How to lose belly fat
If you have tried everything but hitting a plateau - this article is for you. There are things that are sabotaging your weight loss efforts that health professionals are not talking about.
If you have tried everything to lose weight, but hitting a plateau - this article is for you. There are things that are sabotaging your weight loss efforts that health professionals are not talking about.
First of all, I want to start by saying, if you find it hard to lose weight - you are not alone and it is not your fault.
It is not because you lack willpower.
Weight loss is not about calories in, calories out.
Rather, it is a very complex area and involves a huge interplay of many factors such as hormones, genetics, epigenetics, gut microbiome, inflammation, toxic burden, behavior, and psychology of comfort eating.
Two people can eat the same calories and one will gain inches on their waist and the other will not gain any weight at all.
WHY?
Here are the common issues that contribute to increased belly fat:
Obesogens
When it comes to weight loss, everyone focuses on food and exercise - however, there is a massive elephant in the room - ENVIRONMENTAL TOXINS. The chemicals known as obesogens, found in our air, water, food and everyday products can interfere with our metabolism and contribute to weight gain.
The National Toxicology Program has been doing a lot of work looking into the role these chemicals play in metabolic diseases like insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes and obesity, and there is a nice summary on the NIH website. If you want to take a deep dive, check out my eBook - Toxins and weight loss.
Insulin
✔ Insulin resistance and high cortisol. Do you get food coma frequently where you feel drained after a big meal? Or that post lunch lull where your brain just seems to have given up? Blame your insulin.
When you eat, your gut digests the food and absorbs it into the blood stream so the blood sugar level goes up after a meal. Insulin is an important hormone that helps drive sugar from the blood into cells, thus lowering the blood sugar level. If you didn’t have insulin, the blood sugar level will remain very high after a meal and you will become very sick (what happens in Type 1 diabetes).
✔ Insulin resistance occurs when the insulin does not work well anymore. It can no longer drive sugar effectively into the cell, so in order to lower blood sugar after meals, your body produces MORE insulin. It’s like when we shout at our kids – after a while, they stop listening and we have to shout louder to get the same effect.