incorporate More Gut-Friendly Snacks
It's challenging to continuously make healthy food choices while hungry. Keep a go-to stash of gut-friendly snacks on hand, including probiotic-rich bars made with whole grains, oats, and tasty and nutritious seeds. Apples, sauerkraut, bananas, and air-popped popcorn are all examples of easy gut-friendly snacks.
If you're feeling overwhelmed about which options to choose, sometimes it's easier to focus on foods that are not gut-friendly to know what to avoid. Refined sugars, mass-produced packaged snacks, factory-farmed meat, refined grains, saturated fats, fried foods, and artificial sweeteners are all examples of foods that are bad news for your gut-health. Meanwhile, whole foods like fruits, vegetables, legumes, and lean meats are generally beneficial for your gut and can help get your health back on track.
Next Steps
Are you ready to rebalance your gut? FitTrax helps fuel your performance with gut-friendly, macro-friendly meals and dishes with weekly to 21-day meal options. Or choose from our a la carte option and bulk items to maximize your favorite flavors and nutrients. Get started today.