Top Superfoods For Digestive System For Weight Loss & Other Issue

Are you facing problem like unhealthy weight gain?

Or you might be facing problems like slow digestion, or low in energy?

It’s not a good sign!

Disturbance in the digestive system is a big issue. A healthy digestive system is responsible for proper digestion and absorption. With a healthy absorption, it becomes easy for the detoxification. With the completion of these process, the risk to health nullifies.

A slight disturbance in the digestive system is a clear sign of risk like unhealthy weight gain, constipation, acidity or also leads to colon cancer.

Risk Factors of Unhealthy Digestive System

A healthy digestive system maintains a healthy metabolism. People usually face problem with the metabolism that is responsible for many of health issues.

Metabolism is body ability to burn calorie and maintains a healthy weight with low effort. But without healthy digestion, it’s not possible.

Healthy digestion depends on things like healthy eating and physical activity. Apart from these two, there are many things that make things worse. Unhealthy foods are the leading cause of the increased issues.

Weak digestive system has lead to many health issues like unhealthy weight gain, constipation, colon cancer, piles, etc. These problems are much more serious as they seem to be.

Weight gain or also known as obesity is the biggest issue affecting people from children to elder people. Everyone are suffering from these problems. With gain of unhealthy weight, risk of many other diseases also increases.

With obesity, the risk of heart attack, stroke, some type of cancer, aging, and other health issues have taken a pace. It is important to control the obesity level to have a strong control over the risk that it brings.

Apart from obesity, weak digestion also results to constipation or piles.

Colon cancer risk also increases with unhealthy digestion and detoxification. To stay at the optimum level, toxin should be flush out. But due to weak digestion or lack of nutrients, our body is not able to do so. Those toxins get stored in the colon, increasing exposure to those toxins.

Exposure to those toxin leads to colon cancer. Apart from colon cancer, those toxins aren’t safe for normal functioning.

There are many things that play a role in digestive system health. It may be eating nutrient deficient foods, eating high calorie, sedentary lifestyle, ignoring physical activity, etc.

As said, the food we eat defines us. It’s truth, if we start making a right choice for food then most of the issue will be solved. So, I have listed the best food that will solve most of the problems that we face.

Foods For Complete Digestive System Health

Foods are the best way to stay healthy. Eating healthy foods loaded with nutrients enables the body to work at optimum level. Our body function depends on the intake of food or nutrients in it. It is essential to take care of daily required nutrients.

There are many nutrients that we need for better nourishment and protection from any health issues. Imbalance of any nutrients slower the normal functioning of the body or the organs.

The slowdown means that we are at high risk of any health issues which is going to turns out into a bigger health problem.

So know the best food that can provide you enough nutrients for better health.

Fruits: Fruit are the first preference for a healthy diet. They are loaded with varieties of nutrients that make them special.

Recent studies have found that five portions of fruits and veggies can give disease free life. (1, 2)

Fruits are superfoods with dense nutrients that are required for normal functioning. They are loaded with fiber that helps in digestion, vitamin & minerals for better development and protection, simple sugar the energy source and it also keep away the hunger pangs.

One medium size apple or 80 g of fruit is considered one portion. The list of healthy fruits is quite long. But to name few of the best fruits are listed below.

1. Apples

Apple is a rich source of antioxidants and other minerals that provide protection from cancer.

You might be wondering how an apple can provide protection from obesity or other health issues?

In many studies, it has been found that Apple is highly beneficial for providing overall benefits to the digestive system. They are proven beneficial as they provide essential nutrients.

A study by Food Chemistry found that apples contain non-digestible compounds that promote growth of friendly bacteria in the gut helping in weight loss and better detoxification. (3)

Fiber and polyphenols are the indigestible compounds until they are fermented in the colon. These compounds act as food for good bacteria in the gut helping them to grow while lowering the bad bacteria.

For a healthy weight, it is essential to balance the gut bacteria. With balanced microbial activity risk of chronic inflammation reduces also it prevent us from overeating.

