We want to be healthy. We want to be lean. And we want to lose that annoying fat around our bellies! We can achieve ALL of these goals with The Lose Your Belly Diet. Based on exciting new research about the dramatic benefits of vibrant gut health and a diverse gut microbiome, this plan nurtures your gut while helping you burn off excess weight and harmful belly fat. This plan is built around a very clear, research-based concept: Eating food that nourishes and protects the microbes in your gut paves the way for weight loss, a slimmer middle, and better overall health. It’s not just about weight loss. Having great gut health is linked to good health throughout your body. Scientists in this rapidly growing field are finding connections between gut microbes and the immune system, weight loss, gastrointestinal health, , allergies, asthma, and even cancer. With every study that’s published, scientists become more convinced that having a healthy gut leads to having a healthy body. We’re accustomed to thinking of bacteria as bad—and some are—but most of the bacteria and microbes in our guts do amazing things, like working with our immune system to fight disease and helping our bodies digest food. Not only can’t we live without them, but as their numbers and diversity increase, so too does our health. In this book, we look at all of the ways you can improve your own gut health, starting with the food you eat. My diet recommendations, meal plans, and recipes will help feed and protect your gut microbes. And we look at the many other steps you can take to support your beneficial bacteria, from avoiding unnecessary antibiotics to changing the way you think about dirt and germs. Even the choices you make about how you bring your children into the world can have an impact on your family’s microbiomes. In The Lose Your Belly Diet, we’ll cover all the bases, giving you everything you need to know to make dramatic changes in your GI health, your weight, your belly fat, and your overall health.