If you are looking to drop weight and keep your midsection trim, probiotics may be the missing link in your diet.
So what exactly are probiotics, and how do they help in weight loss and maintaining a slimmer tummy?
What Are Probiotics?
Probiotics are live microorganisms that have a number of important health benefits. Research shows that in addition to promoting weight loss, they can also enhance digestive health, heart health, immune function, and more.
The good news is there are multiple ways to achieve a healthy amount of probiotics in your body, including by adding more fermented food to your diet or through a high-quality probiotics supplement such as BELDT Labs Bedrock Series Probiotics.
And when the body has an optimal amount of probiotics, there is evidence that weight loss can follow.
The Role of Gut Bacteria in Regulating Body Weight
While most of us are programmed to think that bacteria are bad, in actuality, there are some bacteria that play a positive role in bodily functions. Bacteria can produce important nutrients and vitamins while also aiding in breaking down nutrients and materials that the body cannot naturally digest itself, such as fiber.
When it comes to regulating weight, research shows that the balance between good and bad bacteria plays a critical role. Those who tend to be overweight have more of the bacteria called firmicutes and fewer bacteroidetes compared to those of a normal weight.
With wide scientific evidence available that shows that gut bacteria play a powerful role in weight gain or loss, how can those looking to lose weight or maintain a healthy weight ensure that the ideal balance is achieved between the good and bad bacteria in their guts?
You Might Be Unbalancing Your Gut Balance
When gut bacteria are in balance, they function at optimal levels to metabolize fat and produce more energy in the body. Let’s look at a couple of common misconceptions about weight loss and how gut microbes play a role in them.
While it might be our natural tendency to think that just cutting certain things out of our diet and adding other things in might be the key to balancing the bacteria in our bodies, the unsustainable nature of severe diet regulation, such as cutting or eliminating carbs or adding excess protein, can actually have the opposite effect and throw off the body’s balance.
Good bacteria release signals to tell the body when it is full via the hormonal peptide leptin. Leptin can be negatively affected when dietary restrictions come into play. Instead of feeling fuller sooner, lower leptin leads to the opposite effect, meaning you will need to eat more to feel fuller, meaning you likely will end up eating more. Additionally, thyroid function can also be affected when gut microbes are imbalanced, triggering chemicals that cause your thyroid to suppress metabolism instead of speed it up.
How Probiotics Can Drive Weight Loss
A sensible way to lose weight and keep it off is to introduce a healthy level of probiotics into your diet.
Probiotics have been shown not only to regulate bacteria and lead to appropriate amounts of hormones and chemicals to be released, resulting in boosting metabolism and curbing hunger, but also to play a role in fat excretion. Some research suggests that a healthy amount of probiotics can result in more fat being excreted from the body through feces, meaning that fewer calories and less fat stay in your body, leading to unhealthy pounds and body fat melting away.
In addition to helping flush fat and calories from the body and aiding in appetite reduction, probiotics can also help with increasing levels of ANGPTL4, which is a protein that leads to decreased fat storage.
Probiotics to Promote Overall Well-Being
While probiotics are enjoyed by many people for their belly-fat busting capabilities, they are a powerful nutrient that has a wide range of positive effects on the body. Whether you are looking to kick start your weight loss, improve digestion, or boost your mental clarity, start by adding more probiotics into your diet.
While you can certainly add more fermented foods into your diet, a high-quality probiotics supplement such as BELDT Labs Bedrock Series Probiotics can be an easier way to give our body the boost it needs to lose weight and function at peak performance.