Fiber is essential for healthy metabolism. Many of time we fell quick hunger pangs instead of eating foods. Those time, fiber comes to play a lead role in controlling our hunger. As fiber are not easy to digest, we feel fuller a for a longer time, and lots of calories are utilized to break it. (4)

Start to eat an apple, if you want to lose weight, prevent constipation or even get protection from colon cancer. (5)

2. Avocados

Want to lose weight?

It seems scary to eat an avocado that is loaded with fats. You don’t need to worry about fat until they aren’t bad fat.

Oleic acid in avocado is a monosaturated fat(MUFAs), trigger body to quit hunger. With these, we tend to lower the risk of overeating, the reason for gaining unhealthy weight. (6)

Fiber is another good reason you should prefer avocado. Fiber contributes to weight loss, lower blood sugar spikes and lowers the risk of any disease. (7, 8)

Avocado provides soluble as well as insoluble fiber.

Friendly bacteria in colon or intestine feeds on the soluble fiber are required for optimal functioning of the digestive system. (9).

100 grams of avocado contains 7 g of fiber which is 27% of recommended fiber intake.

75% of avocado is insoluble while 25% is soluble. (10).

Next time, don’t worry while eating avocados, enjoy it.

3. Bananas

Banana for weight loss!

Many go crazy about eating the banana for weight loss due its high-calorie content.

It’s a misconception that banana is not good for weight loss.

Banana is a heart healthy food also found as a slimming superfood. A slightly green medium sized banana provides 12.5 grams of resistant starch. A ripe banana provides 5 grams of resistant starch.

They are known as resistant starch as they resist the digestion. These starch are a food source for good gut bacteria.

In a study, it was found that replacing 5% of daily carbohydrate replaced with resistant starch increase the post-meal fat burn by 30%. (11)

With this there is a quite boost in metabolism that burn excess calorie, improves digestion process and suppress appetite.

Next time, add a banana in your smoothie to get those benefits.

4. Berries

Want to remove deep-seated fat?

Berries are the best option to get the result.

There are lot amount of berries like raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, etc.

Raspberry contains a natural compound known as a ketone, similar to capsaicin that gives fire to peppers. In studies, it was found to prevent an increase in overall body fat and fiscal fat, the deep internal belly fat. (12)

Another reason to eat berries is the fiber content. Berries provide both simple sugar and fiber. Simple sugar is used as an energy source while fiber helps to burn excess calories deep-stored.

Each gram of fiber eliminates 7 calories. Along with it boost metabolism and reduce food cravings.

You can enjoy berries smoothies between meals to keep yourself feel fuller for longer.

5. Cantaloupe

Cantaloupe is known as water fruit. They are loaded with water and a good amount of carbohydrates that are highly beneficial for digestion.

For a healthy digestion and detoxification, it is important to maintain hydration level.

Along with hydration, it provides a good source of energy due to carbohydrate content. So it maintains a healthy metabolism and promotes weight loss.

6. Grapes

Grapes is the best option to maintain the healthy fat level in the body.

It was found that eating grapes limit the absorption of excess fat thus lowering the storage of fat. 100 g of grapes provides 67 calories while it is loaded with water and fiber that make fell fuller and avoid hunger pangs. (13)

Grapes are also suggested to people suffering constipation. It provides fiber for better bowel movements and also improves digestive system health by boosting the production of digestive enzymes.

7. Honeydew

Honeydew is another healthy food for weight loss.

With rich water content, it maintains hydration level of the digestive system. Along with it contains soluble fiber that maintains healthy guts.

8. Kiwi

Want a great after-dinner snack?

Kiwi is the best thing you can try. With low sugar but high fiber content, it boosts healthy digestion.

Raw kiwi contains actinidain, a protein-dissolving enzyme that helps to digest the meal. (14)

Kiwi provides a good effect by boosting metabolism when eaten empty stomach.

9. Mango

Mango is rich in water and fiber that prevent constipation while maintaining a healthy digestive tract.

The pulp of mango is healthy, but the skin is much healthier.

In a study, it was found that mango skin extract inhibits the development of fat cells. (15)

Researchers in Australia found that phytochemicals in mango act a natural fat busters.

