My Weight Loss Clinic
Why Do I Find Weight Loss So Difficult?
Losing weight can be really challenging, particularly without some help, so let’s start with some truths about weight.
Firstly, being told we need to find ‘health eating choices’ is nothing but a sound bite.
We don’t choose to be overweight, and eating is more often than not an automatic action that is hardwired into our brains. Making great choices 100% of the time is not realistic and certainly not sustainable.
Secondly, rich high calorie, high carbohydrate foods are everywhere, they are often cheaper than the lower calorie, more natural sources of food.
It often feels like we are in battle between the two sides, our brains which are telling us the ‘right’ foods to eat and our environment which gives us easy-to-access cheaper foods that are making us overweight.
Finally, our environment has evolved over the years and with car’s, escalators, and other gadgets we just don’t need to move as much as we used to. This means the amount of energy we need each day has lowered.
Our Genes Have Evolved to Prevent Weight Loss.
Our genes play an important role in a whole host of different factors relating to our body and our weight – our metabolic rate, how much we fidget, how much energy we use to control our posture, and how we respond to different diets.
Our Genes Can Prevent Weight Loss.
Hormones are critical in regulating both metabolism and hunger, acting like a thermostat – except we have little control over the setting. In this way, the body ‘remembers’ what its Basal metabolic rate ‘should be.’ This ‘metabolic memory’ may even start before we are born and explains why our body wants to ‘be’ at a certain weight and will fight to stay that weight.
My Weight Loss Clinic
Get in touch with My Weight
Get in touch with My Weight Loss Clinic to learn more about how we can overcome genetics and use evidence based medicine to help you reach your goals.
Our Body Will Fight to Regain Weight We Have Lost.
The metabolic rate for those who have lost a lot of weight will be up to 400 calories lower than the baseline of someone of the same weight.
Our fat cells send the hormone ‘Leptin’ to the brain. Leptin increases energy expenditure and inhibits hunger. Weight Loss results in lower leptin levels which reduces our metabolic rate. Let’s check out the really important gut hormones that also send messages to the hypothalamus in the base of the brain:
- Ghrelin – produced by the stomach and makes us feel hungry. Levels increase after weight loss.
- CCK, Peptide YY, GLP-1, PP, are all hormones that make us feel full. The levels of these hormones can reduce substantially after weight loss. Leptin also goes down after substantial weight loss.
- Weight loss through diets alone will lower your metabolic rate and increase your drive to eat.
