With a practical and light-hearted approach, Jacqueline’s books are full of helpful tips and advice, and are packed with her own fresh, healthy and delicious recipes.

Jacqueline is a busy working mum from Yorkshire who writes from the heart and from personal experience. She’s not perfect, or a perfectionist; her down-to-earth approach to dieting and cooking speaks directly to her many readers, and she’s always happy to answer any questions her readers may have.

Jacqueline’s recipes are easy to follow with simple, readily available ingredients.

Jacqueline writes regularly on her blog, www.52recipes.co.uk, and has a weekly free-recipe newsletter.

Copyright

For Andy and the kids … who are always putting up with my experiments.

Thorsons

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published by Thorsons 2017

FIRST EDITION

Cover layout design © Holly Macdonald

A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

Jacqueline Whitehart asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

This book features weight-loss techniques which may not be suitable for everyone. You should always consult with a qualified medical practitioner before starting any weight-loss programme, or if you have any concerns about your health. This book is not tailored to individual requirements or needs and its contents are solely for general information purposes. It should not be taken as professional or medical advice or diagnosis. The activities detailed in this book should not be used as a substitute for any treatment or medication prescribed or recommended to you by a medical practitioner. The author and the publishers do not accept any responsibility for any adverse effects that may occur as a result of the use of the suggestions or information herein. If you feel that you are experiencing adverse effects after embarking on any weight-loss programme, including the type described in this book, it is imperative that you seek medical advice. Results may vary from individual to individual.

Find out about HarperCollins and the environment at www.harpercollins.co.uk/green

Source ISBN: 9780008268916

Ebook Edition © August 2017 ISBN: 9780008268923

Version 2017-08-11

Cover

Title Page

Part 1: Feel Better from the Inside

Introduction

Is the 28-Day Gut-Health Plan for You?

How Does the 28-Day Gut-Health Plan Work?

What’s Wrong with My Gut?

How to Improve Your Gut Health

Initial Gut Assessment Quiz

The 5 Big Triggers

Everybody Is Different

Food and Drink

Is Your Lifestyle Affecting Your Gut?

Part 2: The 28-Day Plan

Let’s Do It!

Day-by-Day Guide

Gut-Health Diary

28-Day Review

Bonuses

Part 3: Recipes

Step Up Recipes

Rest and Restore Recipes

Introducing … Milk

Introducing … Red Meat

Introducing … Nightshade

Adventure Recipes: Milk, Red Meat and Nightshade

Introducing … Gassy Vegetables

Introducing … Wheat and Gluten

Adventure Recipes: Food Combining

List of Searchable Terms

List of Recipes

About the Publisher

Part 1

FEEL BETTER FROM THE INSIDE

INTRODUCTION

Do you get that Christmas dinner feeling every day of the week? Does your weight seem unaffected by what you eat and how often you exercise? Do you sometimes feel drained and bloated after a meal? Do you get bouts of spotty skin even though you’re way past being a teenager? Does your stomach sometimes keep you awake at night?

Talking about our gut-health problems is a taboo subject for many of us. If you’d been up most of the night with stomach pains, would you mention it to your friend over coffee the next day? Would you mention your loose bowels at the school gates? Of course not. We keep the pain and anxiety well hidden. And if the pain and symptoms just get worse year on year, do we complain? No, we just get on with it and learn to manage the symptoms.

If you want weight loss, a flat stomach and a healthy digestion then let me steer you in the right direction. I challenge you to follow the 28-Day Gut-Health Plan. In four weeks, you’ll lose weight – up to 3kg (7lb) – and it will all come off your tummy. You’ll banish food cravings and restore the healthy bacteria in your gut. You’ll take the first steps towards permanent weight loss, a healthier digestive system and a fitter old age.

What’s more, with over 80 delicious recipes tailored to the programme, you’ll find the plan to be both simple and tasty.