10. Papaya

Want a healthy digestive system?

You should prefer papaya for it. Papaya is best foods for improving digestive system health.

It is low in calorie but rich in plant fiber that helps against constipation, acidity, gastritis,

Papain present in papaya provides additional benefits as it helps to digest protein. (16)

11. Peaches

Peaches are low in calorie, i.e. one peach contains 35-50 calories and no fat. It makes fell fuller and prevents over-eating.

12. Pears

Are you just enjoying apple for weight loss?

You should also give a try to pears for losing excess weight. Pears are a good source of nutrients and fiber that are highly beneficial.

In a study it was found that women eating 3 apple or 3 pears a day consumed few calories and lost more weight than who didn’t. (17)

Another important thing to remember is its skin.

Usually, we peel out the skin where the fiber content lies. Do don’t miss the skin, start enjoying it.

13. Prunes

Eating dried prunes is considered as unhealthy, as said that they have high sugar content. But it was found that dried prunes play big role in keeping pounds off.

12 weeks study on 100 people concluded that eating prunes has shown more weight loss and greater reduction in waist circumference. Fiber was responsible for the result, as it helps to feel fuller for a longer time. (18)

14. Watermelon

A better hydration and detoxification results to healthy functioning. Watermelon is a water-rich food along with essential mineral for better digestion and detoxification.

Citrulline builds arginine that removes toxins and ammonia from the body, improving detoxification. While fiber helps to keep the colon clean. (19)

With a whole list of fruits, you can start enjoying fruits without guilt feeling of weight gain.

VEGETABLES: After fruit, veggies is next nutrient abundant food that provides a lot more benefits.

15. Green Leafy Vegetables

Asparagus, Cabbage, Spinach, Kale, Radishes, Turnips, Broccoli are green leafy vegetables. They are the No 1 foods that provide varieties of nutrients and multiple health benefits. They are loaded with antioxidants and minerals that are required for optimum health.

Green leafy vegetables are a good source of folic acid that plays a crucial role in the digestion of protein and metabolism. Folic acid helps to stabilize insulin levels decreasing the fat storage. (20)

Fiber is the most important nutrients that boost metabolism, improves digestion and promotes detoxification. Green leafy vegetables are loaded with fiber that helps to burn excess calories, lower overall cholesterol and keep fuller for longer time.

They are the best combination for a healthy diet as they are low in calories. Eating veggies with carbs-rich foods allow the carbs to burn slowly maintaining the energy level for longer. Metabolism kicks up and appetite is suppressed.

Don’t miss these healthy and nutrients rich foods in your diet.

16. Beans and Legumes

Want a good amount of protein without any saturated fats?

You should give a try to beans. Eating meat for protein provides a lot amount of saturated fat. (21)

A group of 42 were asked to eat chickpea for 12 weeks and they returned to the normal diet. It was found that they felt more satisfied and felt less hunger pangs. But after four week, processed food craving increased when they stopped eating. – Australian research

Pea, fava beans and lentils are rich in arginine and glutamine, an amino acid that helps to burn 50% more calories after-meal. They are shown to increase the metabolic rate by burning more carbohydrate and protein. – Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, University of Manitoba

Overweight women with high cholesterol who ate muffins with the whole pea protein powder for 28 days has lowest-hip ratios. It signifies significant loss of belly fat. – British Journal of Nutrition

17. Beets

Fiber is beets provides protection from colon cancer. Beet also contains pectin polysaccharides that improve the fiber content of beets. (22)

18. Brussels sprouts

Brussel sprouts is a good source of fiber. A cup of sprouts provides 4 grams of fiber that make it highly favorable for healthy digestive health. Glucoraphanin present in Brussels sprouts helps to protect stomach lining by preventing the bacterial overgrowth of Helicobacter pylori. (23)

While a good Vitamin C helps to synthesis carnitine that has been found to boost fat burning capabilities of cells.

19. Carrots

Carrots are found to increase saliva that aids to digestion. With presence high soluble fiber, it helps to boost digestion and detoxification.

20. Mushrooms

A study found that eating white button mushrooms can enhance weight loss.

