Battling the Bulge
Do you ever wonder why you have so much trouble losing weight? Are you eating a clean diet of healthy foods yet still in a constant battle with the scale? This is one of the biggest complaints I get from my patients when we first meet. The truth is that stubborn weight gain can often be a result of an underlying health issue.
Obesity and weight gain present a real problem, and healthcare practitioners are unsure exactly how to handle this condition. A conventional doctor might offer dietary advice including reducing calories, reducing dietary fat, or eating specific foods. He or she might also suggest increasing physical activity.But many times, there is a missing link between lifestyle and a healthy body weight, that is not being addressed – and seeing a patient for only 10 minutes doesn’t allow much opportunity to find the cause and educate someone about how to eat healthy.
How can Functional Medicine Help You Lose Weight?
Everyone is different with different reasons for their weight loss resistance. As a functional medicine practitioner, my goal is to look at the underlying causes of chronic conditions, and weight gain is a very common issue. As with any chronic condition, weight issues are multi-factorial. For most people, being overweight is typically a symptom, not the cause, of some underlying hormonal or other dysfunction of metabolism.
FIGURE OUT WHAT IS GOING WRONG
With Functional Medicine we will find out the root cause of your symptom of weight gain, as well as support the body’s natural mechanisms for healthy metabolic balance. Personalized diagnostic lab tests will help investigate where things aren’t working properly, so you can precisely target your areas of dysfunction. The bottom line is that you have to get healthy to lose weight, not lose weight to get healthy.
What are the Causes of Weight Gain and Weight Loss Resistance?
Your hormones, mood, energy level, digestion, immune system and many other aspects of your health can affect your weight. And yet, we don’t often think about this, let alone appreciate it, until our weight becomes our enemy. Because of the many pieces to the puzzle of weight gain, for people who have these problems for a long time – there is no one reason for it, and no one solution either.
HORMONES
Nothing else has a more dramatic influence over metabolism and weight than hormones. Imbalances in thyroid and stress hormones are common causes of an inability to lose weight, but they’re not the only hormones that can cause an issue. Imbalances in insulin and sex hormones, and dysregulation and resistance patterns of hormones like cortisol, and leptin can also play a starring roles in your weight loss resistance story.
LEAKY GUT
Your gut health influences your weight through your gut microbiome. Your microbiome is a world made of trillions of microorganisms that live throughout your digestive track. These organisms play a key role in digesting the food we eat and absorbing and synthesizing nutrients from our food. The composition of your microbiome will affect many different aspects of your body like metabolism, mood, and immune system, and in turn, will affect how you lose and gain weight.
INFLAMMATORY FOODS
Research shows that a significant contributor to gut inflammation comes from what we eat. If your weight-loss efforts have plateaued before you’ve reached your body goals, make sure you’ve kicked these inflammatory foods to the curb and replaced them with their healing counterparts: anti-inflammatory foods. Many of know that bad foods like sugar, high starches and bad fats – but what you may not know, is what foods are uniquely inflammatory to you. For this reason, a FOOD SENSITIVITY TEST is crucial, when looking for the causes of weight gain.
CHRONIC INFLAMMATION
If fat cells can contribute to chronic inflammation, then it’s reasonable to expect that chronic inflammation can also contribute to weight gain. If you find that you try to follow the standard advice of low-calorie dieting and lots of exercise but still struggle to maintain a healthy weight loss, then this is a classic sign of weight loss resistance. Chronic inflammation is the culprit and it must be addressed or you may not only continue to be overweight but will absolutely build disease in your body.
GUT-BRAIN HEALTH
Have you ever had a gut feeling or butterflies in your stomach?These sensations emanating from your belly show us that the gut and the brain are in intimate communication through the gut-brain axis, and gut biome. Together, they are a weight loss power couple! What’s more, recent studies show that with their physical connection through millions of nerves, your gut health influences your weight by sending signals to the brain. The message in these signals will cause the brain to send signals of its own to the endocrine system- which then will release hormones that can affect your weight. So… we have come full circle, with the causes of weight gain!
If you are suffering with never-ending weight gain or weight loss resistance, and would like to begin your personal Weight Management Program at Tru Age Wellness Center or address any of the factors above, please consider clicking HERE to request our Initial Health & Medical Questionnaire.
We welcome you to call Tru Age Wellness center today to start the testing process and discover what is driving your health issues and to get on the road to recovery!
Your in-office consultation begins with a comprehensive history & lifestyle evaluation to determine your specific metabolism, the status of your hormone levels and the overall functionality of your physiology. We will work with you to identify any imbalances you may have and develop an individualized treatment plan. Treatment plans may include behavior and lifestyle changes, nutraceuticals, therapeutic nutrition plans, stress management techniques, health coaching, and/or advanced diagnostic testing.
Our program may also include functional laboratory tests for brain and body aging, metabolic errors, genetic markers, traditional risk factors, nutritional deficiencies, food allergies, heavy metal toxicity, and structural integrity of your muscles and joints.