There are some really useful quizzes and trackers in the book and if you’d like them in a printable and reusable format, they are all available (at no cost) via www.52recipes.co.uk/28G

Finally, I’d like to say that I’m always here to answer your gut-health questions and help you overcome your personal hurdles. You can contact me by email at j@52recipes.co.uk or get in touch via 52DietRecipes on Facebook or Twitter.

Yours,

Jacqueline Whitehart

IS THE 28-DAY GUT-HEALTH PLAN FOR YOU?

Do you suffer occasional symptoms of gut sensitivity – bloating, gas, cramps or loose bowels? Do these symptoms appear quite randomly yet you can’t tie them down to a particular foodstuff? Perhaps you suspect you might be intolerant to some foods but sometimes you can eat them without suffering any problems. The good news is that this plan can help you pinpoint the level of your food intolerances, reduce the symptoms and feel better and finally slowly reintroduce the food.

Severe Food Allergies

If you have a severe food allergy, such as nut or egg allergy, or suffer from coeliac disease then you should be following expert treatment. This book is absolutely no substitute for professional medical advice. The book can still be used to find other intolerances as long as you first seek expert medical advice.

If your weight loss has stalled (or hasn’t even got going), then your gut could be holding you back. Your digestive system is like your second brain, telling you what to eat and when. When those signals get confused because your gut is a bit toxic (sorry for the bad news), then it tells you to eat when you’re not hungry and gives you irresistible cravings. We’re going to give your gut a deep clean and find out the foods your gut likes and the ones it struggles with. As a result, your cravings will disappear and you will naturally lose weight. It’s not uncommon for someone following the gut-health programme (but not thinking about weight loss) to easily lose half a stone.

Cutting out trigger foods also forces us to cook more real food. Do you believe your ready meal doesn’t contain gas-inducing veg? Wrong. It’s in the stock. Think your cereal bar is good for you? Wrong. It contains at least twenty ingredients including five kinds of sugar or sweetener.

But don’t worry. I know you don’t want to spend hours in the kitchen, which is why I’ve included a whole section of easy and delicious recipes for you to try. My recipes are always fresh and simple, use common ingredients and have been tried and tested by me. All those faffy bits that restaurant chefs like to add to make their food look beautiful (but take half a day to prepare) … they’re not in my kitchen.

Onions and garlic are two of the more common causes of a sensitive belly. They are potent, gassy vegetables and even the tiniest amount can set many people off. I’ll introduce you to a new cheap and easy-to-get-hold-of spice that you’ve probably never even heard of. Add a pinch of this to a dish to add natural onion flavour, without the tummy consequences – and without the chopping! What is it? You’ll have to keep reading to find out!

Gut sensitivity affects as many as 10 to 15 per cent of people in the UK and that figure is rising. And that doesn’t even include the thousands – perhaps even millions – of people with mild or occasional issues who just battle on and never visit the doctor or discuss it with anyone.

What I’d like to show you in this book is a way to get to grips with the causes of your gut-health problems. For just one month, we’ll cut out possible trigger foods and introduce them again in a controlled fashion. You’ll get your own personalized guide to foods you can eat with no problems, foods you can eat in moderation and foods to avoid.

The trigger food groups that we’ll be looking at are: milk, red meat, nightshade (such as tomatoes and chillies), gassy vegetables and wheat.

Please don’t think, ‘That’s it. You’re telling me not to drink milk or eat bread ever again.’ First of all, it is rare to be intolerant to both wheat and milk. And even if you find foods that you are intolerant to, you’ll hopefully still be able to eat them in small quantities. You’ll know how to choose the right foods for you. I’ll give you the tools to help you make your own choices. It’s like drinking alcohol. We all know that it gives us a hangover the next morning, but sometimes we do it anyway. You might find that tomatoes give you a rotten tummy ache, but occasionally you’ll think it’s a price worth paying.

