HOW I F*CKED UP MY GUT
DODGY DIETS AND QUICK- FIX PILLS TO CHEAT THE STOMACH SYSTEM CAN CAUSE MORE HARM THAN YOU REALISE. JENNIFER GEORGE KNOWS FIRSTHAND WHAT IT TAKES TO GET YOUR BELLY BACK ON TRACK
The tried-and-tested way to get your belly back on track.
I FEEL I SHOULD START WITH A DISCLAIMER: THERE WILL BE TALK OF POO. Those who don’t want to hear about poo might want to move on. I know it’s still the last taboo, but it’s not talking about it that led to 20 years of fighting with my digestion and, well, fucking up my gut.
I’ve never been particularly kind to my stomach. As a child, I was fussy and sugar-fuelled, throwing tantrums at the sight of anything green. In my teens, dieting worsened things (and when I say dieting, I mean irresponsible and not-very-happy extended periods of barely eating). The story doesn’t take a dark turn to eating disorders, thankfully, but I would say I teetered on the edge.
Those days are behind me – but the legacy is not. Denying myself food caused mayhem in my gut, and the lack of nutrients in my low-fibre, high-sugar diet created a toxic effect, ruining the chances of nurturing good bacteria. By the age of 17, I was feeling the effects: most evenings I’d find myself bloated and, yes, blocked up, with even a punnet of prunes unable to shift things for days on end.
Of course, what I should have done was turn my dietary habits around – eaten more regularly and filled my trolley with fibre-filled vegetables. But, I’m embarrassed to say, I didn’t. Why not? I was young, impatient and unwilling to address what were likely underlying issues with food. I wasn’t denying myself in the way I had as a teenager, but I was now a student who saw a carton of eggs and box of chicken nuggets as my main sources of nutrients. My mother had taught me how to whip up delicious stir-fries and salads from scratch, but cooking those for one (on a shoestring budget) wasn’t appealing.
And so it was that, aged 19, after a day working in retail, I found myself sporting a bloat the size of a six-month baby bump and standing in the “stomach and bowel aisle” in the chemist, scrutinising the laxatives. I settled on the mild-looking, senna plant-based kind. This naturally occurring herb, containing sennosides to irritate the bowel lining, would gently move things along, apparently. My naive reasoning was that if it had leaves on the packet, it must be good for you.
Sure enough, 12 hours later, the pills worked as promised. I was thrilled by the physical feeling of emptiness. Deluded as it sounds, I saw these pills as a quick and painless fix to my tummy troubles. Plus, I reasoned, it meant I could basically eat what I wanted, right? Wrong.
Laxatives became the norm. For a year or so, I’d take a few per week to keep things moving. After a while, my body became accustomed to them, so I switched to a brand that looked more hardcore. Admittedly, these were riskier: they worked quickly – sometimes too quickly. I’d get caught short on outings and have to pre-plan any social activities so they were near a bathroom. But I was bloat-free and wrongly convinced myself that I was managing things because I couldn’t see any obvious side effects (I wasn’t losing any weight, just maintaining it).
Soon, I was loading up on laxatives. Most days I’d take two; some, up to four. Taking that many would mean waking in the dead of night in a cold sweat, doubled over with cramps, while my bowels twisted and turned. What I didn’t realise was the internal damage it was causing. “Laxatives aggressively flush out your intestines, taking all the good flora and nutrients with them,” explains Margo Marrone, a pharmacist, homeopath and co-founder of The Organic Pharmacy. “Taken on a regular basis, they create a lazy digestive tract, so the muscles that cause contractions and movement become dependent on laxatives triggering them.”
Looking back, I can see this was its own kind of disorder. My relationship with my body was horribly warped and I was putting my long-term health at risk. My addiction – that’s really what it was – continued for more than 10 years. Friends who were party to my eating habits as a teenager voiced their concerns, as did my boyfriend. Plus, in my new job in beauty writing – and as an intelligent, grown woman – I knew what I was doing was unhealthy. I did try to wean myself off a few times. But when I went cold turkey, my digestion went on strike. On top of that, I had started experiencing headaches and symptoms of IBS.
Dr Harry König, lead doctor at cutting-edge medi-spa Villa Stéphanie in Germany (Victoria Beckham ’grammed her way through some R&R there last year), sees laxative abuse cause irritation and functional disorders in many patients – and worse. “Once the habituation effect [the inability to pass stools without laxatives] has occurred, the intestine only works to a limited extent. A reduction in intestinal activity and resulting mineral imbalances can disturb the functions of other organs, such as the kidneys and heart.”
