Your weight doesn't have to be a struggle
If you’re struggling with your weight, don’t despair! Even if you think you’ve tried everything, there are still many things you can do to help, including addressing underlying issues that go beyond the basics.
Your diet, hormones, stress levels, activity level, and your sleep can all affect your weight. Make sure you are addressing all five of these if you’re struggling with your weight.
1. Diet: Your diet plays a role in your weight, but in different ways than you think. Your weight depends on more than just calories in and calories out. Your gut health plus the type of foods you eat, and the quality of food that you eat are some of the most important factors.
a. Get your gut healthy. Make sure that you’re digesting your foods properly and that your gut microbiome (the bacteria in your gut) are well balanced to keep your weight in check. Your digestive system relies on good bacteria to keep it healthy. Your gut microbiome is made up of trillions of microorganisms and an imbalance between the good and the bad bacteria can create an array of health problems, including weight gain and indigestion. Diets high in sugar and processed foods can have long-term negative effects on your gut bacteria by feeding the bad bacteria. Rebalance your gut microbiome and increase your good bacteria with a healthy diet and probiotics, whether that is a high quality probiotic supplement, eating naturally fermented foods, or a combination of both.
b. What (and what not) to eat: The best way to manage your weight with diet is to focus the majority of your diet on healthy fats, protein, and vegetables, while avoiding any food sensitivities. By focusing on healthy fats, protein, and vegetables you are eliminating the majority of aggravating foods, including grains, such as wheat and corn, dairy, soy and sugar.
Eating the aggravating foods listed above, or any foods that you are sensitive to, can create inflammation in your body which can promote weight gain. Inflammation can also lead to decreased nutrient absorption and can diminish the beneficial flora in your digestive tract leading to indigestion, constipation, diarrhea, gas, and bloating. Eating these foods can actually promote weight gain due to the extra stress it causes in addition to the increased inflammation. If you notice that you get gas or indigestion after eating certain foods, you may be sensitive to those foods, and eliminating them from your diet can help your digestion and your weight.
c. Food quality makes a difference too. The better quality of food you eat, the more nutrients your body can utilize from it, without have to process and detox excess waste products. Choosing processed foods creates more work for your body by causing it to process and eliminate the extra chemicals and non-food ingredients. The same goes for non-organic foods and produce – those pesticides and other food additives build up in your body creating a toxic environment that your body needs to deal with on top of all of your other body processes and stresses. This affects your gut microbiome too.
Did you know that grass-fed beef has a similar fatty acid profile to chicken? Beef has gotten a bad reputation over the years as so much of what is available is farmed beef from cows who are not grazing on grass like they are meant to. When cows are pasture raised and able to eat grass, the meat is healthier for you. So buy grass-fed whenever you can and enjoy the health benefits! The same goes for eggs and chicken – organic free range chickens are healthier which means better-for-you eggs and meat. These will provide your body with the healthy fat and protein that it needs, without the extra negative ingredients.
2. Hormones:
a. Thyroid. The thyroid gland helps regulate metabolism which regulates weight. If your thyroid isn’t functioning properly, then you may experience weight gain due to a slowed metabolism. If you are experiencing weight gain, you should have your thyroid checked.
Other signs and symptoms of low thyroid function include dry skin, constipation, hair loss, and fatigue. The best way to get an idea of thyroid function is to get your TSH, free T4, and free T3 tested. Testing only the TSH provides only some of the necessary information, so ask your doctor to get all three checked.
b. Reproductive hormones, including estrogen and testosterone, play a role in your weight as well. Hormones are about balance. Your hormones need to be in balance with one another for ideal health. Testosterone promotes muscle building which will boost your metabolism, but that doesn’t mean more is necessarily better- it needs to be balanced with your other hormones, like estrogen, which can promote weight gain in excess. Some of the best ways to help balance your estrogen and testosterone include:
Eating healthy fats, because cholesterol and fatty acids are the backbone to your hormones. Without enough healthy fats (whether that is from eating a low-fat diet or taking a statin medication), your body can’t properly synthesize your hormones. So increase your healthy fat intake to promote proper hormone levels.