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT DIFFERENT GUT SENSITIVITIES

One of the things that you quickly find when exploring gut sensitivities is that no two people are the same. How we react to certain foods and how our digestive systems behave is unique to us. Yet the mechanism is the same for everyone. And the root causes of all digestive issues are the same: inflammation of the gut lining, foods not being digested properly and the aptly titled ‘leaky gut’.

In this book, I’ll look at the root causes of digestive issues and explain how this can lead to IBS-like symptoms: stomach cramps and bloating and also to inflammation throughout our body. Frequent headaches, sinus pain and achy joints can all be linked back to our digestion.

HOW DOES THE 28-DAY GUT-HEALTH PLAN WORK?

The 28-Day Gut-Health Plan is a unique and simple programme that anyone can follow. With a scientific basis, down-to-earth advice and delicious recipes, The Gut-Health Plan delivers wellness, weight loss and a healthier gut.

The plan acknowledges that there are five common food triggers, as I’ve already mentioned – wheat, milk, nightshade, red meat and gassy vegetables – the cause of over 95 per cent of digestive difficulties. We rest the gut for a week then introduce each trigger individually on a three-day cycle to come up with a detailed plan of your own personal sensitivities.

The plan starts with a simple gut assessment to help you work out ‘what’s up’. You then follow a cycle of rest and food trials for the twenty-eight-day period, while recording your progress in a Gut-Health Diary. Plus you’ll get my own personal brand of enthusiasm, advice and dedication to help you every step of the way.

At the end of the plan, as well as feeling better, having a flatter stomach and losing weight, you’ll complete a 28-Day Review. The review is designed to be your ‘take-away’ from the programme, with a simple checklist of what to eat and what to avoid for your own personal gut health.

We can’t fix decades of ‘food on the run’ and ‘processed food mania’ in just one month. But we can help you make significant and noticeable changes in just four weeks. And with the tools that this programme provides, you can make better choices and continue to improve your gut in the long term.

We start in the Rest and Restore Phase, also known as the R&R phase, by cutting out damaging trigger foods. It can be limited but not boring with all the delicious recipes I have created for you to try. The diet is also low in sugar and as you will be avoiding processed food and eating three balanced meals a day, you will naturally lose weight and feel better.

Don’t worry if you feel more bloated or your symptoms get worse over the first week. You are asking your body to do an awful lot. In fact the first week is really about building up the good bacteria and strengthening the gut so you are ready to start afresh in week two. If at any stage you hit a blip and feel your gut health deteriorating, put yourself back on the R&R programme.

Then over the following three weeks, you test each problem food individually, recording any gut consequences as you go. In this way, you build up a detailed picture of your own personal sensitivities.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH MY GUT?

An imbalanced digestive system is like a polluted river. It’s grey and clogged with blockages. Years and years of pollution mean that the river is clogged up and the fish are few and far between.

Your gut lining is like a riverbank, muddy and bulging. The food you eat is like the water running through the river: it chugs along slowly, getting stuck and polluted. The fish are the good bacteria that have been killed off by years of ‘food on the run’.

During the 28-Day Gut-Health Plan, we are going to cut out all the pollution – the junk foods and trigger foods – so that the river runs clear. We are going to reintroduce the ‘fish’ by adding probiotics to our diet. Then our gut will be strong again, and with a strong, healthy gut, the whole body is healthy and renewed.

COMMON GUT PROBLEMS

The symptoms of an unhealthy gut include bloating, gas, cramps, food sensitivities and aches and pains.

If these symptoms affect your daily life severely, this is classed as a medical problem and people are often diagnosed by their doctors as suffering from IBS. But the majority of us haven’t reached that level. We’re struggling on, just managing, and yet slowly the symptoms become more frequent and gut health becomes more of a worry.

The plan aims to reduce your symptoms and helps you learn what foods you should avoid, what foods you can have in moderation and the foods of which you can eat as much as you like.

