The desire to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight is a struggle for many. While numerous dieting plans promise to help women struggling with their weight, many dieters do not reach the goals they desire.

The solution may not be in these fad diets, but rather living within your gut. Probiotics and gut health could be the secret weight loss solution you have been searching for.

Gut Health and Your Weight

When you think of probiotics, you likely call to mind a bottle of capsules containing live bacterial cultures. While this is true, probiotics are also living organisms in your gut.

The supplements are designed to support the naturally occurring bacteria that live inside you or to replace them should their numbers become depleted. Any depletion can result in harmful bacteria taking over the gut, which means digestive troubles as well as increased risk for illness and disease.

The bacteria in your gut do more than promote digestion and nutrient absorption. A large portion of your immune system consists of the bacteria living in your gut. Because of this, an unhealthy gut can impair your immunity, making you more susceptible to disease.

When harmful bacteria take over your gut, widespread inflammation can occur, which can damage your gut and other important systems in your body.

Poor diet, stress, aging, and antibiotics can all reduce the number of beneficial bacteria in your gut. Probiotics replace any lost bacteria to ensure that your gut stays in balance, which is important to keep inflammation under control.

While supplements are typically taken to promote digestive health, it also seems they have an additional benefit. Studies have discovered that they can also help you lose weight.

Most people try fad diets and fail because they are too often unrealistic short-term solutions that end up with people gaining back any weight they might have lost. The most effective way to lose weight is through a healthy lifestyle replete with a balanced diet and exercise.

Because of the role that probiotics play in digestion, it seems they can help support healthy weight loss.

It is important to note that these friendly florae do not directly cause weight loss. Instead, through their influence on metabolism and gut health, they can make it easier for you to shed unwanted pounds.

Big Weight Loss Support From a Small Friend

Inflammation in the gut can damage intestinal walls, which allows toxins that were headed for expulsion to be released into the blood instead. Your immune system targets these toxins as they move through your body, and the result is widespread inflammation.

While it is widely understood that inflammation increases your risk for disease, many are unaware of the link to weight gain. Inflammation interrupts your metabolism in a way that signals your body to store fat.

The breakdown of triglycerides and cholesterol is inhibited, which means more fat cells remain in your body as opposed to being digested. More fat in the bloodstream means fat storage increases throughout the body as long as inflammation is detected.

Fat cells also happen to release inflammatory chemicals, which only further perpetuates the cycle.

There is also a link between what you eat and what your gut bacteria crave. A poor diet consisting of unhealthy fats, sugars, and processed foods causes weight gain. This is in part because they allow harmful bacteria to flourish and take over the gut.

Harmful bacteria causes cravings for these same foods, and the more you eat, the unhealthier your gut gets. An unhealthy and imbalanced gut gives you inflammation and excess fat.

Losing weight is a struggle because of the negative cycles in place. To successfully lose weight, you must first break these and promote optimal gut health.

Probiotics help to restore balance to your digestive tract, which will lead to the elimination of inflammation. Once inflammation is reduced, your metabolism can begin to process fat from the diet more efficiently, so less will be stored.

Probiotics also release certain beneficial compounds as they digest food in your gut. Along with essential vitamins and fatty acids, probiotics release chemicals that trigger feelings of fullness, so you will no longer overeat.

By keeping you full and promoting efficient fat digestion, you are in a more advantageous place to start losing weight. Of course, a healthy diet and regular exercise are also key components.

Love Your Gut and Lose Unwanted Weight

Maintaining a healthy gut means eating healthier foods, so a good diet is double beneficial. Probiotics specifically crave prebiotics, which are dietary fiber foods that your stomach cannot digest. These foods end up in the gut and are ideal meals for your friendly flora. The more prebiotics you have, the healthier your gut bacteria and you will be.

Research has identified specific bacterial strains that seem to help with weight loss. The Lactobacillus bacteria family has been shown to help with weight loss and specifically the loss of belly fat.

| Related: Are Probiotics the Best Natural Way to Lose Belly Fat? |

This family of bacteria is commonly used in fermented foods as well as probiotic supplements and impacts your metabolism to cause reduced fat absorption. You end up expelling more fat, so less is stored, meaning you have less to burn off.

The Bottom Line

Probiotics alone will not cause miraculous weight loss, but they do support digestive health. In doing so, they promote ideal environments for natural weight loss.

With regular exercise, a balanced diet, and probiotic support, you can achieve those weight loss goals you have been after. So, unsubscribe to the latest fad diet and lose weight naturally with a little help from some bacteria friends.

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