Digestion for Fat Loss Series: Stomach Acid
We have heard it all when talking about nutrition - Keto, Fasting, Carnivore, Vegetarian, Vegan, diet for your blood type, diet for your body type, and the list goes on. Something that many professionals lack in doing in the fitness industry is explaining to their clients how to improve their metabolism for fat loss no matter the diet they are following. But do not worry, we will not let you be skewed to thinking that you are born witha “slow” metabolism and that you just have to workout harder to get the results you expect. In this article, I will share with you the things you are probably doing that are putting a halt in your fat loss journey and the five things you need to know in order to speed up your metabolism.
Before we get started it is important to distinguish metabolism and digestion. Metabolism refers to how cells use energy in the body. Digestion refers to how food is broken down in the gastrointestinal tract and how waste is eliminated. Metabolism and digestion go hand in hand since one directly influences the other. In short, depending on the quality of your digestion will have a great influence on how well you metabolize substrates (broken down food) into energy.
Takeaway: To speed up your metabolism you need to make your digestion process more efficient.
Here is one out of five five ways you can increase your digestion efficiency. We will cover all five in a series of articles for practical purposes and to allow you to put the information into practice.
Increase Gastric acid
Gastric acid is a key player in digestion, especially in protein breakdown. You might have heard that pepsin breaks down proteins in the stomach, that is one-hundred percent true, however, pepsin is an enzyme that gets activated by gastric acid. Pepsin is a key enzyme that triggers our stomach to mechanically break down our food (mainly protein). We are putting a lot of emphasis on protein digestion because most fat loss/muscle building diets encourage a really high protein intake. Also, the North American diet [not the guidelines but what people actually eat] is composed of 57% protein (USDA 2008).
How do I increase Gastric Acid?
This is what you do.
Increase potassium intake
K+ makes our stomach receptors more sensitive to the changes in Ph. I recommend eating Baked potato (925mg 1med potato), clams (525mg/3oz), 1 banana (425mg) due to their high potassium composition.
Apple cider vinegar
Apple cider vinegar (ACV) has been overused and used wrongly in the past 10 years. You should not take ACV in an empty stomach because this will increase your gastric acid and it might damage your stomach lining (developing ulcers). Instead drink a tablespoon of ACV diluted in water after a heavy protein rich/fat rich meal to promote good digestion.
Kombucha Tea
Kombucha tea has a Ph of 2.5-4.5. This makes it really acidic. It will promote good digestion in the same way as ACV will but with an added benefit. It will repopulate good bacteria in your intestines to further improve digestion down the track.
To conclude, your gut health is extremely important to your fitness and to your overall health. It is imperative to understand all aspects of our life that affect the way we function and the way we feel. In Desert Barbell we make sure to address all aspects to maximize your results in the gym. It is not just about you killing the workouts at the gym but to improve your quality of life.