“MY RELATIONSHIP with MY BODY was HORRIBLY WARPED and I WAS PUTTING MY LONGTERM HEALTH AT RISK”
The shit finally hit the fan – as it were – the December before last. My boyfriend and I were on our way to Christmas celebrations (very festive and jolly) and I got caught short (not festive, nor jolly). I’d planned our route via a pub for that reason. Only this time, there was blood. It was the wake-up call I needed.
With a history of cancer in my family, I went straight to my GP, who booked me in for a sigmoidoscopy (like a colonoscopy,
but not as “far-reaching”) a few weeks later. It was at this point – lying on my side with a camera inserted 50cm inside me – that the foolishness of my actions became clear. When the probable cause of the bleeding was diagnosed as a small tear in my colon rather than anything more serious, it felt like a second chance. It was time to kick the habit once and for all.
My next step was taking myself to nutritional therapist Gabriela Peacock, who I’m pretty sure had a conniption as I listed my dietary habits: “No breakfast, a sandwich around 2pm and, well, there’s this treat table at work, sooo… supper around 9pm and three glasses of water a day, if I remember.”
It was back-to-basics time. I needed to drink a lot more water (for flushing), have regular meals, especially breakfast (for nutrients), and – most importantly – take probiotics. Her “Clean Me” supplement program would also help support my liver, which would have been working overtime to deal with the toxins overloading my body.
A year later, and my tummy and I are in a much happier place. But the road to re-establishing a healthy relationship with my body isn’t quite pothole-free. I’m ever-impatient and always tempted to look for a quick-fix, but I’ve ramped up my water intake (a genius, motion-activated light strapped to my water bottle reminds me to keep chugging it down) and have become a bona-fide breakfast eater, carting Tupperware containers full of yoghurt and granola into work. This alone has helped with my headaches, bloating and temptation to visit the treat table. After all-or-nothing stints of giving them up, I’ve made peace with the fact I’ll always love sugar, gluten and takeaways – and that’s okay. I just make sure my fridge is also stocked with a colourful array of vegetables and organic meat and fish for the nights I do cook, which, luckily, is something I love to do.
Exercising regularly – reformer Pilates, barre and HIIT – has also helped. If I’m moving more, I’m drinking more, and I’m in more of a routine with my eating. But it’s the probiotics that have really turned things around. “The gut microbiome is central to virtually every bodily function, and is not only where we digest food, but where we absorb nutrients, eliminate toxins and house around 70 per cent of the immune system,” says nutritional therapist Laura Ryan. “It’s the trillions of bacteria found in probiotics that keep it functioning.”
There are several good brands: Optibac does a range of options (from “For Every Day” to a “For Daily Immunity” strain that’s boosted with vitamin C), and Bio-kult’s pills can be popped open and mixed into your breakfast. There’s also The Beauty Chef’s Glow Inner Beauty Powder, which supports gut health (and improves the skin) thanks to a mix of probiotic superfoods, and Blackmores Probiotics+ Bowel Support, which can relieve symptoms of IBS. The one that works best for me is by Symprove. It’s a “live” probiotic and water-based, so your stomach doesn’t see it as food, letting it pass through the small intestine to the colon. Magnesium citrate tablets help, too, as the mineral assists with water absorption into our intestines. I recently visited The Organic Pharmacy to have a health assessment, which involves being strapped into a sci-fi sounding quantum machine. By reading your body’s electromagnetic field, it measures imbalances of energy (we’re talking protons and neutrons, not crystals and chakras), which indicate how well things are functioning, giving profiles on vitamin deficiencies, organ functions, intolerances and imbalances. My overall results were “good to average”. I need more fruit, have good alkaline blood and should possibly avoid beef – but my bowel flora levels? “A solid 9/10!” smiled my lovely therapist Flavia, who credits the probiotics for this star-pupil score.
Such shamefully simple changes in my life have meant an end to constipation, bloating, frantic sprints to the loo and, most importantly, being dependent on cramp-inducing, gutruining laxatives. In short, it’s a return to the normality I never knew existed.
“THE GUT is NOT ONLY WHERE WE DIGEST FOOD, BUT WHERE WE ABSORB NUTRIENTS, ELIMINATE TOXINS and HOUSE AROUND 70 PER CENT of THE IMMUNE SYSTEM”