Hi friends!

The most profound discovery is realizing the depth of what we don’t know.

I’ve been wanting to learn about gut health for a while but have been putting off reading yet another really technical paper (I do that plenty with lipedema papers).  But finally, a book came out that simplifies things about gut health and it really has taught me a lot, with some practical things I can be doing.

I recently finished reading a brand-new book about gut health called, Mastering Gut Health for Women: Boost Immunity, Increase Energy, and Transform your Weight, Health, and Life in just 12 Weeks, by nurse Karin Feltman.

I knew that lipedema has a very strong relationship to inflammation, and we should be doing all we can to reduce inflammation in our bodies.  Because there’s still not enough research on inflammation, we have to cobble some thoughts together.  Researchers think that chronic inflammation may contribute to lipedema; we know inflammation can leads to blood vessel leakage, allowing fluids to leak into surrounding tissues and that also might be a lipedema contributor.  We also know that fat also can get inflamed – it’s more than just passive storage of energy. So inflamed fat (adipose) tissue could also lead to lipedema progression.  So while the research isn’t done yet, we have enough to know that inflammation in our bodies isn’t good, especially for lipedema patients.

This book is written in plain language (yay!) and first explains gut health and why it’s important, and all the parts of our physical and mental health it affects.  I feel silly saying it but I literally did not know even what parts of the body made up the gut (I thought it was just our lower belly stuff), and I was wrong on that even.  So learning how the gut affects things really opened my eyes.

I’m glad too that the way Karin laid out the book is progressive instead of, “do all these things right now”, and builds on twelve weeks of things to do, eat, etc. that will help result in a healthier gut, and healthier body and mind.  For me, I think some of the steps will be multiple weeks (sugar reduction is a never-ending battle, for example), but there are tiny steps in each week that I can begin doing, so that gives me hope.

The other thing I like is that the recommendations from week to week don’t contradict each other.  I know we’ve all read many diet books and can’t figure out what the consensus on a healthy way of eating is from author to author, so it’s refreshing to see that recommendations with twelve weeks’ worth of work, all work together instead of being confusing.

My husband and I are doing some planning for health improvements in the new year, and this book actually helps me think about what small actions I can take instead of a major change that never sticks.  So I’m grateful I read it now.  I’m also grateful that it’s not another stupid diet, because I’m really done with all of that at this time in my life.  I just want to be healthier and feel good without the craziness we’ve all experienced called weight cycling.  So done.

Anyway, if you’re interested in finding a nugget or two of goodness that you can apply to increasing your gut health, I definitely recommend this book.  Thank you Karin for writing it in a way that kept me interested for all the pages!

Here’s to health improvements in 2024! For now, I’m off to take my probiotic!

Susan