If you’re anything like me, you like to enjoy a festive treat or two. My personal indulgences are Anton Berg chocolate liqueurs, Drambuie on the rocks, Marks & Spencer’s mulled wine, my mum’s mince pies and sausage meat stuffing, sugared almonds (although I do have to be careful of my dental work!), and a nice bit of St. Agur cheese with a few crackers.
If your list looks anything like mine then there’s a good chance that, as Christmas approaches, you’ll start eating lots of foods that don’t exactly make you feel as light as a feather the next day. Perhaps you have noticed that through the month of December your gut seems to be a bit off? Recurring symptoms like excessive bloating, gas, abdominal pain, sluggishness, slower digestion, cramps, etc? It’s usually a sign that we ate more than our bodies could digest at once, or that a certain food just isn’t sitting right with us.
Digestive symptoms due to overeating or drinking can be painful. Waking up in the night with acid reflux is not going to make you very merry, nor is that sick feeling you get when you know you’ve overindulged. Likewise are IBS symptoms such as stomach cramps, constipation or diarrhoea.
If you are one of the many people who struggles more at this time of year with digestive troubles, then please check out my Christmas Survival Guide which provides a wealth of advice and tips that will help to give your gut a quick reset the day after going OTT on the roast potatoes and sugar-laden treats, and help you to enjoy the festivities without causing digestive havoc.
We’re all entitled to let our hair down once in a while, which is why I developed my Just For Tummies Christmas Survival Kit – to ‘trouble-proof’ your tummy so that you can get through the festive season with your health intact. Containing a range of supplements to support gut health and build immunity (including a booklet of tummy tips), this is the go-to kit to keep your digestive system and overall health on track during a time of indulgence.
Here’s a brief run-down of what my Christmas Survival Kit contains and why these tummy-proofing supplements will help you regain the equilibrium you need to appreciate and savour the festive season:
Live Bacteria
Drinking alcohol and eating too much sugar reduces the number of healthy bacteria in your digestive system. On the flip side, it also increases the number of bad bacteria, which thrive on sugar.
The lead-up to Christmas is the perfect time to start taking a live bacteria probiotic, so that you can build up some protection for the festive onslaught. Increasing the good bacteria in your stomach will help the digestion of your food and reduce the symptoms of bloating.
My Live Bacteria probiotics also go a long way towards boosting immunity and thus reducing colds and flu, and the need for antibiotics; preventing and treating UTIs and thrush, reducing the symptoms of IBS, helping to heal inflammatory bowel conditions such as Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, and managing and preventing skin conditions.
You’ll wonder how your tummy survived Christmas without them!
Digestive Enzymes
Taken before eating, these plant-derived supplements offer fantastic support to your digestive system as they help break down food more efficiently, thereby reducing the effects of bloating, gas and heartburn. Not a bad idea when you think about what we put our poor tummies through over the festive season.
I always take two of my Digestive Enzymes before Christmas dinner and I always have a pot of my activated Charcoal capsules on hand, just in case I need them. Activated charcoal powder helps absorb gases, so if you ever get one or two of those days over the Christmas period, where you feel uncomfortably bloated, or you feel bilious and generally out of sorts because you’ve simply indulged too much, just take two of my Charcoal capsules with a small glass of water and voila – your bloating and discomfort should be relieved very quickly.
As charcoal passes through the stomach and gut, I liken it to the effect a powerful vacuum cleaner has on its ability to deep clean our carpets – charcoal is like a ‘deep clean’ for the digestive system. Everyone should have a pot of Charcoal capsules in their medicine cupboard. You never know when you’re going to need them. You can purchase my Charcoal capsules here:
Milk Thistle
While there are plenty of occasions when we overindulge throughout the year, it’s probably the festive season when Milk Thistle really comes into its own. For symptoms such as indigestion and upset stomach, silymarin, the active ingredient in my Milk Thistle tablets, will promote healthy digestive function and offer fantastic liver support, helping rebuild cells while removing toxins from the body – that includes naturally reversing the harmful effects of alcohol when you’ve had one too many.
Taking Milk Thistle is also a great way to help prevent hangovers. Don’t start any party without it!
Tummy Tea
One of the easiest ways to soothe an overburdened belly comes in the form of a cup of my Tummy Tea. It’s a lovely, hand-blended infusion of healing and soothing herbs traditionally used to calm and support the digestive system. Containing liquorice root, ginger, fennel seed, carom seed, cardamom seed, fenugreek seed and black peppercorns, this is a ‘feel-good’ cuppa that can be enjoyed as a tonic to get food and trapped gas moving through the digestive system, thereby reducing bloating and painful cramping.
My Christmas Survival Kit will help make your Christmas a joy, not a digestive ordeal!
After Christmas is over, if you are suffering from digestive discomfort and need some help, please do get in touch with me so that I can recommend a treatment protocol to help ease your symptoms. Just drop me an email at linda@justfortummies.co.uk
