I always look forward to time away, time to relax with the family and just enjoy new surroundings. I love new places, new cultures, and of course new foods! What I don’t love is stomach cramps, bloating, constipation, diarrhoea, gas, or any other tummy troubles that have the potential to ruin my holiday! But all these ailments can happen while on holiday, sometimes more than one at a time.
The good news is that there are some simple ways to help prepare and protect your tummy for travel, preventing stomach bugs or a flare-up of your IBS or IBD.
One month before your holiday:
- If you don’t already, start taking Live Bacteria probiotic capsules to make sure your gut is in tip-top condition. Take one capsule before breakfast and one before bed to ensure you have plenty of beneficial gut bacteria in your digestive system, not just to prepare your gut for the change in routine, including more and different food and drink, but to help support your immune system.
- Supplement with zinc to support stomach acid production and boost the immune system. Most good quality multi vitamin/mineral supplements contain the required daily amount of 14mg of zinc.
- Boost your immune system with specific gut-supporting vitamins/minerals such as vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc. The best way of doing this is to take a good quality multi-vitamin, multi-mineral daily with food. Consider also taking the herb echinacea. I’ve been recommending Vogel’s Echinaforce for over 20 years to help strengthen the immune system.
One week before your holiday:
I always recommend a product by Nature’s Best called Citricidal if people are going to the Far East, Asia, India, Africa, the Caribbean and South America. It is made from the oil extracted from crushed grapefruit seeds and the liquid (not capsule/tablet) form is best. It comes in different sized bottles. Citricidal acts as a natural anti-parasitic. Continue taking it while you are away. Put 8-10 drops in water and drink this once a day. It’s perfect for a wide range of uses, including sterilising your toothbrush and rinsing fruit and salad to kill bugs. You can read more about it here.
While you are on holiday:
- Continue with all the above!
- Follow some of these great travelling hygiene/hand washing tips: https://www.healthandfitnesstravel.com/blog/9-good-hygiene-tips-whilst-travelling-in-2020-21
Most importantly – take the supplements in my Travel Survival Kit.
I put together my Just For Tummies Travel Survival Kit to help protect the digestive system against the effects of airline travel, changes in water and unfamiliar food, and maintain a settled, happy tummy when you travel and whilst you are on holiday.
We can wait a long time to go on holiday and they can cost an awful lot of money, so the last thing you need is a bug or virus that could potentially spoil everything. Not just that, food poisoning can dramatically increase your risk of getting irritable bowel syndrome, so it’s good to know how to prevent this.
The Kit contains 60 Live Bacteria probiotic capsules, 60 Digestive Enzymes tablets, 60 high-strength, low-odour Garlic tablets and 6 Tummy Tea herbal tea pyramids.
All the supplements in the Travel Survival Kit are made in the UK and are vegan and gluten-free. The Kit comes with full, simple instructions.
I also strongly advise that if you are travelling to the Far East, India, Africa, South America or the Caribbean, that you take a pot of our activated Charcoal capsules with you, just in case you do pick up a bug. The activated charcoal powder can absorb the bug and help prevent nasty bouts of food poisoning. Food poisoning bugs are not just confined to such countries though, you can pick up a food poisoning bug from any country, even the UK. Watch out for shopping trolley handles – yuk!
If you have any questions about the Travel Survival Kit or any of our other supplements, please get in touch.
