Are you sabotaging your own weight loss by taking probiotics the wrong way?

December 3, 2016 Ashley 0 Comments

Did you know your gut bugs can give you a gut?

(Along with weight gain *elsewhere* on your body?)

Did you know they can also help you lose weight?

And that it all depends on which kind you’ve got living down there?

Not long ago, I learned that having the right kinda microbiota in my belly cellar can help me drop some serious weight. I also learned that having the the wrong ones can make me chubbier. This was definite motivation to drop some probiotics into my shopping trolley. It seemed simple. Add a scoop to a smoothie or take a tablet on the regular and shed that unwanted extra centimeter or two. (Along, obviously with a healthy cardio and clean eating regimen.) Easy, right? As it turns out, not exactly. There’s a proper method for ingesting your micro-bugs. And, for a while there, I definitely wasn’t doing it right. I’d head to lunch, clutter my tummy with delicious healthy food, and then chase it with some fizzy, probie infused kombucha. Sounds benign enough, right? What’s so bad about a nice, sparkling flourish to complete my midday meal? The problem is – that while that sounds fabulous in theory, in application what happens is a canceling out effect.

Why?

Because that’s what happens when you have your probiotics after a meal.

(A gastric battle. One where the weight cutting bugs you paid for, lose.)

See, when you swill your belly bound bugs after lunch (or any meal, really) it simply ferments in your tummy.

It combines with whatever you’ve just sucked down until all you’ve got in your gut is this expensive, bilious mess. A pile of attenuated flora that won’t ever get the chance to evict the bad bugs that make you chubby. That’s why it might be fine in something like kombucha, kimchi, or yogurt alone. But once a ton of sludge is already stuck down there? Yeah, then it just kinda hangs out and rots and doesn’t do its job so well. A waste of money and weight loss efforts, alike. The fix? Simple. All we have to do is enjoy our kombucha (or pop one’ve those probie pills if you can’t stomach drinking things with floating cloud “mothers” in ’em) before we start snacking.

And exactly how soon “before” is that?

Per Livestrong, not too long:

“Researchers sought to end the confusion by studying the impact of taking probiotics before, with and after meals. They found the bacteria in the supplements survived much better when taken with or 30 minutes before a meal. They also found that dietary fat improved survival of the bacteria.”

So, there ya go.

Take a dose of those midsection destined critters half an hour prior to pigging out.

And enjoy your meal peacefully now, knowing your belly bugs’ll help you burn it off effectively later.