Did you know that you can change what lives in your gut? The gut microbiome consists of the community of trillions of bacteria living in the digestive tract. In fact, 80% of your immune system is in your microbiome, which affects just about every process, including digestion, thinking clearly and maintaining a healthy weight.
But when we think of the slow changes and timely adjustments to change our eating habits, our weight, our sleep patterns, and more that usually take months to benefit from, most would assume that changing the microbiome in the gut would be just another time-consuming dedicated process. Not really. The average lifespan of a bacterium in your microbiome is 20 minutes! So you have the opportunity every time you eat to begin to change the population of your gut microbiome.
There are several factors that contribute to a healthy gut microbiome, including environment, exercise, sleep, and stress. But the number one factor that determines what microbes live in your gut (and which ones die off) is your diet. By supporting your microbiome with the foods that are healthy for you, the microbiota living in your gut will get better at absorbing and processing nutrients that can affect weight loss, digestion and overall health.