It is amazing that people who live in economically developed countries often suffer from nutritional deficiency, such as trace minerals, vitamins, and omega-3 fatty acids. There is abundant access to these nutrients, but the average person’s diet does not include the nutrients, or, the averages person’s body does not absorb these nutrients.

Why Improving Nutrient Absorption Can Help With Weight Loss

When you are unable to absorb nutrients into your body, you experience a nutrient deficiency. This deprives your body of the nutrients needed to maintain a healthy cell metabolism and repair tissue in the body. Moreover, if you have excess of one nutrient in the body, this is referred to as toxicity and can cause problems in the body. In short, the improper balance of nutrients in the body can lead to a bunch of issues that affect weight loss, including hormone disturbances and chronic inflammation.

“Deficiencies can lead to a variety of health problems, such as problems of digestion, skin problems, stunted or defective bone growth, and even dementia.” – Healthline

1. Hormone Disturbances

Hormones are responsible for our body’s responses to food, exercise, sleep, stress, and much more. Your body has about 70 major hormones, and when there is a hormone disturbance, it can have a dramatic influence on your weight loss efforts.

Hormones affect metabolism, how energy is used, whether or not food is used up or stored, and how satisfied we feel after a meal. Moreover, our hormones affect our mood, our motivation, and our cravings. All of these things influence our weight loss efforts.

2. Chronic Inflammation

Inflammation is a natural response to imbalance in the body, and it affects tissues in a way that makes it so they cannot heal themselves. Moreover, inflammation can cause insulin resistance in the body, as well as affect the hormone leptin, which helps regulate the amount of fat stored in the body through the sensation of hunger and energy expenditures.

“Excessive or persistent inflammation leads to tissue destruction, disease and weight gain.” – Chatelaine

How To Improve Nutrient Absorption

As you can see, improving nutrient absorption is essential to healthy living as well as weight loss. There are a few different things you can do, starting today, to improve your nutrient absorption.

1. Eat Certain Foods Together

You have probably heard that certain nutrients can help with the absorption of other nutrients, and this is absolutely true. For instance, vitamin D is very important for the proper absorption of calcium. And, vitamin C helps you to absorb iron better. Do some research on which nutrients work best together for proper absorption, and then start planning your meals around various combinations of nutrient rich foods for maximum absorption.

2. Eat Fat

There are so many fat-free diets that encourage you to eliminate fat, but when you do this effects nutrient absorption negatively. Some nutrients depend on fat in order to be absorbed into the body, and these are essential nutrients to the body. You have probably heard of these nutrients referred to as fat-soluble vitamins. They include vitamins A, D, K and E. It does not take very much fat to help with vitamin absorption, so don’t overdo it – but do include some fat in your diet on a daily basis.

3. Take Probiotics With Your Meals

Probiotics help you to absorb nutrients such as vitamins B6, B12, and K2, as well as minerals such as calcium, magnesium, and iron. You can focus on eating probiotic-rich foods, or you can take daily supplements that contains the recommended amount of 1-10 billion live bacteria cultures.