You know all the right things to do to lose weight, exercise and diet. Many times it still doesn’t happen and you blame yourself. There may be some other reasons. See if any of these fit:
Lack of restful sleep:
Either not enough or not deep restful sleep can affect the hormones that control appetite and metabolism.
Gherlin signals your brain that you’re hungry, levels increase with sleep deprivation. Adequate levels vary but it’s usually 7-9 hours per night.
Leptin tells when you’ve had enough, levels plummet with insufficient sleep. No wonder you start craving and eating everything in sight.
Cortisol spikes when your body is under stress with sleep deprivation. This cause your body to conserve fuel so no wonder you hold on to fat.
In addition brain fatigue can drive you to poor food choices. As little as 4 nights of too little sleep can decrease your sensitivity to Insulin causing an increase in what your body pumps out. High Insulin causes an increase in fat storage. University of Chicago research found that after 14 days of diminished sleep weight loss decreased by 55% with no diet changes.
Enough sleep is not only good for your health; it could help decrease your waist line.
It might be what’s in your gut:
Bacteria in your intestines can have a major effect on your health. Recent research has shown that the right kinds can determine how much you weigh. Some researchers are advocating transplants of bacteria from thin people to those trying to lose weight! Until that is a reality try to maintain good levels of good bacteria in your gut. (Did you see our newsletter on probiotics?)
Consume a wide variety of fibers and live culture foods. And always protect your healthy gut microbiome by questioning the need for antibiotics. 1 dose can wipe out entire populations for years. Probiotics can help but only limited strains are available they don’t replace the entire ecology.
Stress can sabotage your efforts:
Your Adrenal glands help your body deal with stress. They can cause the release of Cortisol as we discussed above resulting in the retention of fat. Stress eating is so common it’s a cliché but we crave comfort foods often those with high sugar and fat. Prolonged stress can drain the Adrenals resulting in low energy and poor sleep and the cycle spirals down
Check out your medications:
Significant weight gain can be a side effect of many drugs. Best known are antidepressants, some blood pressure drugs, diabetes medications and steroids. Antihistamines can increase your appetite. 1 study showed a resulting weight gain of 21 lbs for men and 10 lbs for women. Don’t stop drugs without consulting your doctor, there may be an alternative.
Maybe this information will take a little guilt off your shoulders, will power might not be the problem and let us know if we can help we have answers for many of these problems.