Improve your gut flora and strengthen your well-being from within

The easiest way to build up your gut flora? Focus on a high-fiber diet rich in vegetables and whole grains, regularly include fermented foods such as yogurt or sauerkraut, and reduce sugar and stress. These measures specifically nourish the beneficial bacteria and help you establish a healthy balance in your gut.

Your path to greater well-being: Why everything begins in the gut

Do you often feel tired or bloated, or struggle with unexplained digestive problems for which you simply cannot find a cause? The answer to these questions lies in your gut much more often than you might think—more precisely, in your microbiome. This is a vast ecosystem inhabited by trillions of microorganisms.

These tiny residents are much more than just digestive helpers. They have a massive impact on your immune system, your mood, and even your skin. When this delicate balance gets out of sync, it can affect your entire body.

What your gut does for you

Imagine your microbiome as a flourishing garden. The beneficial bacteria are the diligent gardeners who tend and care for everything, while harmful bacteria spread like weeds and throw everything into disarray. When the gardeners are outnumbered, you quickly notice:

• Digestive chaos: Persistent bloating, constipation, diarrhea, or an uncomfortable feeling of fullness are often the first and clearest warning signs.
• Weakened immune system: Your gut is the command center of your defenses. Approximately 70% of your immune cells are located here. An imbalance makes you more susceptible to infections.
• Mental slumps: The so-called gut-brain axis is a direct communication pathway. An unhappy gut can lead to concentration problems, fatigue, and low moods.
• Skin problems: Skin blemishes, eczema, or a dull complexion can also stem from an imbalanced gut flora.

The following table gives you a quick overview of the most common signs that may indicate something is wrong in your gut.

Common signs of an imbalanced microbiome

Body area	Possible symptoms
Digestive tract	Bloating, constipation, diarrhea, feeling of fullness, abdominal pain
Immune system	Frequent colds or infections, slow wound healing
Mental well-being & energy	Chronic fatigue, mood swings, concentration problems
Skin	Acne, eczema, skin blemishes, rosacea
General well-being	Intolerances to certain foods, cravings for sugar

These symptoms are often just the tip of the iceberg. They are your body’s way of telling you that your internal balance needs support.

A healthy microbiome is not a coincidence, but the result of your daily choices. Every meal sets the course: Are you feeding the beneficial helpers or the rampant weeds in your gut?

This guide leads you to better gut health without myths and with scientifically sound, practical strategies for everyday life. I’ll show you how to use your diet and lifestyle to specifically promote the right bacteria, and when a deeper, personalized insight through a mybody®x gut microbiome test can make all the difference. My goal is to give you the knowledge you need to understand your body’s signals and take control of your well-being yourself.

The right food for your gut bacteria

Your diet is undoubtedly the strongest lever you have for bringing your gut flora into balance. Imagine that you are the personal chef for the approximately 100 trillion bacteria in your gut. With every meal, you decide which of these little helpers to feed generously and which to put on a diet.

The secret is to serve your beneficial inhabitants exactly what they love: fiber. These plant fibers are indigestible to you, but they are a real feast for your good gut bacteria.

When fermenting these fibers, they produce valuable substances such as butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid. Butyrate is like super fuel for your intestinal lining—it strengthens the gut barrier and has an anti-inflammatory effect throughout the body.

The problem? Most of us are letting our hardworking gut inhabitants starve. The German Nutrition Society (DGE) recommends eating at least 30 grams of fiber every day. Unfortunately, reality looks very different: On average, people in Germany consume only about 18 grams per day.

How to reach the 30-gram mark with ease

At first glance, 30 grams may sound like a lot of work, but with a few clever adjustments, you can achieve it more easily than you think. It’s not about turning everything upside down overnight, but about consciously sneaking fiber-rich powerhouses into your everyday routine.

Here are some of the best fiber champions that you can easily combine:

• Legumes: Lentils, chickpeas, and black beans are true heroes. One serving (about 200 g cooked) already provides around 15 grams of fiber—half the battle!
• Whole-grain products: Simply swap white bread for whole-grain bread or white pasta for its whole-grain alternative. One slice of whole-grain bread already provides an extra 2–3 grams.
• Nuts and seeds: A handful of almonds, walnuts, or chia seeds as a snack or in muesli is a wonderfully easy method. Just two tablespoons of ground flaxseed provide a substantial 6 grams.
• Vegetables: Broccoli, carrots, and artichokes are particularly rich in fiber. Leeks, onions, and garlic are also fantastic because they contain inulin—a prebiotic that especially nourishes beneficial bifidobacteria.
• Fruit: Berries (especially raspberries and blackberries), apples, and pears with their skins on are also excellent sources.

