Are you lacking a motivation to exercise?

If you have a hard time making it to your workouts, feel sluggish and unmotivated, than you definitely need to keep reading. It may be your gut’s fault; the microbes living inside it in particular.

It’s important to explain what exactly a Microbiome are first. Microbiome are a group of good bacteria, fungi, microorganisms and viruses that live naturally inside our bodies. The Microbiome are primarily located in the large and small intestines, and they can be influenced directly by our diet.

It’s well known by now that this collaboration of healthy microorganism help our immune system work better, but a new study published in December 2022 discovers that the
Microbiome affects exercise motivation as well. In the study done by University of Pennsylvania researchers studied the effects of Microbiome on motivation. They took mice who loved to voluntarily run on a treadmill and recorded how long it took for the mice to get tired. Then the researchers used antibiotics to kill most of the healthy microorganisms in the mice’s guts and did the running experiment again. It turned out that the mice didn’t enjoy the treadmill exercise as much and were getting tired much faster than before. They were just not as interested. This study led to the finding that Microbiome affects motivation to exercise, more than genetics, metabolism or even a person’s behavioral tendencies.

The study continued by the researchers finding other gut bacteria known to send signals to the brain to stimulate the production of dopamine, which is responsible for motivation for activities like exercise. When adding this gut bacteria to the diet of the mice with poor Microbiome (killed by antibiotics), the mice motivation to run was very high again.

The research shows that healthy and diverse diet can improve our motivation to exercise.
Diversifying your diet is not hard either. Specialists suggest to aim for 30 different types of plants, herbs and fermented foods. That can mean just adding fresh parsley or dill to your meals, drinking different teas, eating yogurt daily and not forgetting to add fresh fruits and veggies to our diet every day.