How can keeping your microbiome healthy help you lose weight?Your microbiome is essentially a large collection of bacterial cells; a number so vast that it's incomprehensible. In fact, these cells are thought to outnumber your human cells.

The microbiome plays an important role for keeping you healthy, both in the prevention of disease and overcoming health conditions, as well as promoting healthy aging. 

Keeping your microbiome healthy is a constant job, and you must feed them properly.

What do these cells want to "eat"? 

According to Dr. Raphael Kellman, author of The Microbiome Diet, what they don't want to eat are things like sugar, refined foods, processed foods, or GMO foods. They also don't like when you eat on the run. 

Instead, it's important to feed your microbiome natural foods that come from the earth, particularly certain types of vegetables that help the microbiome proliferate and become healthy, like asparagus, radishes, jicama, and leeks, as well as fermented foods and healthy fats.

Bone broth is another great option, because it's good for the gut, which is essentially the "home" that houses the microbiome. The gut and microbiome are reliant upon each other, so it's equally important to keep your gut in tip-top shape.

In terms of weight loss, the microbiome plays a critical role in determining how your body uses calories. If you optimize your microbiome, you can change your metabolism and improve insulin resistance and ultimately have an easier time losing weight. Alternately, if you struggle to keep your microbiome healthy, the opposite occurs and you may gain weight.

Listen in as Dr. Kellman joins hosts Andrea and Lisa to explain exactly what the microbiome is, why it's so important in overall health and longevity, and how it can help you in your weight loss efforts.