One simple trick that always works for me: Add a serving of vegetables or a salad to every main meal, and consistently choose whole-grain options for bread and pasta. Your gut will thank you right away.

Variety on Your Plate for Variety in Your Gut

But it’s not just about the total amount of fiber. Variety is almost even more important. Every bacterial strain has its own preferences. The more colorful and varied your diet, the more diverse and resilient your microbiome will become.

Instead of eating the same apple every day, why not try a pear, some berries, or a kiwi? Rather than always relying on lentils, try adding chickpeas, black beans, or edamame to your dishes.

A good rule of thumb is to try to eat more than 30 different types of plants per week. That may sound like a lot at first, but remember: herbs, spices, nuts, and seeds all count!

If you want to dive even deeper into the topic and are looking for specific ideas, you’ll find more valuable tips and recipes in our guide to an eating pattern that supports gut flora. By nourishing your gut bacteria with a varied, plant-focused diet, you lay the foundation for a strong immune system, stable digestion, and greater well-being.

Use Probiotics and Fermented Foods Strategically

After looking at which foods strengthen your beneficial gut bacteria, we’ll now take the next step: directly reinforcing them with live microorganisms. With probiotic foods and targeted supplements, you can actively establish beneficial bacteria in your gut and shift the balance in your favor.

It’s best to think of it like renovating a garden: With fiber (that is, prebiotics), you have perfectly fertilized and prepared the soil. Now it’s time to deliberately sow new, beneficial plants—and that is exactly what probiotics are.

The Natural Power of Fermented Foods

Fermented foods are a fantastic and completely natural source of probiotics. During fermentation, lactic acid bacteria and other beneficial helpers multiply, enriching your gut.

Some of the best fermented powerhouses for your everyday life are:

• Plain yogurt and kefir: These classics are packed with lactobacilli and bifidobacteria. However, be sure to choose products without added sugar and with the clear label “contains live cultures.”
• Sauerkraut: A true superfood for the gut with a long tradition in our cuisine. The important thing here is to choose raw, unpasteurized sauerkraut from the refrigerated section. Heating during pasteurization kills all the valuable bacteria.
• Kimchi: This Korean fermented vegetable dish is not only rich in probiotics, but also provides vitamins and fiber—a complete win-win for your gut health.
• Kombucha: This fermented tea drink can be a great alternative to sugary soft drinks. The same applies here: Look for a low sugar content and the label “unpasteurized.”

A simple start: Swap your morning fruit yogurt for plain yogurt with a handful of fresh berries. Or add a tablespoon of raw sauerkraut to your salad or put it on your evening meal. You’ll see: Small changes like these can often make a huge difference.

Probiotics as supplements—when are they really worthwhile?

The market for probiotic supplements is enormous and increasingly difficult to navigate. Forecasts suggest it will grow from 77.40 billion US dollars in 2026 to an incredible 134.50 billion US dollars by 2034. However, not every product is suitable for everyone. In certain situations, targeted use can be extremely effective. You can also learn more about the microbiome’s impact on our health at ZDFheute.

Targeted support with probiotics from a pharmacy or specialist retailer can be particularly helpful in these cases:

• After antibiotic treatment: Antibiotics are often lifesaving, but unfortunately they do not distinguish between good and bad bacteria. A good probiotic can then help rebuild the gut flora more quickly.
• For specific digestive complaints: Numerous studies show that certain bacterial strains can provide noticeable relief for irritable bowel syndrome, constipation, or diarrhea.
• To strengthen the immune system: Since a large part of our immune system is located in the gut, a healthy microbiome can also provide lasting support for our defenses.

When making a purchase, look for supplements that contain several different bacterial strains (e.g., a combination of lactobacilli and bifidobacteria) in a sufficiently high concentration. As a guideline, aim for at least 1 billion CFU (colony-forming units) per dose.

The dream team for your gut: Probiotics and prebiotics

You’ll achieve the very best results when you combine the new helpers (probiotics) directly with their favorite food (prebiotics). Prebiotics are essentially nothing more than the fiber we’ve already discussed. They serve as food for beneficial bacteria and help them establish and multiply in your gut over the long term.

So when you combine probiotic kefir with prebiotic oats and berries, you create the perfect foundation for a thriving gut ecosystem. This cleverly combined approach is also known as synbiotic.

Would you like to understand the interplay and the exact differences even better? Then read our detailed article about the difference between probiotics and prebiotics. Ultimately, it is precisely this combination that helps you improve your gut flora sustainably and strengthen your well-being from the inside out.

These habits harm your microbiome

You’re doing everything you can: eating more fiber, incorporating probiotic foods, and trying to support your gut. Yet somehow, you still don’t feel your best. That can be incredibly frustrating. Often, the reason is that while we work hard to build things up in one area, we unknowingly maintain habits in another that undo all our good work.

It’s as if you lovingly tended a garden while sowing weeds at the same time. Certain habits specifically feed the “wrong” bacteria, promote silent inflammation, and weaken your entire system. Let’s expose these silent saboteurs so your efforts can finally bear fruit.

The usual suspects: sugar and processed foods

Sugar and ultra-processed foods are probably the biggest enemies of a healthy gut flora. They’re like an all-you-can-eat buffet for unwanted bacteria and yeasts in your gut. They have a real feast, multiply rapidly, and displace the beneficial bacterial strains you urgently need.

The problem isn’t just the sugar in candy or soft drinks. It also hides masterfully in supposedly healthy products such as ready-made sauces, many types of muesli, or fruit yogurt. Ultra-processed foods are just as problematic. They are often packed with artificial additives and unhealthy fats and contain few or no valuable dietary fibers.

A simple trick for exposing these gut enemies: Take a look at the ingredients list. As a rule of thumb, the shorter and easier-to-understand the list, the better for your gut. If you can’t pronounce most of the ingredients, it’s better to leave the product on the shelf.

Artificial sweeteners: the bitter truth

In search of a sugar-free alternative, many people turn to products with artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, sucralose, or saccharin. However, research suggests that these substances can negatively alter the composition of the microbiome and disrupt its delicate balance.

They appear to promote the growth of certain bacterial species associated with metabolic problems. If you don’t want to give up sweetness, natural alternatives such as stevia or erythritol—enjoyed in moderation—are often the better choice.

The underestimated danger: Antibiotics

Antibiotics are undoubtedly one of the most important achievements in medicine and lifesaving in many situations. For your gut, however, they act like a kind of “atomic bomb”: They not only wipe out harmful pathogens but also destroy a large part of your beneficial bacterial flora.

This clear-cutting can drastically reduce the diversity of your microbiome. This makes it vulnerable to the overgrowth of unwanted microbes that are more than happy to occupy the vacated niche.

After a course of antibiotics, your gut is like freshly turned soil. It’s the perfect time to sow the right seeds with targeted probiotic foods and prebiotics and encourage the growth of beneficial cultures.

How to support your gut during and after taking antibiotics:

• Take probiotics: Start taking a high-quality probiotic during your antibiotic treatment. It is important to leave an interval of at least two to three hours between taking it and taking the antibiotic.
• Stick with it: Continue taking the probiotic for at least another two to four weeks after finishing the treatment. Your gut microbiome needs this time to recover.
• Provide nourishment: During this phase, eat plenty of prebiotic foods (that is, fiber) to give the new, beneficial bacteria the best possible source of nourishment and give them a head start.

Stress and sleep deprivation as silent saboteurs

Your gut and brain are directly connected through the so-called gut-brain axis. What happens in your head has an immediate impact on your gut—and vice versa. Chronic stress is pure poison for your microbiome.

When you’re under stress, your body releases hormones such as cortisol. These can make the gut barrier more permeable (a phenomenon known as “leaky gut”) and fuel the growth of inflammation-promoting bacteria. Something similar happens with sleep deprivation. Just a few nights of too little or poor-quality sleep can measurably reduce the diversity of your gut bacteria.

The good news is that you can take active steps to counteract this. Consciously build small oases of relaxation into your everyday life. This doesn’t have to mean hours of meditation. Often, just five minutes of deep breathing, a short walk in the fresh air, or listening to your favorite music is enough to lower your stress levels. Good sleep hygiene is just as crucial—regular bedtimes and a relaxing evening routine to give your body the rest it needs.

When a microbiome test can really provide clarity

General advice on diet and lifestyle is a great starting point for doing something good for your gut microbiome. But what if you’ve already been doing all of that for a long time? You dutifully eat your fiber, avoid sugar, and exercise regularly—and yet those annoying symptoms, such as bloating, irregular digestion, or constant fatigue, simply refuse to go away.

This is precisely where generic recommendations reach their limits. Your gut is as unique as your fingerprint. The community of bacteria in your gut responds very differently to foods and habits than your neighbor’s does. So if you want to stop guessing and finally know exactly what is going on in your gut, a personalized approach can be the turning point.

From Guesswork to Knowledge: Your Personal Gut Report

Instead of continuing to grope in the dark, a modern gut microbiome test, such as the one from mybody®x, gives you precise insight into your inner ecosystem. Imagine receiving a detailed map of your gut showing you exactly where its strengths and weaknesses lie.

