5 Ways to Unlock Lasting Weight Loss: The Power of Gut Health

Did you know that gut health is often overlooked when it comes to weight loss?

Feeling puffy all over your body, dreading putting on jeans—even though they are the same ones that fit some mornings—and consistent bloating after meals could be a sign of inflammation.

Inflammation and hormone imbalance has a lot to do with how we hold on to or let go of excess weight and fluid. Weight is just another warning sign from the body, much like low energy, digestive issues, and bloating, that something is out of balance and that something needs to shift.

Often times, many of us ignore these sort of signs, but when we take action at the first notice of stubborn weight, inflammation, and bloating and digestive issues, we are able to help prevent things getting worse in the future.

The best place to start is your gut health since it is where hormones, neurotransmitters, and over 70% of your immune system live, as well as where nutrients are absorbed.

Let's take a closer look at 5 ways to improve your gut so you can lose stubborn weight for good!

1. Break Free from a "Forever Diet"

The first step towards building a healthy gut and reducing weight is to break free from the vicious cycle of yo-yo dieting.

Going from diet to diet often disrupts the delicate balance of your gut microbiome, the community of trillions of microorganisms residing in your digestive system. These microbes play a vital role in your overall health, including metabolism, digestion, and even influenced your cravings.

As someone who has dieted for over a decade, I can tell you from firsthand experience that constant dieting can cause physical issues—not to mention emotional and mental stress.

This is how bouncing from diet to diet, or staying on one diet for a long time impacts you physically:

It can negatively change your microbiome (gut bacteria balance) 

Eliminating food groups too long changes the ecosystem of your gut bacteria (influencing your immune system, neurotransmitters that affect mood, and digestion and hormone processes). 

This is because when certain nutrients are restricted, good bacteria can starve and die and bad bacteria can take over—creating a whole new environment which dictates how you absorb and digest nutrients.

This can make symptoms worse. When foods are eliminated for a very long time, foods can become “foreign” to the body. This could look like bloating, gas, constipation/diarrhea, and other food-sensitivity symptoms. 

This is why there should always be a re-introduction phase after using a diet for healing. 

It can slow down your metabolism and digestion

When we jump from dieting and restriction to non-dieting there is no stability and routine. 

This constant restriction and back and forth (or yo-yo dieting) freaks the body out and turns on the “flight or fight” nervous system response. (Our bodies like to know when food is coming!) 

This “unsafe”, stress mode slows your metabolism where you may experience “stubborn” weight and inflammation.

Other systems in the body slow down too, like digestion. Here’s where constipation and sluggish digestion can become chronic.

Instead, it's best to work with your doctor and health professional who can recommend a diet as a temporary tool. The end goal should always be be to eat the widest variety of foods, and goals should always be communicated so you know where you're headed.

In general, a healthy diet includes diversity: vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats as a foundation, and avoiding/limiting inflammatory foods and ultra-processed foods, like fried foods, pasta, crackers, breads with refined ingredients and seed oils. Eating whole foods promotes a thriving gut microbiome that creates an environment that supports weight loss, healthy digestion, and hormone balance.

If you need guidance on a gut-healing approach that includes nutrition and lifestyle with a goal to heal digestive issues so you can reduce inflammation and lose weight, I would love to chat with you and know more about what you need! Book a free consultation to learn more.

2. Address Medical & Hormonal Issues

It's essential to recognize that sometimes medical or hormonal factors can contribute to your struggles with stubborn weight.

Conditions like thyroid dysfunction, Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO), insulin resistance, or Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) can make weight loss incredibly challenging. If you've been trying to eat healthy and live a balanced life but still find weight loss hard, it may be time to check with your doctor to address any issues that will help you move forward.

If you have seen your doctor but are not getting answers or are told "everything looks fine", I partner with a functional medicine office where we can order you a full lab test that may catch what is missing. Apply for a free consultation to learn how functional lab testing could give you the answers you are looking for.

3. Eat Mindfully & Stress Management

Maintaining a healthy weight or losing weight doesn't mean you have to feel deprived or resort to extreme diets. Extreme dieting is actually harmful to your metabolism, hormones, and ultimately your future.