Decreasing sugar and refined carbohydrates. This may come as no surprise that decreasing your sugar and refined carbohydrate intake can help you lose weight, but it goes beyond just decreasing those extra calories (and inflammation), it also helps balance your hormones for more long-term and sustained weight loss.
Decrease alcohol intake. Alcohol promotes inflammation and puts stress on your liver. Your liver is responsible for making your hormones, so an over-taxed liver is not going to be able to make and balance your hormones like it should. Especially watch out for beverages that promote excess estrogen, such as beer that is high in hops.
Exercise will help balance your testosterone and estrogen to help promote muscle gain and weight loss.
3. Stress and Cortisol: Your adrenal glands, also known as your “stress glands” help control your body’s stress response, in both acute and chronic situations. When we get stressed out, our bodies release cortisol. Cortisol tells our body that we are in flight or fight mode and need to do whatever we can do to survive. So what does that mean? It means that when you’re in that flight or fight mode, aka trying to run from a bear, your body isn’t thinking about your long-term health. It is solely focused on the very short term to create an environment where you cannot just run from the bear, but outrun that bear to survive. In the short-term, bursts of cortisol make total sense. Cortisol helps to divert attention away our more long-term needs to combat that short term stress so it increases our blood pressure, increases blood sugar to give us energy, diverts attention away from our digestion, suppresses your immune system, affects carbohydrate metabolism, and pulls calcium out of our bones.
a. However, most of us aren’t out in the wild running from bears with short term stress and returning to a stress free life once that bear is gone. We are under constant chronic stress, which means chronically elevated cortisol, due to our life stress, work stress, financial stress, kids, partners, and everything else we are dealing with a daily basis. That chronic stress leads to chronically elevated cortisol levels causing a decreased immune system, high blood pressure, insulin resistance which can lead to type II diabetes, chronic carbohydrate cravings, and increased fat storage which leads to, you guessed it, weight gain.
b. Make sure you are getting your chronic stress under control to prevent this from being a source of your weight gain.
4. Activity: Exercise plays a large role in your metabolism and weight by helping to manage your metabolism, building muscle, and balancing your dietary intake.
a. Physical activity not only helps you burn off calories that you have already eaten, but it also boosts your metabolism for hours after you exercise to help burn the calories after you work out more efficiently.
b. Exercise can help you build muscle and the more muscle you have, the more energy your body burns since muscle burns more calories than fat cells.
c. Moderate exercise is best. Moderate exercise increases your metabolism, helps you burn energy and fat, and promotes weight loss. However, excess exercise can actually increase the stress on your body which can prevent your body from losing weight. So exercise in moderation, but don’t over-do it.
d. Don’t forget about the effects that exercise has on your hormones too!
5. Sleep. Is a lack of sleep preventing you from losing weight? Sleep and weight gain are more linked than we think. It makes sense that if you sleep more, you’ll have more energy to work out. But the connection between sleep and weight go far beyond having the energy to exercise. Sleep deprivation has been shown to have the ability to impact your health including your metabolism, your hormones, your appetite, and even your food choices.
a. If you find yourself snacking more in the evenings after dinner, especially on high carb foods, it is likely more from fatigue than hunger. A lack of sleep actually creates biochemical changes in your body, including an increased release of the hormone ghrelin, the hormone that tells you are hungry.
So, less sleep = more hunger signals from your brain.
b. Studies have shown that inadequate sleep is associated with “increased hunger and appetite, in particular for calorie-dense foods with high carbohydrate content.” [2,3] This means that the less sleep you get, the more likely you are to snack on high calorie, high carbohydrate foods, which tend to be less nutritious and contribute to weight gain.
So, less sleep = more hunger signals… for unhealthy foods.
c. Don’t let a lack of sleep be the reason you are gaining weight, have trouble losing weight, or making poor food choices. Get your zzzz’s and let the pounds melt away!
d. If getting a good night’s sleep doesn’t come easy to you, check out our blog on how to Treat your insomnia naturally and help your weight while you’re at it.
Make sure you’re addressing the different aspects of your lifestyle that contribute to your weight and overall health and you will see changes.