Have you been having trouble losing weight?
You’re eating less and exercising, but nothing seems to be improving. If you can’t slim down, the problem might be coming from inside the gut.
That’s because a healthy body starts with a healthy stomach.
Good gut health affects every part of you. An unhealthy gut affects your mood, sleep, and your skin. It’s such a big part of your body’s overall health that doctors call it your “second brain.”
Poor gut health can also keep you from dropping weight.
Healthy stomach flora affects your entire body, including weight loss. Read on to learn how to restore gut health and why it helps you lose more weight.
What Does “Healthy Gut” Mean?
Lining your digestive system is trillions of bacteria cells. Some of this bacteria is good and healthy, and some are unhealthy.
Healthy bacteria in the gut does a lot for the human body.
Good bacteria fights off bad bacteria. Your stomach is basically ground zero for your immune system. This good bacteria also helps you digest food properly.
Because this bacteria does so much good, you obviously want a lot of it. A healthy gut flora means that you have an abundance of healthy bacteria cells.
When your gut is in good shape it will automatically start working harder for you. That includes helping you lose weight!
Gut Health and Weight Loss
Working on having a healthy gut is a great weight loss solution. For one, good bacteria helps with digestion.
The faster food breaks down, the better. Frequently having trouble making bowel movements? Then you’re not going to see weight come off very quickly.
You will also experience a lot bloating. When your gut is healthy people often notice the appearance of weight loss right away. Many have no idea how consistently bloated they are until it’s gone.
That’s not all good bacteria can do for weight loss. A strong lining of healthy bacteria in the stomach can block calories from being absorbed.
The fewer the calories your body absorbs the more weight you lose!
H. Pylori and the Hunger Hormone
Another benefit is that a healthy gut can curb your hunger.
A key microbe (a type of bacteria) in your stomach is H. pylori. After antibiotic treatment became common, H. pylori infections were cut in half.
The problem is that this bacteria keeps your body from producing too much ghrelin– also known as the hunger hormone.
When you feel hungry, that means your levels of ghrelin are high. When you eat, they should go down. But, if you don’t have enough H. pylori, they won’t lower as much.
This can cause you to overeat. Growing this kind of bacteria back into your system can help keep hunger at bay.
Now you know why you need good gut health to help weight loss. But, how does it get unhealthy in the first place?
The Causes of Poor Gut Bacteria
Gut health is partially based on genetics. Some people are just born with less good bacteria, while some lucky ones naturally have a lot.
Other than that, one way to cause poor gut health is to be eating too many “toxins.” Things like sugar, grains, unhealthy oils, and grain-fed dairy.
Less obvious ways to cause bad gut health is through having a C-section. Additionally, being under too much stress can cause gut problems.
Another way is through antibiotics.
Have you ever taken an anti-biotic and noticed that your digestive system seemed off-balance?
That’s because an antibiotic’s main job is to kill bacteria. That’s bad news for your stomach flora. It has no way to avoid killing off healthy stomach bacteria.
When taking an antibiotic, it’s especially important to also take a probiotic. Even if you aren’t on them, you should be thinking about probiotics.
The food industry adds a lot of antibiotics to the meat you eat. You’re probably ingesting enough of it to hurt your gut health without knowing it.
Luckily, there’s plenty you can do to counteract these effects.
How to Improve or Restore Gut Health
No matter how much damage you’ve done to your gut, you can always get it back on track. With some changes in lifestyle and food choices, you can increase the healthy bacteria and restore gut health.
Probiotic Supplements
Taking a daily probiotic supplement is an easy way to restore gut health. They introduce healthy bacteria into your stomach.
Probiotics are dosed as “billions.” You can start at a 20 billion daily dose. If that sits well, work your way up to 50-100 billion.
Be sure to get probiotics that need to be refrigerated. They’re much more effective than ones that aren’t.
You can also take a prebiotic supplement along with your probiotic. Prebiotics nourish the bacteria you introduced to your gut from the probiotic.
These two supplements do tend to be pricey. If you can afford it, it’s definitely worth it. If not, you should pay extra care to eat probiotic-rich foods.
Foods that Support Healthy Bacteria
Fermented food and drinks encourage healthy flora in the stomach and intestines. There’s a wide range of these types of foods you can try.
Kimchi, sauerkraut, and kombucha drinks are all fermented foods that restore gut health. Any kind of pickled vegetable also works.
Yogurt and the yogurt drink kefir should be introduced into your diet. Make sure that on the label it says it contains “live, active cultures.” Without these cultures, it’s not doing anything for your gut.
Are You Trying to Lose Weight?
Losing weight can often be frustrating. It’s not unusual to feel like you’ve tried everything and nothing’s worked.
If you want to try a new weight loss solution, ChiroThin might be for you. Check out these before and after pictures to see how it’s helped others.