The symptoms we are hoping to address are:

1.Stomach cramps

2.Bloating and swelling of your stomach

3.Diarrhoea

4.Constipation

5.Excessive Wind

THE PATH TO IBS

The five symptoms – stomach cramps, bloating, diarrhoea, constipation and excessive wind – that are classed as gut-health symptoms are also the symptoms of IBS. Whether you have IBS or not is simply a matter of severity. There is no test that you pass or fail for IBS; it is just a question of how your symptoms affect your daily life. If you get severe stomach cramps overnight then this means that you don’t sleep well and your whole life is affected. This would be IBS. But occasional symptoms are annoying and we tend to just pick ourselves up and get on with it. The trouble is, year on year, your symptoms will slowly and almost imperceptibly get worse. You learn to manage them better, not complaining and just carrying on.

‘Whatever stage you are at, this programme aims to reduce your symptoms by a significant and measurable amount.’

The easiest way to discover more about the health of your gut is to use the Initial Gut Assessment Quiz (see here). This gives you a gut-health score on a scale of 1 to 10 and helps you to answer the question: ‘How bad is it?’ If you want to see the progress in your gut health during the programme you can take the quiz again at the end of the plan and see by how much your score has reduced.

The aim of this plan is to reduce your symptoms and hopefully get rid of some of them entirely. You will gain a deeper understanding of your body and its sensitivities, so you are less likely to trigger them. If you find foods that you are sensitive to, don’t worry too much as you will be able to eat them in moderation later on. Just in smaller quantities and less frequently.

DO YOU HAVE A ‘LEAKY GUT’?

What is a leaky gut?

A leaky gut affects the whole body. It’s caused by sections of the gut, normally joints or bends, becoming more porous and developing holes. Food molecules can leach through these holes and enter the bloodstream. The food toxins in your bloodstream set off your natural alarm system. A few undigested food molecules don’t cause a huge problem – your liver is called into action to deal with the toxins. But if the gut is very porous, the liver is quickly overrun and then these foreign bodies absorb into tissues throughout the body, causing them to inflame.

What causes a leaky gut?

Inflammation in the gut lining causes the microvilli filters that act as the barrier between our gut and our bloodstream to be swallowed up. The microvilli are like very fine hairs that protect the delicate gut wall from bigger undigested food molecules. If part of the microvilli are aggravated and inflamed, then those food molecules can get through the lining and become a toxin in the bloodstream.

This can be caused by:

A. Diet: refined sugars, processed foods, preservatives and refined flours. Too many toxins in the gut over many years means that the gut becomes inflamed as it just can’t keep up.

B. Stress: stress almost always results in a suppressed immune system. A weakened immune system cannot handle doing its normal job and gets overrun more quickly, causing inflammation.

C. Bad bacteria: if the bacterial balance in your gut is wrong, the ‘bad’ bacteria can take over and lead to inflammation.

How do you know if you have a leaky gut?

Instead of or as well as gut-health problems (stomach cramps, bloating, diarrhoea) you may get:

Multiple food sensitivities

Frequent colds and illnesses

Skin complaints such as eczema and rashes

Headaches, brain fog and fatigue

THE BOTTOM LINE

Your gut-health problems, aches and pains and food intolerances could all be intrinsically linked. Let’s start at the root of the problem, your gut, and see if we can understand it better. If we understand it and acquire the tools to fix it, then we can control and reduce the other symptoms too.

This 28-day plan is just the start. If you’ve been eating processed foods, refined flours and excessive sugar for twenty, thirty or forty plus years, then we can’t fix the gut in one go. But we can take some huge, positive steps in the right direction and get you feeling better right now.

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR GUT HEALTH

The 28-Day Gut-Health Plan is unique in its aim to dramatically improve the state of your gut in just 28 days. How does it do this? There are three practical and effective ways in which we tackle the health of your gut.

3 STEPS TO BETTER GUT HEALTH

1. Resting your gut

‘Like a detox but with food.’

The Gut-Health Plan is not about starving yourself and eating less food. You will eat less, but this will be because of changes in your gut that will result in a reduction in cravings and choosing foods which will keep you fuller for longer. For the first week of the plan, called the Rest and Restore phase, you will remove the five most common trigger foods for a sensitive digestion. These foods are harder for your body to digest, so stay in your gut for longer, causing problems along the way.

The foods that you will eat in the Rest and Restore phase may seem quite restrictive, but you will notice an improvement relatively quickly. Essentially, by sticking to easily digested foods for at least a week, your digestive system doesn’t need to work anywhere near as hard. It’s a relaxing time for your digestion and it will reduce digestive stress. If the gut is not constantly working to digest food, it starts to recover and rebuild. This is a simple yet crucial part in the jigsaw of good gut health.

2. Reducing inflammation

Certain foods can cause the gut wall to react in a negative way. It can make the gut lining swollen, inflamed and extra sensitive. Now, the food triggers that cause inflammation are different for each person. But if we cut out ALL the common triggers during the Rest and Restore phase, then your gut lining has the best chance of getting back to normal. The gut cannot heal when it is inflamed.

3. Introducing good bacteria

The third crucial phase is to improve the balance of bacteria in our gut. We do this more quickly by adding probiotics to our diet for the duration of the programme. Of course, following the programme and reducing processed foods and wheat will slowly improve the bacterial balance anyway, but we are going to give it a helping hand. The best probiotics contain several different strains of bacteria as well as a high concentration of them. Improving bacterial balance means that the food you eat is better digested, which is important for gut health.

THE POWER OF GOOD BACTERIA

Your gut is chock-full of bacteria, good and bad. We can supplement our diet with probiotics (good bacteria) to help reverse the damage caused by years of junk-food overload. Probiotics are found naturally in some foods, particularly yogurt. But to really have an impact on our digestive systems, a probiotic supplement is the best way to ensure we have enough good bacteria to balance the gut effectively.

The good bacteria in a probiotic supplement will:

Aid the digestion of complex foods and/or foods which you cannot currently digest

Compete for space and nutrition with harmful bacteria, reducing their numbers and reducing stomach complaints

Prevent toxins moving from the gut into the blood

Unfortunately, the popular probiotic drinks and enhanced foods don’t really cut the mustard when it comes to supplementing. To get any real benefit, you need a probiotic tablet or powder. The number of different bacterial strains, together with the concentration of bacteria, is most important for success.

The most proven and the one now being prescribed by specialists for IBS and similar illnesses is a brand of probiotic called VSL3 (www.vsl3.co.uk). This brand contains the most strains of good bacteria and has 450 billion bacteria per sachet. But it is expensive and needs to be kept refrigerated.

THE BLOATING PROBLEM

Probiotics plus more fibre can lead to extra bloating in the first week of the programme. When you start taking probiotics you could get more bloated not less. But if you care about improving your gut health, it’s a really important step. And in a strange way, it shows that the probiotics have started to do their job. They’ve started the battle and are breaking down foods that your body normally doesn’t digest, producing more gas. Give the probiotics a week during the Rest and Restore phase and you’ll see the bloating reduce. At the end of the week, your waist size and bloating will have reduced and be back to normal. You might even have lost weight and an inch or two round your tummy.

The more traumatized your gut the worse this will be. Give it a week. It will get better. And it means that a change for the better has begun. Don’t start the Introducing phases until it is resolved.

FIBRE VS INTOLERANCE

One of the key tenets of improving your gut health and soothing your bowel symptoms is keeping levels of both soluble and insoluble fibre high. But look at this list of fibre-rich foods:

Vegetables: broccoli (raw), cabbage, carrots (raw), peas and spinach

Grains: whole grain-breads, whole-grain cereals, oatmeal and bran

Beans/pulses: kidney beans, lima beans, black beans and lentils

And if we compare it with our list of top five food intolerances (see here), there’s a huge overlap! Broccoli and cabbage are gassy vegetables, bread and cereals all contain wheat, and don’t even get me started on how gassy beans can make you!

