Will Bulsiewicz (The Gut Health MD) is a gastroenterologist and leading gut health expert. As ZOE’s Medical Director in the US, he is dedicated to improving the gut health of the world through his podcast, and NYT bestselling books. His latest, Plant Powered Plus: Activate the Power of Your Gut to Fight Inflammation, is out now.
For our weekly series Life Lessons, he shares his own daily habits that are informed by his research and experience in the field.
My morning routine is so simple but it’s changed my life
In recent years I’ve focused on my morning routine, and the changes I’ve made have become non-negotiable: they’ve had such a positive impact on my ability to do my job. And you can get it all done in about an hour.
Part of this is waking up at the same time every day. Simple, completely free, actually quite powerful: you’re teaching your body to work on a 24-hour rhythm or wake, digest, focus and then wind down at the end of the day.
Then I drink water (it turns on the brain, gut and kidneys) and let the body know that the day has begun by exposing myself to natural light. I get outside when I can because you still get better light outside on a cloudy day than inside. But in winter I have a backup plan; a lamp that produces 10,000 lux. That is not the same as the sun, but it does allow me to activate the cascade of physiology through light exposure. In a perfect world, I would give this 30 minutes. If you even just give it five, you feel the difference.
I like to pair that morning light exposure with exercise. It could be intensive but it doesn’t need to be. A simple walk is valuable. So I get that 30 minutes of light while walking in a weighted vest.
Then I have my coffee paired with some quiet time. It’s a ritual for me. We do so much that’s active during the day and it leaves our body in sympathetic overdrive. We need to intentionally build time in to slow down, and activate the parasympathetic system, which allows us to get into a restful, safe place. What that looks like for the individual could be breath work, meditation, reading a book, reading the Bible, whatever resonates.
It’s always better to eat earlier rather than later
After that comes breakfast, plus morning supplements. The ideal breakfast would be high in fibre and moderate in protein. It’s satiating, sets you up and gives your body what it needs to start the day.
The best time of day for food intake is actually the morning. In fact, you could eat the exact same thing at two different times of day and not get the same result. Our metabolism varies during the course of the day, and inflammation is a part of that story. So when you are more inflamed, you will spike your blood sugar higher, and you have higher blood fat.
In the morning, we release a hormone called cortisol that reduces inflammation, leading to your optimal metabolism. So we’re always better off eating food earlier rather than later. The worst time to eat is after dark. The best time to eat is first thing in the morning.
If we were to create the optimal timing we would always have an early pre-darkness dinner and never deprive ourselves of breakfast. But full disclosure – I’m horrible about having breakfast. I manage it on Saturday and Sunday, but not Monday through Friday. That’s my personal flaw.
I lost 20kg by feeding my microbiome
Fully understanding the gut microbiome is what helped me to understand problems I was having in my own life: I’d gone from a high school athlete to being in the American medical system, which demanded a lot from me. In my late 20s and early 30s I let go of taking care of myself and ended up 20kg overweight. I had health issues, gut issues, was metabolically unwell, depressed and anxious. I should have been in my prime, but I didn’t recognise myself in the mirror.
In 2012, at 32, a busy and single man, I tried to exercise my way out of it. It didn’t work because while movement is essential, you also need to change your diet. But I was eating fast food twice a day (this is the food available to buy in hospitals where I worked).
So I started making smoothies because they were quick, simple and cheap. I felt the difference very quickly. That made me want more. Over the course of a few months, I could see my body and mood was changing, and my self-confidence was growing. This led to a curiosity on my part of what other things can I do? That essentially meant adding in more and more and more plants.
I experienced a complete change to my health by increasing fibre and plant intake. The vast majority of us simply don’t eat enough fibre. For me, the microbiome provides a new motivation to eat like this – I have these bacteria inside of me. They’re hungry. They need to be fed, and when they are fed, they will help me. It’s a pretty simple proposition.
Nature is full of ready-made multivitamins
One of the big steps for me in getting from that point to today has been eating for variety. When you do that, you can take advantage of natural food pairings that deliver key nutrients more effectively. Leafy greens, for example, are a multivitamin with almost no calories and tons of vitamins and they’re an excellent source of iron. If you pair those greens with a squeeze of citrus, the Vitamin C helps to pull the iron out and increase its absorption.
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Another example shows up in spices. Turmeric contains a polyphenol called curcumin which is a powerful anti-inflammatory, but it is not easy to absorb. But if you pair turmeric with black pepper, which every curry does intuitively, it increases the absorption by 2,000 per cent. That’s why turmeric is one of my morning supplements: I would love to eat chana masala three days a week, but that’s not feasible.
You also find these things in the Mediterranean diet. Tomatoes have a naturally occurring phytochemical, lycopene, which protects us from heart disease and cancer. Lycopene is unique because fat improves its absorption. So when the Mediterranean diet brings together tomatoes and extra virgin olive oil, you’ve created the natural framework that you need in order to optimise your availability of these fat-based fat-soluble vitamins.
Food is most important – but I’m a big believer in supplements
Supplements are not a replacement for medicine or food. But they can be difference making, and we have sufficient trials to prove that. As a medical doctor, I just want people well, so I will take advantage of every opportunity that I have. If you can address deficiencies with your diet, you should. But otherwise, supplement.
Vitamin D is one of these. It influences our immune cells quite powerfully. Most of us are deficient this time of year. And that morning light that I was talking about will not address this. If you check your levels, then you have an opportunity to see where you are and address it.
Omega threes are the other supplement that I think quite a bit about. Most of us are not getting sufficient in our diet, particularly the ones that we get from fish and shellfish. This is particularly a challenge for people who don’t eat fish. We do have a test for omega 3 levels and if you are deficient, which many people are, you have the option to supplement. You could take fish oil but my personal preference is for algae-based oil. Not only is it plant-based, but most people don’t realize all omega threes come from plants like algae. So we can go straight to the source. We can cut out the middle man.
As well as taking vitamin D and omega 3 in the morning, I’m a huge believer in fibre supplements. I’ve treated patients with fibre supplements for over 10 years. If it didn’t work, I wouldn’t do it. I’m a big believer that we should get the vast majority from our diet, without question. But I’ve seen many people on a high fibre diet that add a fibre supplement, and they get a lot better in terms of their digestive symptoms. It’s like a fibre insurance policy.
I’ve also been taking creatine since the 90s for exercise, and that was 5g but I’ve now increased it to 10g, and that is because I feel the cognitive benefits. I literally can feel the difference on the days that I missed it in terms of my focus, and this the force of it on my cognition.
Have an end-of-day routine
Much like I have a morning routine, I have a wind-down routine at the end of the day. In a perfect world, I want to be done eating by the time it gets dark but at a minimum, three hours before bedtime, I want to try to be done eating. That means no alcohol and I try to limit snacks or sweets, because they’re disrupting your flow.
I dim the lights as it gets dark, and I want at least one hour free from the bright light of devices. If I have to use a device, then I will wear special blue light blocking glasses.
One hour before bed I take magnesium glycinate which helps with sleep, and zinc, which is essential for wound healing (your body is constantly healing in your gut, because every three to five days you have a brand new gut barrier. Overnight is your opportunity to help set this up).
And then you go to bed in a cold, dark room. That doesn’t mean you are cold, but the room is cold. With dark, blackout curtains. I also wear a face mask as I want it as dark as possible.
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