Healthy, sustainable weight loss should not be painful nor feel exhausting. This could be a sign that inflammation and gut health issues need to be addressed, and that other nutrition and lifestyle habits are being missed.

One such lifestyle factor that really helps digestion and weight loss is mindful eating. This is the HOW you eat! Mindful eating is a powerful tool—learning to pay attention to your body's hunger and fullness cues can be a game changer.

It's also important to note that there are many factors, like stress and sleep deprivation, that can mess up your hunger and fullness cues. That is why personalized meal timing routines are important to retrain your body to identify hunger and fullness cues.

Another lifestyle consideration is stress management. High stress levels can negatively impact both your gut health and weight. Incorporate stress-reduction techniques such as meditation, yoga, breathwork, journaling, and engaging in hobbies that you love. Prioritizing quality sleep also is HUGE when it comes to managing stress so you can reduce inflammation and lose weight.

4. Overcome Emotional Eating

Emotional eating is a common struggle that often stems from an imbalance in the gut-brain connection. Did you know your brain is considered your "second brain"! That's because they are literally connected by a large nerve in our bodies, called the vagus nerve.

Information passes both ways from brain to gut, and gut to brain—it is bidirectional. So not only the health of your brain influences the health of your gut, but vice versa. This also means emotions and thoughts can trigger emotional hunger, AND the malabsorption in poor gut health can signal to the brain that "we're not getting enough nutrients down here!" which can trigger eating as well.

By focusing on improving your gut health, you can positively influence your mood and reduce cravings. A gut health coach can help you identify triggers for emotional eating and guide you in developing healthier coping mechanisms.

Like mentioned in the previous section, learning mindful eating practices, combined with stress management, can be incredibly helpful in overcoming emotional eating.

5. Focus on Gut-Healthy Nutrition

The best nutrition for steady, consistent weight loss is one that prioritizes your gut health, nutrition that is filled with probiotics, prebiotics, micronutrients, healthy fats, lean proteins, fruits, and vegetables. Let's take a look at what that looks like:

• Incorporate fermented foods like yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, low-sugar kombucha, and kimchi

• Fibrous fruits and veggies, like apples, berries, broccoli, sweet potatoes, avocados

• Olive, coconut, and avocado oils

• Chicken, fish, lean cuts of meat, and veggie options like lentils, beans, and veggies for protein

• Whole gluten-free grains and beans/lentils (if tolerated), like brown rice, quinoa, chickpeas, lentils

• Bone broth, and lots of water

All of these foods are whole foods (not highly-processed) and most contain a lot of fiber. Fiber promotes feelings of fullness, helps regulate blood sugar levels (aka stable energy and reduces physical stress in the body), and supports a diverse gut microbiome.

If you focus on these foods, you won't need to obsess over counting your calories for weight loss. Following your body's intuition while focusing on the HOW to eat (mindful eating) as well as supportive lifestyle habits, will allow your body to come back into balance and feel "safe" so that it can lose the weight.

Putting it into Practice

Unlocking lasting weight loss requires a full-body approach that prioritizes your gut health, focusing on nutrition, stress management, sleep, exercise, and mindfulness. By supporting your gut microbiome in all of these ways, and seeking support from professionals when needed, you can lose and management weight management in a way that is doable and that you can maintain not just for a season for the rest of your life!

A Note From Me, Coach Madalyn!

First and foremost, as someone who has struggled with gut health symptoms, weight, inflammation, and chronic conditions, I get how complex and impossible feeling great in your body again can feel. Getting rid of things like bloating, constipation, acne, fatigue, excess weight, and reducing anxiety, can literally feel impossible.

After 10 years of struggling with my own health and becoming an expert Gut Health & Fitness Coach, I've been able to help so many women to overcome the overwhelm and give them the accountability, plan, and support they needed so they could reduce their inflammation, heal their gut, and finally lose weight. I'd love to hear your story and share how I could build a personalized gut repair program for you! Ready to learn more?