How Gut Health Became the Key to One Mom’s Family Diet

As the new year begins, social media fills up with New Year’s resolutions. We hear friends and family declaring their “Day 1,” marking the start of their goals for the year.

One of the most popular New Year’s Resolutions is related to fitness and dieting:

“This year, we promise to reach the goal weight we’ve been eyeing for a long time.” 

“This year, we will not eat junk foods.” 

“This year, we will finally start running, walking, and working out.”

We set goals, but most of the time, taking the first step is the hardest. It’s difficult to get into fitness and dieting after a holiday season filled with Christmas parties, lechon, ham, and fruit salad.

In an interview with Smart Parenting, Eizza Baron, a mom of three also known as Mrs. Baron Method, discussed health, fitness, cleaning up one’s diet, and how to finally declare “Day 1.”

“Sa ating mga Pilipino kasi, when you talk about diet, kelangang magpapayat. Kelangan magbawas ng timbang,” Eizza said. “Kaya all other popular diets like keto, low-carb, intermittent fasting, mabilis ang weight loss. The problem is, all these diet approaches do not take into consideration the importance of gut health.”

What’s missing from many so-called successful diets is proper gut health.

“Everything starts with gut health,” Eizza continued. “When you set your gut health on the right track, everything else follows. It’s not just about weight loss, but overall health. Your immunity gets better, you have more energy, and you sleep better.”

According to Cleveland Clinic, your gut, or inside your intestines, is a miniature biome populated by trillions of microscopic organisms. The gut microbiome can be compared to a thriving native garden that you rely on for nutritious food and medicine. When your garden is healthy and thriving, you thrive, too. But if the soil is depleted or polluted, it can disrupt your entire ecosystem.

Eizza explained this in simpler terms, “Our gut is composed of good and bad bacteria. They co-exist. When there’s an imbalance or oversupply, problems arise. We get good bacteria from natural foods, and bad bacteria from natural exposure to outside elements and pollution.”

Gut health heavily relies on what we eat. Therefore, the only way to improve one’s overall health is to clean up one's diet.

“We need to reframe our mindset about eating. The target is not weight loss. It’s a life-long process of staying healthy and taking care of our bodies,” Eizza said. “We need to be mindful of the ingredients in the food we eat, and especially the food we feed our kids.”

According to Eizza, here are some of the ingredients you need to watch out for:

• Refined sugars – found in commercial bread and wheat bread, sodas, powdered and instant juices, ketchup, ready-to-eat spaghetti sauce, and breakfast cereals 

• Hydrogenated oils – found in breads, rolls, packaged cakes, crackers, and frozen french fries 

• Sodium nitrates – found in hotdogs, sausages, and canned meat such as corned beef 

• Manufactured MSG – found in chips, seasoning mixes, “vegemeat”, bouillon cubes, bottled sauces, instant noodles 

• Artificial sweeteners – found in diet sodas, zero sodas, sugar-free pastries and cookies, and almost anything labeled “sugar-free” 

• Artificial food coloring – watch out for color derivatives like tartrazine, sunset yellow, erthrosine, and others

“Because cleaning your diet and restoring gut health is a natural approach, kids can definitely do the same as their parents,” Eizza said. Her two younger kids started eating healthy at six months old.

Where do we start? With so much diet information online, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. Eizza shared three easy, practical, and doable tips that works for both parents and kids:

“It’s a practical and easy step. Don’t store unhealthy food in your pantry. Don’t include them in your grocery list. Make them unavailable,” Eizza explained. “For example, if I'm craving Cheetos and we don’t have it at home, I either have to go out and buy them or book a delivery, which is expensive. Either way, it’s inconvenient, so it’s harder to give in to the craving.”

In connection with the first tip, make healthy food readily available at home. Switch crackers and biscuits to fresh fruits and vegetables. Avoid storing sugary packed juices. This also works for kids’ baon.

“My kids always bring fruits to school, and they are already used to it. Minsan, nanghihingi pa ang classmates because they don’t usually have fruits for baon,” Eizza shared.

“When you start cleaning your diet, take it one step a time,” Eizza suggested. Start with one challenge this week, then another next week. For example: “No soft drinks, just water.” After succeeding, move on to “No hotdogs or sausages,” then “No chips,” until you’ve cleaned up your entire diet. Weekly wins help build motivation and consistency.

If you don’t know where to start, or why you should start cleaning up your diet, Eizza has a simple message: “Think of your kids.”

“Ask yourself, ‘Do you want to be healthy?’ Because as parents, we only want the best for our kids,” she said. When parents are healthy and in good shape, they can work more effectively, have more energy to play with their children, and still enjoy their own hobbies.

She added, “As a parent, I can’t control everything that happens in my kids’ lives—mishaps, problems. What I can control is what I eat, and what I feed them. For me, that’s how I become a good parent.” Eizza also shared that her kids rarely get sick, and when they do, it’s usually for only a short time.

“The best way to encourage the kids to do the same is for parents to do it first. Otherwise, parents will seem hypocritical.”

Here are the top three reasons why you’re not losing weight while dieting like everyone else.