This is actually part of an email I sent in reply to someone who’s having NO luck in losing weight… and I thought to put it on my blog as well, in case you are having the same problem or know someone who is.
I want to briefly suggest some other reasons that could be stopping weight loss.
Weight loss is not just about eating a healthy diet and exercising.
There’s so many other (very personal) and complicated reasons going on with our bodies, that need to be checked out first. These WILL prevent weight loss, no matter how healthy your diet and how far you run each day.
What Could Be Preventing You From Losing Weight?
I am a huge advocate of getting ‘the gut’ tough!
This means re-balancing the gut flora (good and bad bacteria) and healing any inflammation that most have accumulated over the years from ‘life in general.’
Digestion is everything! And if it’s not functioning well, we don’t absorb our nutrients properly, therefore every other system in our body loses out big time! Including our metabolism which govern weight loss.
It’s typical that as soon as the gut is brought back into balance and healed, the body will then return back to it’s own perfect weight with not a lot of crazy diets and exercise. The body reaches a state of harmony and balance ( but remember it doesn’t suit everyone to be a size 8!)
So Gut health is a ‘biggy’ and other really important considerations are – do you have an Oestrogen/Progesterone imbalance?
These hormones play a huge part in the ability to lose weight. Many women have an oestrogen dominance problem. This can be caused by lots of exercise, chemicals, meat, carpet, soaps, chemical sunscreens and the list could go on! Cruciferous vegetables are great for hormone balance (cabbage, kale, cauliflower, bok choy, broccoli and other similar green vegetables) so make sure you’re eating these. There are other ways to drag the excess oestrogen out of our bodies.
Also, get your Vitamin D checked. Vitamin D acts like a hormone in our bodies, and deficiency has been linked to weight gain.
Stress causing high cortisol is another biggy and tends to keep weight on our abdominal area. A tell-tale sign of high cortisol is if we feel like we need to be on a caffeine drip all the time. High cortisol can increase appetite and sugar cravings.
Watch for ‘healthy’ processed foods and their hidden culprits. Excess sodium, GMO’s and sugar are hidden in these and cause inflammation and excess weight gain. Just because it says ‘gluten free’ or low fat’ or ‘natural’ this doesn’t mean it’s good for you.
Look at the ingredients list only – not the marketing hype on the food labels.
Particularly think of ‘low fat’ as ‘added sugar and salt’ to make up for the loss of taste. You’re better off eating ‘full fat’ food, but simply reduce the amount you eat, since they’re higher in calories.
You want to choose food that has been left in it’s most natural state, so making something ‘low fat’ is extra food ‘tampering!’
Finally, don’t skimp on getting a good sleep every night. Your hormones need sleep and so does your brain. The two hormones that are key in the link between sleep and weight loss are Ghrelin and Leptin. Leptin tells us when to stop eating and when you’re sleep-deprived. Grhrelin tells us when to eat. So when you’re sleep-deprived, you have more Ghrelin which is an imbalance.
Of course you can have tests for all of these things to see where you’re at. Functional testing is best, used for spotting good and bad trends in our health before they develop into anything nasty.
Hope this helps!
P.S. If there’s anyone in your life (friend, family, employee) who feels they want to do better with their health, please share this post. It might be the fresh perspective they need to feel better.