June book review – Gut Feelings

This month’s book review is by Dr Will Cole, entitled Gut Feelings, Healing the shame-fuelled relationship between what you eat and how you feel. 

Dr Will Cole is a functional medicine expert which means he helps people to naturally and holistically restore health and wellness through diet and nutrition, exercise, environmental factors, emotional support, and other lifestyle concepts with the aim of bringing the body and mind back into balance. 

Dr Cole brings his knowledge and experience to this book to convey: 

• “The physical and psychological are not as separate as you think”,
• “If you don’t take steps to improve the health and resilience of your body and your mind, you won’t be able to achieve optimal health and happiness”.  

Cole’s compelling introduction taps into adages we all know – “trust your gut”, and “gut instinct” – and connects to the science by explaining that sensations like butterflies in the stomach is an example of the gut-feeling connection.

The book comprises of nine chapters and provides a framework of understanding of the reciprocal relationship between emotional and physical wellness and how to move towards healthier mental and physical health.

The first three chapters are educational; explaining gut physiology and where emotions come into play, and the manifestation of common gut issues such as bacterial dysbiosis, leaky gut, IBS, bloating, candida overgrowth, and food sensitivities.

Within these chapters, Cole introduces us to his concept of Shameflammation, the “phenomenon of emotional suffering causing physical suffering”, basically that our negative thoughts and emotions are like junk food for the brain and body and keep us stuck living with chronic health conditions including depression and anxiety, low self-esteem, trauma, IBS, thyroid problems, and other immune disorders.

Cole bases his nutritional content on four key principles presented to us with the acronym FLAG: 

• Flexibility, curiosity and open-mindedness to learn, 
• Lightness of passing thoughts and emotions, 
• Awareness of mindful eating,
• Grace to move away from shame. 

Chapter four prompts us to consider whether Shameflammation affects our own health through blood sugar issues, thyroid problems, anxiety and insomnia and even hunger and cravings. 

Now we know what’s going on, Dr Cole turns his attention to what to do next in the remaining five chapters on how to feed our guts, brains, and hearts through healthy eating, physical exercise, engaging in therapy and mindfulness practices, using his 21-day gut feeling plan, recipe suggestions, and how to live free of shameflammation by tuning into what works for you. 

Gut Feelings chimes with my personal and professional approach to health and wellness – our emotions, mind, and physical being live within one human body so why treat them as separate entities?

To me it’s only logical to explore, treat, and nourish ourselves holistically. 

In therapy, clients are encouraged to tune into themselves as the expert of their own experience and that’s what this book champions too – take time to find foods and exercise that love your body back and approach yourself with honesty and curiosity as opposed to shame and punishment. 

My main celebration of this book is Dr Cole’s use of language, there are a couple of key quotes that I’m taking away:

“Choosing not to eat foods that don’t love you back isn’t restrictive – it’s self-respect”.

“Accepting your body as it is doesn’t mean you are settling for where you are right now. You are simply shifting your perspective toward making choices out of self-respect and self-love, not out of restriction, shame, obsession, or punishment.”

“Stop saying maybe when you mean no.”

“Setting healthy boundaries isn’t rude. Sharing your feelings isn’t being dramatic. Realise that you don’t have to dim your light to make others feel comfortable. You’re not ‘too much’.”

The content is extremely accessible – what we might initially think are complex concepts Cole expertly delivers in a way that makes sense to the everyday person.

It doesn’t feel like a doctor in a white lab coat educating us on the gut-brain axis, rather a knowledgeable friend imparting helpful information so we can all live healthier lifestyles. 

I’m scraping the barrel to critique Gut Feelings however I would pick up on two points.

Firstly, it would be great if the recipes at the back were translated from American English to British English to bump up the accessibility even further. The measurements are in cups and ounces and cilantro is used in many recipes. 

Of course, many of us are happy to hop on Google for any uncertainties but it would have been a nice touch to have a British version to reduce friction for the reader to make changes. 

Secondly, the text is presented in quite a small font which I found challenging to read for longer periods of time.

My copy was hardback so perhaps paperback or Kindle editions would be different.

Overall, I absolutely recommend Gut Feelings if you’d like to understand a bit more about how your emotional and physical systems connect and what to do to find what works for you.