A test like this goes far beyond mere guesswork and provides you with concrete, scientifically sound data about your very own gut flora. Instead of general advice, you receive a tailored report that answers questions including the following:

• Is there an imbalance (dysbiosis)? The analysis shows the ratio of beneficial to potentially harmful bacteria and reveals whether your gut flora has fallen out of balance.
• Which bacteria are present? You will learn which bacterial genera are dominant in your gut—which promote inflammation and which actively protect you.
• How high is your bacterial diversity? High diversity is considered a sign of a robust and healthy microbiome. The test measures how varied the inhabitants of your inner garden are.
• How well is your nutrient production? Certain bacteria produce vital vitamins (e.g., vitamin K and some B vitamins) and short-chain fatty acids such as butyrate, which protect your gut lining. The test shows how well your gut supports you in this process.

A gut microbiome test is not a miracle cure, but a powerful tool for gaining clarity. It does not replace the foundations of a healthy lifestyle; instead, it gives you the exact coordinates to focus your efforts on what your body truly needs.

This simple decision tree provides a good summary of which factors harm your gut and which strengthen it.

The graphic makes it clear: Factors such as sugar, stress, and certain medications can harm your gut, while fiber serves as food for your beneficial gut bacteria.

Your personal roadmap to better gut health

The most valuable aspect of such a test is the personalized recommendations for action. Based on your unique microbiome composition, you receive very specific suggestions tailored to your individual needs.

Imagine the test shows that you lack certain butyrate-producing bacteria. Your recommendation might then be to deliberately consume more resistant starch, for example through cooled potatoes or green bananas. If, on the other hand, you lack bifidobacteria, you might be advised to eat more inulin-rich foods such as leeks or artichokes.

Recent studies underscore how important these personalized insights are. The HELIUS study, for example, shows that certain microbial signatures in the gut can even serve as predictors of high blood pressure, metabolic disorders, or diabetes. The mybody®x gut microbiome test provides similarly deep insights into your health status and uses them as the basis for individualized nutrition plans.

The process: How to get your results so easily

Many people shy away from the thought of a laboratory test, but the process is remarkably simple and can be completed conveniently from home:

1. Order the test kit: You will receive your test kit discreetly at home. It contains everything you need to collect the sample.
2. Collect the sample: Using the simple instructions, you collect a small stool sample—completely privately and easily in your own bathroom.
3. Free return shipping: You place the sample in the enclosed return envelope and send it free of charge to our certified laboratory in Germany.
4. Receive your results: After a few weeks, you will receive your detailed and, above all, easy-to-understand results report in your secure mybody®x customer account.

Learn more about the exact process and its benefits on our page about the mybody®x gut test. With this knowledge, you no longer have to rely on guesswork. Instead, you can specifically improve your gut flora and actively regain control over your well-being.

Your path to gut health: Answers to the most important questions

Finally, I would like to address a few questions that come up repeatedly in my daily work. Think of them as a kind of compass to help you take the next steps toward a better gut feeling with clarity and confidence.

How quickly can I really improve my gut flora?

The good news first: your gut flora is incredibly dynamic. If you consistently change your diet, initial positive changes in the composition of your gut bacteria can be detected after just a few days. You are essentially feeding the right helpers in your gut immediately.

However, truly noticeable and, above all, lasting improvements—such as more energy, smooth digestion, or a stronger immune system—require some patience. Allow several weeks to months for this. Your body needs this time to build and consolidate a new, robust balance.

What role does stress play in my gut?

Chronic stress is one of the biggest adversaries of your gut health. Through the so-called gut-brain axis, your brain sends stress signals directly to your abdomen under prolonged strain. This can make the intestinal barrier more permeable—you may have heard of “leaky gut”—and at the same time promotes the growth of bacteria that fuel inflammation.

Relaxation techniques such as meditation, yoga, walks in nature, or simply getting enough sleep are therefore not a minor matter. They are an active and absolutely necessary measure to protect and strengthen your gut flora.

Is simply taking a probiotic enough?

A probiotic can absolutely make sense in certain situations, for example after antibiotic therapy, to help rebuild the microbiome more quickly. But it is not a miracle pill that solves all problems on its own. Without the right food in the form of fiber (prebiotics), the bacteria introduced have no nourishment and cannot establish themselves permanently.

The key to success is a holistic strategy: a fiber-rich diet, a mindful lifestyle, and, if you finally want clarity, a targeted test. It provides you with a personal blueprint to perfectly tailor your efforts to your body’s needs.

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Are you finally ready to stop guessing and know exactly what your gut needs? mybody-x.com gives you scientifically grounded insights and personalized recommendations with the gut microbiome test to help you specifically improve your gut health.