Did You Know Gut Health Affects Your Performance?

June 13, 2018 • tips-lifestyle

Posted in All by Elite Supps

“No matter what I do, I can’t still seem to shift the weight…”

Does this sound familiar to you? Gut health is one of the most talked about topics in the health and fitness industry as of late with science starting to show just how important it is for not only performance, but for general health as well.

If you are one of those people that can do the diet and exercise that works for everyone else, you have your maths right and calories in and out calculated correctly and still do not see change; then you may need to make significant changes to your gut flora.

How does gut health affect weight loss?

Studies have shown that a healthy gut biome is associated with a positive response to weight loss efforts. Certain bacteria in the gut take in nutrients for themselves, and therefore leave less to be absorbed by the humans they inhabit. This may sound bad, but it's actually a good thing! Having a healthy gut biome will not leave you malnourished. In fact it will help you digest food better and increase your overall wellness.

Will a gut health supplement assist weight loss?

If you have digestive problems, then yes, a gut health supplement will help your weight loss. Symptoms of this may include bloating, constipation, sleep issues and fatigue. The issue of gut health seems to be a common modern problem. Humans may have survived for centuries without the use of any kind of supplements to manage their digestive system, but times have changed. The bacteria that normally exists in the gut now is different from centuries past, as our diet has changed over the years to more processed foods and less variety of raw foods, our gut bacteria have become imbalanced leading to a whole host of negative health outcomes.

How does gut health affect the body?

An imbalance of the wrong bugs creates a vicious cycle, feeding on sugar and creating more toxins, while at the same time making you crave more and more of the wrong foods, leading to weight gain. Recent science studies have shown in-particular, that overweight people tend to have too many firmicute bacteria that slow down metabolic rate and increase inflammation.

The common pattern in gut flora in obesity is;

(1) an increased ratio of Gram-positive bacteria to Gram-negative bacteria,

(2) an increased abundance of the obesogenic microbiota Firmicutes (Bad Bacteria) and a decreased abundance of the lean microbiota Bacteroidetes (Good bacteria),

(3) excessive amounts of the firmicute bacteria Lactobacillus

What are Firmicutes and what do they do?

Firmicutes feed on sugar, they make you crave sugar, they create blood sugar resistance to keep sugar available for themselves, they create space for themselves by poisoning off competition by destroying their ability to burn sugar for fuel (we get that toxin in us too). So all in all, firmicutes are bad news, and you want less of them to help you lose weight.

How to improve your gut health

The best way to improve your gut health is to eat high fibre foods, stay hydrated and take a prebiotic. This will help decrease these firmicutes and increase the amount of healthy bacteroidetes bacteria. This bacteria helps to boost metabolic rate and decrease inflammation.

What supplements can help improve gut health?

There are several beneficial supplements for gut health, including greens powders, collagen and prebiotics. Our favourite, GutRight doesn’t just use pre or probiotics to improve gut health. It heavily relies on modbiotics. To put it simply, ATP Science’s GutRight aims to help reduce the bad bacteria firmicutes that cause digestive issues, and at the same time increase the bacteria you want, bacteroidetes (a fat feeder that blocks inflammation and boosts your metabolism.)

The benefits of supplementing with ATP Science Gutright are: