One way to optimize your balance of intestinal bacteria is to follow a probiotic diet, which will rev up your metabolism and spur weight loss, according to Joseph Brasco, MD, a gastroenterologist in private practice in Huntsville, Alabama, and coauthor of Restoring Your Digestive Health and the upcoming Probiotic Diet. Especially if you are doing everything right — eating nutritiously, watching portion size and exercising regularly — if you still cannot lose weight, the problem may be related to an imbalance of gut flora.

To tip the scales toward weight loss, Dr. Brasco recommends these simple strategies:

  • Consume more fresh fruits and vegetables and fewer processed foods. What you don’t eat is just as important as what you do, Dr. Brasco emphasizes. Fresh produce encourages the production of friendly microbes. Fiber in fruits and vegetables (especially the skin) helps speed food through the digestive tract. This improves the health of the intestinal lining by nurturing the right bacteria. Toxins don’t linger as long, so they do less damage. In contrast, processed foods, such as breads, doughnuts and cookies, are loaded with starch and simple sugars — exactly what harmful bacteria thrive upon.
  • Eat fermented foods every day. To restore proper gut balance, regularly eat yogurt with active cultures, chutneys, unpasteurized sauerkraut, pickles, kimchi, kefir and miso. Try a new type each day — for example, snack on yogurt… add chutney to a dinner stew… slice some pickles into your salad. Beneficial organisms associated with fermentation colonize the gut and discourage the growth of harmful bacteria.
  • Take a daily probiotic supplement. When diet and exercise still fail to generate weight loss, Dr. Brasco has seen patients get good results with probiotics. His favorite brands: Garden of Life’s Primal Defense Ultra and Align (Procter & Gamble), both available at health-food stores and online, and HLC (Pharmax), available through your health care provider.
  • If a probiotic supplement makes you gassy or bloated, try taking it on an empty stomach, suggests Dr. Brasco. Most doctors advise patients to take probiotics with food, but he says trying them away from meals sometimes helps this problem. Other solutions include taking a probiotic supplement every other day to start and working your way up to daily… or you could try a different product based on a different mix of bacteria, since there are a variety available. Ask your doctor for help in identifying the right mix for you.