Are you the type of person who tries everything to lose weight with no success? Maybe you do lose it but find it difficult to maintain it?

Many think that cutting carbs and sweating through exercise is enough to lose weight but this couldn’t be further from the truth. 

Starving yourself unnecessarily to lose weight or pushing yourself hard at the gym can do more harm than good. This can put the body into a survival mode by spiking up cortisol levels leading to more blood sugar being brought to the bloodstream to “fight or flee”. 

The result? More body fat. 

There’s a lot more to losing weight than the amount of calories you consume. It’s time to dig deeper to see if there’s an underlying root cause to your weight gain.

Beginning with the digestive system is a wise starting point given that it is directly linked to inflammation and the immune system which can directly impact weight loss. 

Our gut also influences our metabolic rate which is a huge factor when it comes to weight management. 

What causes inflammation in the gut?

Eating fried foods, drinking tap water, taking antibiotics, being exposed to environmental toxins (pollution), can all contribute to inflammation in the gut.  

If nothing is done, the inflammation will just get worse overtime and it will eventually cause body fat gain.

Being exposed to different toxicities like contaminated water or food can lead to H. Pylori, parasites, bacteria and even candida overgrowth.

All of these can cause imbalances in your gut which is one of the main contributors to chronic inflammation.

Food sensitivities can also be the culprit of inflammation. 

How? If you continue eating the foods your immune system reacts to, you will constantly be causing yourself inflammation, especially around the gut lining. This overtime will lead to increased intestinal permeability (leaky gut) and then more inflammation.

Inflammation & Metabolism

The higher your metabolism is, the more calories you will burn and the easier it is to lose weight and keep it off. This is one of the reasons why people with an underactive thyroid (lower metabolism) find it difficult to lose weight.

Chronic inflammation can throw off your hunger mechanism and metabolism-regulating hormones such as insulin resistance. 

This then leads to higher glucose levels so your pancreas will respond by producing more insulin to move that sugar out of your blood and into your cells. 

The result?

More fat accumulation because your body only burns fat when it senses insulin levels dropping.

Higher levels of body fat can lead to higher levels of estrogen being produced which can then cause more weight gain.

This will begin to affect your thyroid, relationship with food and eventually your metabolism. 

All of these combined will then create further damage to your gut. This cycle just goes on and on.

BOTTOM LINE

There is an overload of information available today but you should always take it with a grain of salt. There are multiple “health experts” out there advocating a low carb diet and while I believe this is great in the short-term, I’m certainly not an advocate of doing this forever.  

Are you struggling with losing weight and keeping it off? If so, your body is giving you the signs.

Going low carb or being on a calorie deficit long-term will lower metabolism overtime and this will not help in your weight loss journey!

Start by completing a functional medicine protocol to completely reset your hormones, blood sugar, digestion and inflammation. You can do my 21 Day Reset  or any other protocol that you’d like. 

If you’d like to dive in deeper or would like a more personalised approach, I recommend running the at-home weight management test which will reveal whether your hormones are the root cause of your weight gain and an organic acid test to evaluate gut health.

Remember, there’s always a reason why!