It’s Not You, It’s Your Bacteria: The Truth About Weight Struggles

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May 11- 31

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1. How to read your own blood work
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3. Bacteria and your "fat memory"

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🎙️ Today's Episode: The Gut-Weight Connection — How Your Bacteria Control Your Fat Storage (and How to Rewire Them)

Hey everyone, welcome back to Midlife Mayhem! I'm Joanne, and today, we're diving into something that could completely change the way you think about weight loss.

👉 It's your gut microbiome. 👉 And more specifically — how the balance of bacteria living inside you can either keep you lean or lock you into fat storage, no matter how disciplined you are with your diet.

We all know weight loss isn’t just about calories. One of the biggest missing pieces for most people is gut health — and it’s critical.

Inside your intestines, there are trillions of bacteria working all the time. And these bacteria fall into two important groups:

• Some bacteria promote fat storage

• Some bacteria promote fat burning

In people who are overweight, there's often a dominance of bacteria like Firmicutes (FIRM-ih-cue-tees), which are incredibly good at extracting more calories from the food you eat and storing that energy as body fat.

In leaner individuals, there's usually a higher presence of bacteria like Bacteroidetes (back-tear-ROY-deh-tees), which support better energy usage, lower inflammation, and easier fat loss.

👉 Simply put:

• More Firmicutes = more fat storage.

• More Bacteroidetes = better fat burning.

This is not a theory. In a landmark study (PLOS Genetics 2016, Zhernakova et al.), researchers could predict who would gain or lose weight just based on gut bacteria — even before the participants started changing their diet.

It wasn't calories. It wasn't cardio. It was the internal environment that mattered most.

How does the gut become a fat-storing machine?

When you eat a highly processed diet — low in fiber, low in real foods — you feed the wrong bacteria and starve the good ones.

Over time, this environment programs you to:

• Crave more junk

• Absorb more calories from food

• Store more fat

• Struggle with low energy, inflammation, and even insulin resistance

And even if you start “dieting,” if the gut is still dominated by the fat-storing bacteria, results are slower, harder, and often temporary.

Here's the great news: 👉 Your gut environment can change — and it can change fast.

You can tip the balance back toward fat-burning bacteria with simple strategies like: ✅ Eating more prebiotic fibers (FOS, inulin, green banana resistant starch) ✅ Eating a greater diversity of plant foods ✅ Reducing processed food and sugar intake ✅ Staying consistent long enough for the microbiome to reset -THE KEY!

You are literally training your gut bacteria — like a garden. Feed the good, starve the bad, and they will multiply or disappear accordingly.

But what if you don’t like high-fiber foods right now?

Let me reassure you — food preferences change very quickly with exposure.

Think about coffee. First time you tasted it? Probably hated it. First sip of wine? Probably wanted to spit it out. First bite of dark