Change Your Gut Bacteria To Lose Weight in 2022
Happy New Year!
I thought there was no better way to start off the new year than by talking about gut bacteria. The roles our bacteria play in our body are incredible, including the gut microbiota's ability to strongly influence our metabolism and weight.
The Gut-Weight Loss Connection
Studies done on twins of different weights have shown surprising results when comparing gut microbiomes. They found that the overweight twin had a very unhealthy, poorly diverse balance of gut bacteria, whereas the healthy weight twin had much more balanced bacteria. Evidence has shown that having an overgrowth of bad bacteria is correlated to weight gain, higher blood sugar and high cholesterol.
How Gut Bacteria Influences Metabolism
Our gut bacteria produce hundreds of compounds, including nutrients, that affect our inflammation levels, weight, hormones and even the expression of our genes! Inflammatory foods lacking fibre and nutrients, such as refined flours and refined oils negatively impact our gut bacteria, causing the bad guys to overgrow, while depleting the good guys. Too much bad bacteria ramps up inflammation, which drives up insulin and fat-gain. Candida yeast levels or mould are other metabolism killers that may need to be addressed.
Other Factors Affecting Your Weight
There are additional factors that are likely making it challenging to lose weight that we always address during our personalized consultations. Your hormones are a big one, including the function of the thyroid gland. Your thyroid is responsible for keeping your metabolic fire burning and if it’s under functioning, it may be a key reason you’ve struggled so much in your weight loss journey.
Excess toxicity and liver congestion are two other major factors to consider for weight loss. Toxins are everywhere and it’s our livers job to deal with them all, but things can get overwhelming for the liver quick! Reducing toxicity externally, such as from food, water and cleaning products, while working on our bodies internal detoxification process is likely an area you’ve been missing.
Of course exercise, sleep, stress and other external factors are important areas to address also.
Where to Begin
Addressing gut bacteria is always a good place to start when looking to balance metabolism and lose weight. It's not as simple as taking a probiotic though. Here's where we recommend starting:
Functional GI Testing
This form of testing shows us where the imbalances in your gut lie, which aren’t shown through tests you receive at your Dr’s office. Through our functional gut panel, we look for imbalances and will be able to see which strains of bad bacteria have overgrown, as well as parasites and yeast that may be contributing to your decreased metabolism and difficulty losing weight.
2. Eating a Whole Foods, Organic Diet
Your diet plays a massive role in developing and replenishing the landscape of your microbiome. We provide a much more personalized approach to dietary changes to suit your needs, in order to help balance your microbiome and therefore, your metabolism.
3. Use Targeted Supplements to Support Weight Loss
Supplements are a powerful addition to your diet and lifestyle program when used correctly. There are a lot of gimmicky “weight-loss” supplements or “metabolism-boosters” out there, but those aren’t the products we’re referring to. We use practitioner quality products that are tailored specifically to your needs, which is easier to personalize based on your Functional GI test results.
Are you ready for 2022 to be the year you feel amazing in your body?! Contact us today to get started!
Phone: 204-952-7982
Email: hello@winnipegnutrition.com
Asher Kleiber
Registered Holistic Nutritionist™
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