Your weight, too, impacts how your gut bacteria respond to exercise:

…exercise training induces compositional and functional changes in the human gut microbiota that are dependent on obesity status, independent of diet and contingent on the sustainment of exercise

Researchers at UIUC in Illinois evaluated changes in the gut microbiome in lean and obese participants during and after an exercise regimen:

We explored the impact of six weeks of endurance exercise on the composition, functional capacity, and metabolic output of the gut microbiota in lean and obese adults with multiple-day dietary controls prior to outcome variable collection

What’s really great is that trial looked at what happened after stopping exercise, too…

Subsequently, participants subsequently returned to a sedentary lifestyle activity for a six week washout period. Fecal samples were collected before and after six weeks of exercise, as well as after the sedentary washout period, with 3-day dietary controls in place prior to each collection

Here’s what’s interesting:

Exercise increased fecal concentrations of short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) in lean, but not obese, participants. Exercise induced shifts in metabolic output of the microbiota paralleled changes in bacterial genes and taxa capable of SCFA production. Lastly, exercise-induced changes in the microbiota were largely reversed once exercise training ceased.

In other words, you have to keep up the work!

Link to the full trial article here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29166320

Thanks for reading…