After 12 months of eating mushrooms, it was found that people lost 3.6% of their starting weight. – Johns Hopkins University (24)

21. Peppers (green, red, or yellow)

Capsaicin present in pepper provides kick and body heat up to melt down the fat. They stimulate fat burning process and metabolism for healthier digestion. (25)

The spiciness stimulates the taste buds to produce Hydrochloric acid that boosts the digestion process.

22. Zucchini

It is the best food for the digestive system. It is suggested to eat zucchini as it maintains electrolyte level and provides anti-inflammatory protection within GI tract that can reduce ulcer-related symptoms, leaky gut syndrome and reduce IBS. (26)

Zucchini is easy to digest as it is mostly water and fiber that makes it more favorable for digestion. It is the best food to boost digestion to provide protection from diarrhea or constipation.

Others foods:

23. MEAT/PROTEIN

Considering weight loss? Or want to boost metabolism?

A healthy amount of protein is required for improved digestion.

Protein requires a lot of calories to burn same as fiber while it releases calories.

Along with more the muscle, more calories are utilized by the body. So start including protein rich foods. Your metabolism will boost and risk to the digestive issue will also lowers.

24. Fish

Another good source of healthy nutrient are fishes. They are loaded with protein, omega 3, vitamin and minerals for better development of body and higher metabolism.

25. Nuts

Considering a good source of fiber, protein, healthy fat, vitamins or minerals?

Nuts are a dense source of nutrients that are required for weight loss, boosting metabolism and better detoxification.

Nuts like almonds, cashew, pine, hazelnut, raisins, etc. provide dense nutrients that are required for optimum functioning of digestive system.

Enjoy nuts for snacks or add to smoothies to get more benefits from smoothies.

26. GRAINS

We depend mostly on grains to get energy and other nutrients. There are many options to make a better choice.

Brown rice is healthier than white rice as they contain a good amount of fiber. With high fiber content, brown rice burns slowly to provide energy and keep full for longer.

Oats are one of the best grain that is a rich source of fiber and protein but low in carbohydrate.

So start making a better choice for food. Include grains that contain a good amount of fiber or protein along with carbohydrate.

Carbohydrate from foods are good, but high carbs without fiber don’t provide any benefits to the digestive system.

The list of healthy food completes. Many time people eat healthy foods but miss the important routine that can simplify their task. Small but right steps can give better result instead of trying harder in a wrong way.

Healthy routine

A healthy routine makes the task far simpler than it was earlier. Missing any things can slow down your result.

Don’t be in misconception that for a better and faster result you need to dedicate more or go through tough process.

In fact they are simple.

It is simple as we do the basic things that our natural functioning demands. For weight loss, many people suggest to try a fad diet, but it don’t do any good. Fad diet interfere our body’s natural functioning.

Many research and studies were done to find the best way to optimize our digestion, metabolism and detoxification process without falling into the wrong way. Know the best-proven steps that mostly fitness people will suggest as they are proven and can’t be neglected.

1. Eat breakfast

Eat a healthy nutrient rich breakfast!

The most repeated fitness tips around the globe by nutritionist or fitness freaks. Instead of this, many people don’t forget to take care of it.

They simply ignore it and skip their most important meal of the day.

There are many scientific reasons for eating a healthy breakfast. Considering many of health issues are caused due this simple reason.

Skipping breakfast…

How can a breakfast be such important?

There are many reasons for it. But we will consider natural body process and its need.

During 7-8 hours of sleep, our body metabolism is at peak, to repair the damage cells throughout the day.

We can say that process of healing is done by our body. During this process, our body consumes a large amount of energy. Morning breakfast is the best way to regain the lost nutrient and energy. (27, 28)

If we miss eating nutrient-rich breakfast, craving for calorie dense food rises. Our metabolism slows down and digestive problems become common.

Digestive problems such as constipation and acid reflux are due to missing meals. Obesity follows as our metabolism slows down and craving to calorie rich food increases. This digestive issue leads to constipation, while piles occurs due to constant constipation.

Considering colon cancer, it is worst but can be avoided by eating healthy and boosting detoxification.