On the one hand, we need to restrict these possibly gut-intolerant foods. On the other, fibrous foods are needed to ensure smooth running of your insides. It’s a real conundrum and one that we can only fully address when we reach the end of the 28-day plan.

During the programme, you should up your consumption of safe fibre-rich foods. Most fruits, especially bananas and berries, are safe and rich in fibre. Oats are particularly good as they are very easy for the body to digest and are an excellent source of fibre.

If you look at the recipes, I use the odd-sounding psyllium husks in various recipes including my Seeded Gluten-free Bread (see here). Psyllium is a powder that forms a fibrous gel on contact with water. It should be used sparingly but is perhaps one of the purest sources of fibre. It can be sprinkled onto breakfast cereal and added to recipes to improve fibre content.

Finally, buckwheat, which contrary to its name contains no wheat or gluten at all, is a fabulous source of fibre. I particularly like using buckwheat pasta as that opens up the way to lots of delicious pasta sauces and bakes.

If you suffer from either constipation or diarrhoea, then increasing the fibre in your diet (from non-problematic sources) can make stools softer (good for constipation) or bulkier and more regular (good for diarrhoea).

Be aware, though, that just like the addition of probiotics to your diet, increasing your fibre intake can initially lead to bloating and constipation. So if you are adding all of these at once at the start of the 28-day programme, then you may find that some symptoms, particularly bloating, increase during this time. If it becomes too uncomfortable, cut out the additional fibre and concentrate on the probiotics in the first instance. Fibre can be added gradually later when you have a better understanding of your food intolerances.

UNDERSTANDING YOUR OWN SENSITIVITIES

The 28-Day Gut-Health Plan is all about understanding your own sensitivities. We all react differently to different foods, and as so many factors influence our gut health it’s often hard to pinpoint what’s wrong and why.

Is it the slice of toast that gave you stomach cramps? Or nervousness about an exam? Perhaps it’s your period? Or even the menopause? Did you sleep well last night?

By following this plan we are trying to cut out as many uncertainties as we can. We do this by eliminating the five most common food intolerances for a week. Then introduce the possible trigger foods one at a time. Key to success is accurate recording of symptoms using the Gut-Health Diary (see here).

HOW MUCH WEIGHT CAN I LOSE?

The amazing bonus of the 28-Day Gut-Health Plan is the weight loss that goes hand in hand with improving your gut-health. This happens simply because you are cutting back on processed foods and sugars, eating foods that your body can digest and eating three filling and balanced meals a day.

When you first give up all trigger foods during the Rest and Restore week, the weight loss can be quite dramatic. As much as one pound a day in the first week. The rate of weight loss is obviously dependent on how much weight you have to lose, but you should expect upwards of three pounds in the first week. After this, the weight loss will settle down but you should continue to lose weight at a rate of one to three pounds a week, depending on your personal intolerances. This diet is not a ‘fad’ diet; it’s a healthy way of eating and the weight loss is real and permanent.

TOP 5 WAYS TO MINIMIZE GUT STRESS

1. Don’t eat big fatty meals

Make your meals smaller by reducing your plate size. Realize that a ‘blow-out’ meal like a takeaway, fish and chips or lots of red meat will antagonize the strongest gut. This is made worse if the meal is eaten late in the evening, as you ‘sleep on your food’. Steer clear if you can. But if you can’t, take probiotics for at least a week afterwards and consider trigger food elimination to reset the gut.

2. Keep alcohol and caffeine levels low

Sadly for those of us that love both coffee and wine, alcohol and caffeine can have a negative effect on the gut. Caffeine is a stimulant and makes the gut overactive and increases bowel movements. Alcohol irritates the gastrointestinal tract, so can make your symptoms worse. Additionally, both alcohol and caffeine make you more dehydrated. The good news is that it is rare to be intolerant to alcohol or caffeine, so neither needs to be eliminated entirely. Just be aware of their effects and try and reduce consumption during the programme and when your gut health is poor.

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The 28-Day Gut Health Plan: Lose weight and feel better from the inside

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