By: Blonde Two

As a reasonably sized girl I have known a few diet plans in my time. These days I avoid them like the plague but am still interested in putting the things into my body that will make it work better and be kinder to the environment (although I do like eating crisps on a Friday!) I have recently been reading Dr Michael Moseley’s ‘The Clever Guts Diet‘, which questions a few of my previous, ‘what should I eat’ thoughts. I have lots of new ideas about what to try and have already changed my eating patterns a tad (not on a Friday!) I particularly like the book because it regularly uses the word, ‘poo’ but the one of Dr M’s comments that really interested me was the impact that spending time outside had our digestive systems; it would appear that a bit of Get Outside is good for our guts too.

Dr M describes the microbiome contained within our large intestines as a complicated ecosystem. There is lots of science involved but, basically, the more diverse the ecosystem in our guts, the more healthy they are and the easier it is to regulate our body weight. You can, if you are so inclined, send a sample (poo again I am afraid) off to a lab to find out how diverse your own microbiome is, or you can do a few things to encourage a large range of microbes to thrive. These aren’t as annoying as you think they might by, you can,

  • Eat a larger range of plant foods (this includes things like eating the broccoli stalk as well as the floret and even seaweed!)
  • Avoid antibiotics
  • Expose yourself to fresh air
  • Get dirty (the closer you get to the soil the better)

As you can see, at least two of the above involve a bit of Get Outside. Like I said, another reason to get on and do it!