You eat well, are active but the scale does not budge? Why does this happen? Like most processes in our body, weight gain and weight loss is under biological control. That means YOU (what I mean by you, is willpower) can not always CONTROL your weight! We have something like a bean counter in our brain (our hypothalamus). It is constantly assessing our weight losses and gains and try’s to stabilize our weight by adjusting the amount of energy our body expends through metabolism. This means that if some weight is lost there are feedback mechanisms that work against further weight loss even if you are overweight or obese. This is called body weight set point theory, our body defends our current body weight.
We know that simply eating less and exercising more does not work for everyone. Probably one of the biggest reasons contributing to weight gain is the development of insulin resistance. The standard american diet for a long time, has consisted of refined carbohydrates such as cereals, bread an pasta not to mention huge amounts of added dietary sugar causes a rise in blood sugar (blood glucose). In susceptible people our cells over time do not as easily respond to insulin. Insulin’s job is to help shuttle glucose into our cells. When this does not work as well, the glucose in our blood increases. The pancreas responds by making more and more insulin. This further drives the process and the cells become more resistant. The message to our body when this happens is “store fat”. Once this occurs, it makes it harder to lose weight. Stabilizing blood glucose is key. It takes awhile to actually “see” this happening on your bloodwork but there are usually clues often years in advance.
The good news is, once the problem is identified, there are some solutions in the area of lifestyle, nutraceuticals / supplements, and pharmaceuticals to help put your metabolism back into balance.