Gatherings with family and friends around the table are my favorite part of the holidays. However, holiday parties are often positively rife with foods and drinks that many of you are avoiding! Two scenarios can throw you off track during the holidays: getting “glutened” and overindulging in sweets and alcohol.

To help you navigate the holidays successfully, I recommend four key supplements. These help repair your gut lining and recover from holiday slip-ups. They are absolute lifesavers when I know I’ll eat food that I haven’t cooked myself or indulge in the rare alcoholic drink. I never travel without them!

In this article, I’ll walk you through my four favorite supplements for curbing sugar cravings and blocking the effect of inflammatory foods. They’re also great for detoxing from indulgences and supporting your body’s ability to repair and recover from holiday-related setbacks.

Supplements to Help You Repair Your Gut

Digestive Enzymes

The holidays can make you feel worse for wear. That may be because you are eating greater quantities of rich foods that your body struggles to break down. Supporting your digestive process is critical at this time of year.

Digestive enzymes can be an invaluable ally this time of year, especially if you have lactose intolerance, casein and gluten intolerance, celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), or if you’re struggling with gut infections such as SIBO or Candida overgrowth.1,2,3

When proteins such as casein and gluten are completely broken down, they don’t cause an allergic or immunogenic reaction. I certainly don’t recommend eating food that will make you sick and then taking digestive enzymes to compensate! However, supplemental enzymes can help relieve occasional symptoms of intestinal distress and soothe your digestive system throughout the holiday season.

I formulated my Complete Enzymes after getting “glutened” at restaurants and friends’ houses more times than I can count! I made certain to include DPP-IV, a protease enzyme that actually breaks down gluten to support your gut health.

I also included a wide range of proteolytic enzymes that help break down inflammatory antigens such as lectins. They help tackle GI tract issues including dysbiosis, parasites, and Candida overgrowth. They break down everything from the rich oils coating your cousin’s roast potatoes to the breadcrumbs your aunt forgot to make gluten-free.

Leaky Gut Revive®

Sweet, sugary, and inflammatory foods are in abundance during the holidays. They can be truly challenging to avoid when everyone else is indulging. That’s why taking a supplement that accelerates gut repair and curbs sugar cravings is critical at this time of year.

Leaky Gut Revive® is an excellent source of L-glutamine, which nourishes your gut cells and promotes a healthy gut. It also protects them from inflammatory foods, infections, toxins, and stress. All of these can lead to leaky gut syndrome.4,5 All kinds of health problems can arise when the good bacteria in your gut’s microbiome get out of balance due to leaky gut. The increased intestinal permeability that is the result can allow toxins and food particles that would otherwise be passed out of your body as waste products to escape into your bloodstream.

L-glutamine has also been found to suppress insulin levels and stabilize blood glucose, helping to alleviate cravings caused by low blood sugar.6,7

Additionally, Leaky Gut Revive® contains aloe vera. This can your body replace the lost mucus associated with leaky gut and other GI issues. It also increases water content within your intestines and reduces inflammation.8

It also includes deglycyrrhizinated licorice (DGL), arabinogalactan, slippery elm, and marshmallow root. These help promote a healthy and protective mucosal lining, keep bad bacteria in check, promote weight loss, and reduce the symptoms associated with conditions such as ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.9,10,11,12

Supplements to Support Detox and Recovery

Acetyl-Glutathione

Immune support and detoxification are both absolutely critical around the holidays. The weather is colder, temptations abound, and it can be easy to forget to prioritize your health when there is so much else going on!

Enter super detoxifying, anti-aging, free-radical fighting glutathione! It helps your body regenerate antioxidant vitamins C and E and flush toxins from your body. It also protects your cells from oxidation.13

Glutathione is made naturally in your liver. However, a poor diet, toxins, medications, stress, aging, and illness deplete it. Low glutathione levels are also a critical factor in the onset of autoimmune disease.14

Without glutathione, your body simply can’t detox properly. Toxins can linger in your bloodstream or get stored in your fat cells. There, they wreak havoc on your immune system. They can set you up for chronic illness and faster aging.15

Acetyl-Glutathione works on virtually every cell in your body.16 In my opinion, there’s no better way to support your overall health.

Coconut Charcoal

My other favorite supplement for supporting post-holiday detox is Coconut Charcoal, which acts as an incredibly effective binder and chelator. It has an extremely large surface area that traps toxins, gas, and chemicals within its millions of tiny pores.

Then it binds with them so they can be safely and quickly transported out of your body.17 Activated charcoal is so powerful! When I worked in an emergency room, we used it to help patients detoxify after ingesting chemical or environmental poisons.

Coconut Charcoal can be especially useful around the holidays if you’ve been indulging in alcohol and need a little help recovering. Because alcohol is a toxin, Coconut Charcoal can swiftly flush it out of your system to ease your hangover symptoms.

This must-have supplement can even “mop up” potentially irritating proteins such as casein and gluten. If you find yourself with gas, abdominal pain, and/or diarrhea, Coconut Charcoal is for you! It neutralizes intestinal gas and reduces abdominal pain. It acts as an antidiarrheal remedy that comes with few to no side-effects.18,19

My Coconut Charcoal encourages healthy detoxification pathways and is perfect for anyone who wants to recover from holiday missteps or indulgences. It is made from coconut shells that are heated and ground into an ultra-fine powder. This maximizes its surface area and its ability to bind with harmful toxins in your body. I recommend starting the new year off right by helping your body detox from holiday indulgences.

With a little advance planning, you can be happy and healthy throughout the holiday season. 

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