Weight loss is a challenge that many of us are familiar with, especially when it comes to battling the standard American diet. But, what about those times when the standard American diet has nothing to do with it and you are doing everything you should to lose those extra pounds? The truth is, your gut health and microbiome could be at fault. 

Here’s a startling fact: there are more bacteria in your body than cells. Crazy right? Your gut alone can hold roughly two kilograms of bacteria and other microscopic organisms. Together, over 1,000 species of small organisms live in your gut creating an ecosystem known as the gut microbiome.  

These microscopic organisms fall into one of two camps: beneficial or harmful. In the beneficial camp, we find a variety of bacteria that are responsible for several body functions inside and outside of the gut. Inside the gut, they impact how you process your food, your ability to absorb the nutrients from your food, how efficiently you eliminate toxins, and the strength of your immune system.

When it comes to the health of the gut microbiome, we are looking for both richness and diversity, in other words, a large community of diverse friendly bacteria. When things get out of balance it can affect both your health and your ability to lose weight. 

How so?

The health of your internal ecosystem impacts things like food cravings, how effectively you absorb nutrients, and how efficiently you eliminate waste, which all play into the recipe for achieving and maintaining a healthy weight. However, to fully understand the extent to which your gut health impacts your ability to lose weight, you have to first understand, at a high (non-scientific) level, how your body processes food. 

When you consume food it’s both chemically and mechanically broken down in the stomach. It then travels to the small intestine where enzymes take on the job of transforming the “food” into particles that can be absorbed and used for fuel. 

Here’s where problems can arise. We only have so many digestive enzymes and there are several processed foods that we humans were not designed to process which can lead to an enzyme shortage. In the case of too few enzymes, we are left with food that is only partially broken down. 

This partially broken down food then continues its journey of digestion and heads to the large intestine (ideally we would have enough enzymes to break down these foods before they move on). This is where the ever-important beneficial bacteria aka microbes come in. The microbes break this food down and release molecules that the body can utilize. 

As a result, caloric intake (the food you consume) doesn’t necessarily equal caloric uptake (the food you process and fully digest) because it’s dependent on your body’s ability to break the food down into particles that can be absorbed. 

It’s a profound system that can get a little confusing at times, but just know that a handful of small behaviors will ensure you properly break down and absorb your food allowing your body to settle into a healthy weight and a healthy outer glow.