Thread by @BowTiedOx

Digestion:

This is a subject a lot of people are completely oblivious too, and to be honest it is extremely important to understand.

Optimal digestion is crucial for nutrient absorption, energy & not feeling sluggish, and overall health.

Let’s dive into how to improve this.

First and foremost, you are what you absorb. If your digestion is subpar you will not absorb all the nutrients from your food.

We can immediately see how this is problematic.

This can lead to all sorts of health issues (IBS, leaky gut, malnutrition, etc.)

Also if you aren’t getting getting the proper nutrients you aren’t going to grow muscle properly.

No Bueno.

On top of this, no one enjoys the feeling of being sluggish and bloated. This is a direct cause of your digestion not performing optimally.

Okay Ox, how do I fix it? 👇🏻

First we’re going to focus on hydration (notice how this keeps coming up, extremely important).

Water is what keeps everything in your body functioning, it is what keeps the digestion system moving.

The general guidance is 2L, but this is too low. 3-6L or over a gallon a day.

If you are active you also need to be adding electrolytes to your meals/drinks.

Salt gets a bad rep, but it’s critical to proper cellular hydration.

Salt your food!

Things like lemon, coconut water, bananas, and glutamine are extremely helpful for hydration.

Fiber!

You need fiber to move through your system and “pick up” stuff on it way out. This is important to remain regular with your bowel movements.

Eat your greens. Aim for at least 25g of fiber a day.

Bonus, it’s also very satiating and will keep you more “full”

Make sure you are relaxed before eating, your resting heart rate should be low so your body will use the blood for digestion.

Digestion requires a lot of blood flow, this is why you will feel tired after eating a meal *if* your digestive system is firing on all cylinders.

Also make sure you are not performing stressful tasks right before you eat. This will also reflect in your RHR (if wearing a tracker like Whoop, Oura, etc.)

This goes for both mental and physical activities!

Prebiotic/Probiotic’s are crucial for your guts biome and flora.

They will provide the cultures and “healthy bacteria” your gut needs for a healthy ecosystem.

Yogurt and fermented food are great for this (amongst many other things)

Chew your food!

Digestion starts the moment you start chewing.

Eat slowly and chew your food up well.

Try to take 10 seconds between mouthfuls.

Chew at least 20 times per mouthful

Spend at least 10 minutes eating each meal.

Reduce fluid in take *while* eating.

After eating try to get in some like activity for around 10 minutes. I prefer to go on a small work.

This will improve your digestion substantially.

These are just a handful of the many ways to understand how to improve digestion, more than likely this is more than enough to *immediately* make changes that can improve your daily life.

This will help get rid of the bloated, sluggish (brain fog) feeling after eating.

If you enjoy these threads, you’ll love the free substack.

There I will be able to go into much greater detail that will be easier to follow without sending 100 tweets!

As always I hope this proves to be useful to you my friends.

bowtiedox.substack.com/p/coming-soon?…

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