How to loose inches at my waist

You can’t spot reduce your waist or anywhere else on your body. Your body is going to lose fat where it’s genetically programmed to do so in whatever order it decides whether it be waist, hips, legs, butt or whatever else.

You’ll need to do some research on calorie deficits and follow those rules and then the fat will start coming off in time, but it’s not a fast process. It takes a lot of patience.

I’ve found that doing a weighted hoola hoop helps me look better. It’s not going to make you lose lbs but it has definitely helped me lose inches/look more toned.

I'd like to see the studies that demonstrate that. I'd guess that people who live a "healthier" lifestyle tend to have a healthier gut microbiota, and it's the healthier lifestyle, not the microbiota, causing overall fat loss which also causes visceral fat loss. Not spot reducing, just overall less fat.

I live a reasonably healthy lifestyle considering my age and general health. I've lost 50 pounds and gained over 6 inches in my waist since 2022. I don't think a healthy lifestyle is helping.

But I had heard about the probiotics. I take them for other reasons. The only real, solid contraindication I've found is possible allergic reactions, which is always a consideration for me.

I have both a weighted hula hoop and the thing that fits around your waist that has a string with a weight on the end that you use like a hula hoop. I should get them out and give them another try.

This is small/preliminary:

https://genesandnutrition.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12263-022-00718-7

Compared to placebo, prebiotic/probiotic supplementation was associated with a 35% reduction in visceral adipose tissue (VAT; p = 0.002) but no change in body weight or overall percent body fat.

I haven't read closely enough to evaluate study quality, but at least that's one hint from research. I'm fairly skeptical, but that's enough that I wouldn't reject the possibility out of hand without learning more.

There was also a meta-analysis that seemed to suggest the same thing:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-90820-8

Our study also found that probiotics had no significant effect on BMI, but there were significant differences in waist circumference and visceral fat compared with the control group, which is an interesting phenomenon. 

I didn't look up the other RCTs included in that meta-analysis.

There's a lot of interesting, but mostly preliminary research going on recently about gut microbiome. I'm a believer in the value of pre- and probiotic foods, and have a casual interest in the evolving research. As a generality from the totality of what I've read, yes, overall healthier habits - the standard good nutrition, whole foods, exercise kind of thing - can improve the gut microbiome . . . but there are also various ways in which improving the gut microbiome (even via supplementation or fecal transplant) may improve health. It's complicated.

That said, probiotics wouldn't be my first go-to if the goal was reducing waist circumference.

The very next thing I saw after posting here. (Big brother is watching). An ad to lose 30 pounds a month by drinking a probiotic pumpkin seed drink. Lol! Don't we wish!

I don't know of any comparison studies (haven't looked), but from reading several articles about the 30 or 40 different plant foods per week idea, the expected positive effect on gut microbiome is one of the reasons it's advocated.

But gut microbiome diversity is complicated . . . affected by numerous variables, possibly going all the way back to having been born in the age-old birth canal exit way vs. cesarean section, whether parents were severe germophobes, whether a person has or has had house pets, hobbies like gardening, and more. IMU, some probiotic supplements don't persist well in the gut; and good gut microbiome diversity can be negatively affected by quite a wide variety of lifestyle choices, potentially wiping out some of the good microbes, or at least reducing their numbers.

I think we don't know very much yet . . . just enough to be interesting, not enough to give many definitive answers. It's a hype point for health/fitness marketers and influencers for sure, though, and I feel like the claims outpace the sound evidence.

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