Have you ever noticed those people who look super lean from head to toe, but have a weird little belly? Chances are it could be to do with their digestive health.

Being healthy is misunderstood these days. Health is all about taking responsibility for ALL areas of your life. Here are the tips I use with my clients, to help them achieve a whole new level of good health.

1. If it is white, don't eat it! The four white devils are white flour, white sugar, white salt and pasteurisation and homogenisation milk products. If dairy is a necessity and you can't get hold of raw dairy, choose certified organic as your second choice. For those who are lactose sensitive, full fat cream is very low in lactose.

2. If you can't pronounce a word on a label, do not eat it. Your liver won't like it!

3. The longer the shelf life, the more harmful it is likely to be to your body!

4. Choose products and meats in this order:

o Certified organic produce and free range meats
o Organic produce and organic meat
o Locally farmed produce and locally farmed free range meat
o Commercial produce and commercial hormone free meat
o Commercial meat

5. Always season foods and water with 100 per cent unprocessed sea salt. The best is Celtic, followed by sea salt from New Zealand, because there is less heavy metal toxicity there.

6. The minimum amount of water you should drink each day can be calculated by multiplying your body weight (kg) by 0.033. This gives you the amount of water (L) that you should consume per day. Remember, nothing substitutes for water, not tea, not juice, not beer – nothing! Always choose top selling brands such as Evian, Fiji, Trinity and Volvic because they sell the fastest and, therefore, have the least exposure to plastic bottles. The most health-giving waters have a hardness factor of 170 mg/L or greater and a Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) of 300 or greater. Adding a pinch of sea salt to water is recommended to replace electrolytes. Additionally, it will harden otherwise good but soft waters and will significantly increase the TDS.

7. Follow the 80/20 rule. If you live healthily 80 per cent of the time, you can absorb the other 20 per cent.

8. Get to bed by 10pm and sleep until 6am minimum. The body (physical) repairs itself from 10pm to 2pm, while the mind (mental) repairs itself from 2pm to 6am.

After years of living an unhealthy lifestyle it will take a bit of time to repair the damage so you need to be patient and realise that this is a long-term endeavour, rather than something that will change overnight. Depending on how toxic your body is you might experience a number of reactions from eating proper food, which could include weight gain, weight loss, enhanced mood, increased energy and vitality.

When your foundation is established, there are other areas as well that can be looked into such as your digestive health, hormones, adrenal glands, amino acids, to name a few. In conjunction with the guidelines above you can start with the Gut Healing Program. If we eat all of these great foods and take all of these high-end supplements but have a gut dysfunction (low SIgA, parasites, fungus, bacteria, dysbiosis, etc), then what we eat will not have its benefits. The gut healing program consists of the following and should be done for a minimum of four weeks:

1. Remove caffeine, alcohol, refined sugars and processed foods and bad fats (all irritate and create inflammation in the gut).

2. Remove foods that you know you are sensitive to. It's worth getting a food intolerance test to find out.

3. Restore probiotics daily such using lactobacillus acidophilus/bifidus.

4. Repair with healthy fats such as fish oils and nut oils.

5. Eat whole foods, unprocessed, lightly cooked and organic wherever possible.

6. Remove antibiotics and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs such as ibuprofen, aspirin and tylenol.

7. Be aware that many other medications affect the GI tract(i.e., osteoporsis mediations, antidepressants, acid reduction medications).

8. Repair with herbs such as garlic, aloe vera, oil of oregano, and turmeric, nutrients such as L-glutamine, quercitin, fish oils, as well as specifically formulated low antigen medical foods to help promote healing.

You now have the healthy, natural tools that will help rekindle your health and save you a truckload of money on those vitamins and pills, and right now we all know how important it is to save money!

Article by Blake Worrall-Thompson. Blake's fitness industry experience and knowledge is outstanding having worked in an elite personal training studio in London along with owning and running his own bootcamp and holding management roles within Fitness First. He is the director and owner of Raw Solutions, which is an international mentoring and coaching program for those in the health and fitness industry looking to get the edge over others in the industry. Along with being the director and owner of Ministry of Wellbeing the corporate health and fitness program aimed at improving each company's productivity and health. Blake is also the author of the best selling book 'Switched on Health & Wellbeing Professionals' and is a regular contributor to a number of publications including Fitness First and the Network magazine.