Many people think of their gut solely as the mechanism by which your body digests food, which is at best an extreme oversimplification, and at worst an ideology massively contributing to the health problems, weight loss struggles, and auto-immune disorders of millions world-wide.
In reality, your GI tract is MUCH more than a digestion center; in fact, it is quite literally your second brain as well as being “home” to 80% of your immune system.
You see, within your gut reside roughly 100 TRILLION living bacteria...
That’s more than 10 times the number of cells you have in your entire body – and maintaining the ideal ratio of "good bacteria" (known as probiotics) to "bad bacteria" is now gaining recognition as perhaps the single most important step you can take to protect your health and further along your fat loss goals.
In fact, there are more than 200 studies linking inadequate probiotic levels to more than 170 different serious health issues; including obesity and weight gain:
To touch briefly on the weight gain and obesity consequences, virtually every study performed on the obese population analyzing gut bacteria found higher instances of "bad" bacteria and lower levels of probiotics (again, the "good" bacteria) within these individuals.
Perhaps you yourself are already experiencing some of the more advanced signs that your intestinal bacterial balance is beginning to spin out of control, such as:
• Gas and bloating
• Constipation and/or diarrhea
• Skin problems
• Overall sickness
• Headaches
• Urinary tract infections
• Trouble sleeping
• An inability to lose weight
• Sugar cravings, especially for heavily refined carbs
You see, the ideal healthy ratio of "good" to "bad" bacteria is 85% to 15%, or 9 to 1.
Unfortunately, due to lifestyle and environmental factors, the vast majority of the population is severely lacking when it comes to good probiotic bacteria, throwing their gut flora ratio completely out of whack.
These lifestyle and environmental factors include, but are not limited to, exposure to:
• Sugar
• Artificial sweeteners of any kind (found in "diet" beverages and food items, chewing gum, and even toothpaste)
• Processed foods
• Chlorinated water
• Pollution
• Antacids
• Laxatives
• Alcoholic beverages
• Agricultural chemicals and pesticides, and…
• Antibiotics (from medications and/or antibiotics found in meat and dairy products that we ingest).
As you can see, unless you maintain a 100% organic diet, completely avoid all sugar, and lock yourself in the house in an attempt to only consume the purest of air 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, it is almost certain that your gut flora balance is suffering, and will continue to suffer, unless you do something to proactively correct it on a daily basis.
Can you really afford to neglect your gastrointestinal health much longer?
If you do, the likely result is dramatically increased risk for health problems and disease, failure to experience relief from any ailments you may be currently suffering from, and an inevitable, continual struggle with your weight.
With that said, it’s no wonder that research is now suggesting that supplementing with probiotics every single day is even MORE important to your health than taking a daily multi-vitamin...
Even more, a recent double blind study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that test subjects who received probiotics daily were able to reduce their abdominal fat by nearly 5 percent over a 12 week period, while the "no probiotic" group experienced no positive changes.
But here’s something you may not know…
The vast majority of the probiotics contained in traditional probiotic supplements will be DEAD before they ever reach your gut.
And of course, dead probiotics are completely worthless.
You see, one of the greatest challenges in creating a truly effective probiotic formula is being able to actually deliver delicate probiotic cells to the gastrointestinal tract, fully intact and alive. Because probiotics are living bacteria, they are also extremely sensitive to even the slightest change in environmental conditions. In fact, research has shown that after one year on the shelf, in a sealed bottle at room temperature, on average only 32% of conventionally produced probiotics survive.
And get this, most of the probiotics products you find on store shelves are already well over a year old—some even as much as two years old. After all, big companies produce hundreds of thousands of bottles to cut cost and then store these bottles in their warehouses long before they ever end up in your hands.
But it gets worse.
Due to the extreme acidic environment of the stomach, another 80% of the remaining live probiotic cells will be killed off before reaching the intestine. In the end, traditional probiotic supplements, while claiming billions upon billions of active cells per dose, will only wind up delivering a very small percentage of what their label promises alive and well to your gut.
With that said, you can see how a probiotic product claiming 20 billion cells is reduced to a mere 1 billion count rather quickly.
When it all boils down, not only are these products a complete waste of your time and money, but much more importantly they are robbing you of the critically important health benefits that are the entire reason you would invest in a probiotic product in the first place.
So here's my suggestion to include these in your diet...
Kombucha tea is a fermented tea (naturally effervescent) that contains billions of friendly gut organisms (probiotics) that help to strengthen your immune system by bolstering your levels of good organisms in your gut, which provides a first level of defense against pathogens from things you ingest.
Kefir is an even better source of probiotics than Kombucha tea, but keep in mind that variety is best when it comes to probiotics, so use various sources for the best benefits to your digestive system and immune system. Kefir is also the easiest form of dairy to digest due to the pre-digestion that's done by the probiotic microorganisms, and due to this, kefir is generally 99% lactose free. You can also get beneficial probiotics from fermented foods such as sauerkraut (non-canned), yogurt, kimchi, and other fermented foods. There are also plenty of probiotic supplements you can take and I support them completely as they are needed by the gut in today’s world.
Yogurt, though would be my best and first choice.
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