Many people are concerned about their weight. Oftentimes, weight issues are present with other health problems such as fatigue, brain fog/poor concentration, digestive problems and hormonal issues.
Many people have lost and regained the same 5-10kg over and over again.
They have tried multiple diets and exercise programmes and after a few months each one leaves them back where they started, feeling more frustrated and discouraged.
To understand why this happens, let’s turn this problem around for a moment. Instead of looking for a weight-loss solution, rephrase this into the question – why did I gain weight in the first place?
Most people will say they eat too much and don’t exercise enough.
Is this really the reason? Physiologically it isn’t normal for the body to gain massive amounts of weight. We have many homeostatic mechanisms that when functioning correctly enable us to remain relatively weight stable. To gain a lot of extra weight tells us these mechanisms are not as they should be.
The theory of weight-loss is the calories in versus calories out model.
And yes of course this plays a part, but not as big a part as we all think. In fact if this were true then every overweight person would just keep getting bigger until they popped. And this doesn’t happen (at least not often). For most people weight gain eventually slows down and stops no matter how much they eat.
When our bodies are healthy and functioning correctly we have what is called metabolic flexibility.
We can use carbs and fats for fuel. If we skip a meal we have mechanisms that allow us to keep functioning and extract energy from our stores of body-fat. When we have eaten enough food, the hormone Leptin tells us we are full. When our body-fat level begins to increase Leptin will again tell our brain we have enough stored fat and suppress our hunger hormone Ghrelin so we don’t feel like eating as much, until our fat levels drop back to normal. This is known as the set-point theory.
When we struggle to lose weight, it is because we are in a state of metabolic chaos.
Our body is not responding to these signals for some reason. In order to maintain weight loss we need to restore these fundamental metabolic processes. This is like having a puncture on your car. You can keep putting air into it, but the tyre won’t stay up until you repair the leak. The body is the same, you need to identify why you are not responding to the signals that control your weight and then repair this process.
A simple marker of your ability to lose weight is your body temperature.
This is something I ask all my weight loss clients to monitor. If you are functioning well, you will maintain a temperature of approximately 37 degrees Celsius. A consistently lower temperature is an indicator that there is a fault somewhere in your circuitry and you may struggle with weight loss.
Sustainable weight loss without extreme dieting and exercise requires identifying what metabolic pathways are not working and eliminating the cause. It is then important to replace what is not working with nutrition, exercise and lifestyle habits that enable your body to return to homeostasis and function as it is designed to do.
Are you ready to optimise your weight? Contact me today for an initial consultation.
