What is the 5 phase gut balancing protocol

Have you been wondering what my 5 phase gut balancing protocol is and why you need it?

I developed the 5 phase gut balancing protocol after many years of seeing the same foods affect my patients. I started it from a fructose malabsorption position as many of my patients present with this, I then adjusted it for SIBO problems as many of my patients present with this as well. I then removed the foods that I commonly see come back positive from a food intolerance test. You may be thinking oh great, it's likely I'm going to starve on this protocol. In fact the opposite is true — when patients receive phase 1 they often comment on the variety of foods they can have compared to what they've actually been consuming. One of the great things about my 5 phase protocol is that if you do the work and listen to your body, you won't need to test, saving yourself hundreds of dollars.

Here's how it works — for the first two weeks we remove the foods that are commonly problematic for SIBO, fructose malabsorption and food intolerances. Foods such as wheat (not gluten), A1 dairy (not A2 dairy), and chicken egg — which is the third biggest food intolerance I see on intolerance tests. This always surprises people as they never or rarely realise that egg could be a problem. I also remove garlic and onions as many of you already know these foods are highly problematic for you as they are high in fructans, making it a part of the fructose malabsorption picture. The other high fructose/fructan foods I remove are: sweet potato — but you can have white potato; Lebanese cucumber — but other cucumber is fine; and iceberg lettuce — other lettuce is fine. Tomato is a no, as are high fructose fruits such as apples, mango, grapes and watermelon. Enough of the no word. I feel it's important to focus on the foods you can have, of which there are many.

Foods you can enjoy freely in phase 1

In the first phase you can have as much of these foods as you like:

Proteins

• Meats, fish, seafood and poultry — think lamb, pork, steak, fish, prawns, lobster, mussels, crab, oysters, chicken, quail and turkey

Dairy alternatives

• A2 milk, goat and sheep yoghurt, cream and cheese
• Rice, oat, macadamia or almond milk — just be careful that your almond milk doesn't contain inulin as inulin is a fructan

Vegetables and salads

In the first phase I recommend these vegetable and salad ideas. We do limit the amount of each individual variety, but with such a large selection it's easy to have a plentiful and satisfying amount.

• Alfalfa sprouts
• Avocado
• Bamboo shoots
• Beetroot
• Bok choy
• Broccoli
• Brussels sprouts
• Cabbage
• Capsicum
• Carrots
• Cauliflower
• Celery
• Chilli
• Choko
• Coriander
• Corn
• Cucumber
• Eggplant
• Ginger
• Kale
• Lettuce
• Mushrooms
• Olives
• Parsnips
• Potato
• Pumpkin
• Radish
• Rocket
• Spinach
• Swede
• Turnip
• Zucchini
• All fresh herbs and spices except garlic

Grains

For grains I recommend these and again we do limit the amount of each one you can have:

• Rice
• Oats
• Wheat-free sourdoughs such as spelt, oat, kamut and quinoa sourdoughs

Nuts and seeds

• Almonds
• Hazelnuts
• Macadamias
• Pecans
• Pine nuts
• Pumpkin seeds
• Sesame seeds
• Sunflower seeds
• Walnuts

Oils and drinks

• Oils: olive, coconut, sesame, vegetable and ghee
• Drinks: coffee, tea and water

When you read through the list it's pretty big, and this is for the first two weeks. At the two week mark we go to phase 2 and introduce more foods. We slowly do this over 5 phases. The first phase is two weeks and each other phase is three weeks.