Problems may be many, but you can be tackled with healthy breakfast.

2. Eat 4-5 small meals

Want to lose weight?

Or want to gain muscles?

Or might be planning to stay the healthiest?

You should prefer small meals at regular interval of time. There are many discussion done to find the right number. 4 or 5 or 6 meals.

It doesn’t matter, you can try any number. 4-5 small meals will be perfect.

Usually, people try to eat 2-3 large meal which is creating many health issues.

You can avoid it just breaking the large meals into a small meal.

Any reason for it?

Yes! There are proven reasons for it.

As we eat meal our metabolism rises high to digest those foods. But after a while our metabolism slows down. Slowing metabolism slows the body process to burn calories. Along with this, there are many other effects. (29)

But with small meals at a regular interval metabolism will be high throughout the day. It will not only prevent unhealthy weight gain but it will boost digestive system health.

There are many good reasons for eating small meals, so why not adopt it.

As said earlier, small steps that boost body natural process are very effective. So take charge of your health and start enjoying small meals.

3. Include fiber in every diet

After breakfast and small meals, fiber it the biggest topics.

In today lifestyle, many health issues are born. The major reason you can consider lack of fiber intake.

Yes! Fiber intake has been neglected by most of the people.

People are eating calorie dense foods that lack required fiber. A calorie is not the main issue that makes us unhealthy, it’s the fiber deficiency.

When we eat fiber, it get mixed with carbs. This process slows down the digestion of carbs preventing quick increase in sugar. Slow digestion of food for long will keep you fell fuller for long and prevent unwanted craving.

Along with, body utilizes lot more calories to burn the fiber. Your metabolism stay high providing overall benefits to digestion.

And the most important role of fiber is detoxification. Soluble fiber binds the toxin in the colon to flush it out.

Next when you are missing fiber then remember you gonna miss many of these benefits. If you want to stay healthy then you need to take care of fiber intake. Don’t miss it.

Tip: Each meal should include a small amount of fiber.

4. Enjoy Lean protein

After fiber, protein plays lead role in boosting digestive process and preventing hunger prangs.

Same as fiber, protein are not easy to break. It burns more calories and keeps fuller for longer.

There are lot more benefits eating protein but to be short it will boost your digestive system.

5. Add probiotics

There are 10 times more probiotics in our gut than cells in our body. These probiotics may be good or bad bacteria. According to digestive experts, the balance of gut bacteria should be 85% good and 15% bad bacteria. (21)

Imbalance in these bacteria is reason for digestive problems. There is constant damage to good bacteria due to chlorinated water, antibiotics, GMO foods, emotional stress, chemicals and medications.

To maintain the balance we need to include foods that are rich in good bacteria. You can include foods like yogurt, kombucha, raw cheese, sauerkraut, etc.

6. Stay hydrated

There are lot more process goes in the digestive system. For every process like digestion, absorption, etc requires water. Fully hydrated digestive system works best in keeping the metabolism high.

Dehydration can slow down the process leading of many health issues.

For healthy detoxification, water is essential.

Staying hydrated is most important task as many process depends solely on it. So start gulping water few hour intervals or as per need.

7. Exercise regularly

For a healthy us, we need exercise. Exercise for 40-50 minutes is required as per our daily lifestyle. It will help us to boost our metabolism, burn more calories. As we adopt a healthy diet with exercise, we start achieving our goal to overall health.

8. Manage stress

Stress!

No 1 reason for major health issues.

Stress can lead to heart attack, stroke, depression, etc.

How is it related to digestive health?

In day to day life, we go through many problems that have given rise to stress. These stress hampers our brain process. When we are stressed, we don’t make a better choice of foods.

Calorie or sugar are most preferred food when we are in stress. We tend to eat calorie dense foods that interfere the normal functioning.

Also, stress is not good for our overall health. It harms us in one or the other way.

Conclusion

Digestive system is the source of digestion and absorption. Interference in normal functioning leads to many health issues. Changes in it increase obesity, constipation, etc.

All these can be avoided just by eating nutrient rich foods and following the best practice.

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