Gut Health, Parasites & Travel: How I Healed After Bali Broke My Gut

How I Got My Gut Health Back on Track After Parasites

(& Why I don’t commit anymore to yogic diets, but Eat Snacks Now)

In this parasite travel experience of mine from Bali I tell you the ugly details, but also the ways to avoid this in the future.

So my first trip to Bali was a 300-hour Yoga Teacher Training with an Indian Yoga School for a month.

I thought I was doing everything right.

Avoiding raw veggies, eating only at the fancy hotel complex and drinking enough water.

But a few weeks into my yoga teacher training in Bali, my gut disagreed.

Turns out my sudden diarrhea and vomiting was parasites (sorry for the direct language, but I want to be honest how Bali is for many).

If you’ve ever felt like your stomach turns on you the moment you board a plane or switch continents, keep reading.

I’m sharing exactly how I healed my gut after Bali broke it, and what I do differently now to keep gut healthy wherever I travel.

Bloating, parasites,

and stomach problems while traveling?

Here’s how I healed my gut after yoga teacher training in Bali—and simple gut health tips for digital nomads.

If you’ve been to yoga teacher training, you know how strict the month can be.

In this one, we were asked to stick with the sattvic diet, which means eating the 2-3 meals we are given at certain times, and otherwise just drinking water.

The meals were simple, although not as strict as in India, as we were staying in a hotel in Bali, so they had agreed with the kitchen to prepare us simple meals, which consisted mainly of rice and tofu, or of veggies and carbs for breakfast.

Our wake up time was at 4 am to start the morning with a few morning rituals, continuing to morning meditation, ashtanga practice and breathwork class.

This would mean staying awake and practicing 5-6 hours before breakfast.

I don’t know about you, but I’m a breakfast person, and I also have quite low blood pressure, so this ignoring of hunger cues because of yoga discipline was definitely challenging.

I did want to try to do this as well as I can for the month though – I mean, it’s just a month from my life, I thought.

First two weeks went fine, but then this new rhythm of practicing 5-6 hours on empty belly (especially when I did not really manage to sleep at nights) was making me tired, a bit dizzy and having some brain fog.

It got harder to concentrate, and during the break times I would just to go to lie down in bed.

It would have been better to remain active during the daytime, as for me I did not then sleep at nights, as I lied down during the day.

I do think eating less than what I would have needed in a new environment of new continent, new, active daily routine weakened my immune system.

I mean, sipmply doing the solo travel to Bali and practicing 300 hours in a month would have been enough as it s, without changing my diet.

I managed to practice through the month of 300-h YTT, although in the end I was having high fever, and could not really eat anything due to nausea, and everything just came out.

I continued my trip alone from Ubud to Uluwatu to a nice room in a Villa I had booked for myself – I had planned to stay there and record yoga videos after the inspiration from the newly finished training, and being now RYT.500 certified yoga teacher, having the ability to make awesome videos in the beautiful surroundings in Bali.

Well, at the villa I was constantly lying down in bed under AC, and could not get myself to eat or drink anything.

I thought it’s just Bali belly, or covid, as I also had high fever. I was sure it would pass just with resting and staying in bed.

I was video calling with my boyfriend in Spain, and he got actually much more worried about me than I was. I was acting weird and not really making any sense on what I was talking, whereas I was in quite relaxed and meditative state, though completely at 0% energy.

He told me to go to hospital, but I had no energy whatsoever to do so.

Eventually the super nice employee at the villa drove me to a hospital with her scooter.

I was having high fever, dehydration, and turns out, parasites.

No wonder I was feeling weak.

But I would have not suddenly healed by staying at the hotel just resting.

So generally speaking, always have your travel insurance on point when traveling to counties like Bali or India.

I was prescribed very strong antibiotics and some other meds to kill the parasites, and basically floss off all the bacteria from the gut.

And yes, it was very much needed, but came with a very much weakened microbiome for the long-term.

I continued my solo travels to Thailand, while taking the parasite medications 3 times a day.

They made me absolutely nauseous and super tired, so unfortunately the rest of the South East Asian trip went mostly in bed for me.

I did start feeling much better though quite quickly since the beginning of medication, yet very tired and weak.

After such a huge shock for the gut system, it was not fully over afterwards, but I had to focus on healing the gut for a long time afterwards.

After studying the topic a lot, reading loads of advice and finally having a healthy gut system again, I tell below my exact methods for the moment of gut issues, and long-term methods I have for maintaining gut health when traveling.

In short, healing my gut was all about finding high quality probiotics supplement, making my diet versatile and eating fiber.

For a good while, I kept on eating probiotics and prebiotics.

I was seeking for the best possible supplement for microbiome, and ended up ordering this one: Yourbiology Gut+.

There are many good brands and options out there, but I found this one helping to improve my gut, and let’s just say getting things more solid.

What I like about this one is that they have plans for 1,3 and 6 months.

I’ve been now ordering these everytime I travel somewhere exotic, and I asked them a discount code for my readers. If you want to give them a try, use code sinimalism when placing an order.

You can see the prices here.

Supplements alone are not gonna do much, if you don’t pay attention to the diet.

Before this, I had been vegetarian about 6 years, but after this I decided to start eating everything again, as it is easier to get more versatile bacteria for your gut by eating veggies, meat, eggs, dairy.

I had already been eating dairy and eggs, but after a few years, I decided to add meat back to my diet, as during the blood tets done in Bali turned out my iron levels were also a bit low.

I’m not saying you need to eat meat to improve iron levels or gut health, but for me being a vegetarian, while not being too much into cooking and making sure I eat correct supplements, it made it harder to get all I needed from the diet.

So this was my choice, to start implementing a little bit of meat back to weekly diet.

I still don’t eat eat daily, and I like lots of vegetarian meals made for example from chickpeas, lentils and red beans, but I did not see a reason to go back to as versatile diet as possible.

So far the healing phase, I focused on good quality probiotic + prebiotic supplement, versatile diet and eating enough fiber.

Now I focus on maintaining gut health before and during travels with the following ways:

Some of these may sound self-explanatory, but all of these are very important, if you are traveling to countries that have vastly different bacteria and hygiene levels than what you’re used to.

Simply hand hygiene is so essential. After covid it’s so easy to always carry a small hand desinfect with you.

As for food, I begin with cooked food and avoid meat.

When I see my belly is doing just fine, I might try some raw veggies as well, provided they look fresh and healthy.

Eating this way, I never had any issues for example in Vietnam and Morocco.

I avoid excessive amounts of white sugar when traveling, though I’m definitely not saying a complete no to sugary drinks or an ice cream here and there.

Alcohol on the other had can be even good; a shot of vodka/Jägermeister can actually kill unwanted bacteria.

Stress wrecks the gut.

Simply taking it easier when feeling worn out, helps also the gut to heal.

These are my must-haves in every suitcase.

After that Bali experience, I don’t travel without them!

After my first Bali yoga teacher training, I realized this: gut health is everything, especially when traveling.

Strict yogic diets, fasting, and ignoring hunger cues weakened me, and I ended up with parasites and months of recovery.

Here’s what I now do differently to protect my gut: