As you might have seen on my channels, I’ve just finished the 12 week Symprove programme. Wahoo! There’s been a lot of talk in the gut health community about Symprove and how brilliant it is, so I was really excited to see how it would work for me.
For those who’d like a little recap: Symprove is a water-based supplement designed to give your microbiome some love. It contains 4 unique strains of live and activated bacteria: L rhamnosus, E. faecium, L. acidophilus, and L. plantarum to be precise.
A healthy gut would normally contain all four of these (alongside lots of other stuff and types of bacteria), but diet, lifestyle and many other factors can cause a gut to become unbalanced.
When you drink Symprove and it reaches your gut, your body is designed to recognise these four strains of bacteria, get excited and start to thrive. Therefore, each day you take Symprove, you’re giving your gut a whole lotta’ love and topping up your good bacteria.
So how did me and Symprove get on?
A long-time sufferer of IBS, I was incredibly excited to try the programme, knowing my gut can always do with a bit of extra TLC. As I mentioned in my six-week update, it wasn’t easy sailing at the start, but eventually my gut found a rhythm.
Week 7 & 8
I still felt a bit more bloated every now and then, but in the same way I mentioned – that it felt like my gut was doing good stuff and getting to work nourishing itself. I continued to be a bit more lax with foods and actually managed to tolerate a bit of meat that had been cooked with garlic. Hurrah.
Week 9 & 10
I went away for the weekend and missed taking Symprove for a few days because I forgot to take the bottle with me. But my tum was totally fine, if a little sensitive when I starting retaking.
Week 11 & 12
Coming to the end of the programme I felt really happy, though over time I worked out that my body preferred a slightly smaller dose each day – roughly 50ml instead of 70ml.
The big one – would I recommend Symprove to my friends?
Everybody’s gut is different and Symprove isn’t a magic formula or a miracle cure for IBS. However – the gut health geek in me genuinely enjoyed taking the 12 week programme and felt better for it. It’s an incredibly clever supplement, and there’s solid research out there showing that Symprove can survive, thrive, and colonise the gut.
For me, it was important to think about Symprove as part of an on-going gut management plan. Stress, lifestyle, exercise all play a part in my gut health and it’s important to take time to focus on these elements too. FYI – Symprove have some great articles on their website, written by brilliant people such as Laura Tilt that are worth checking out, along with a really active Facebook page where they post a stream of links to great gut health articles.
It should be said too that the team behind Symprove are brilliant – super responsive and eager to answer any questions you might have. They’re also really committed to research and I love that from a company. Here’s to happy, healthy guts all round.
What do you guys think? Have you tried Symprove? Let me know in the comments below or head over to my Instagram @shecanteatwhat! According to Symprove, many clinicians have used Symprove alongside the FODMAP diet with great results. Have a chat to your GP or dietitian about the two working together.
This post was in partnership with Symprove. Opinions (and experience!) entirely my own.
