Struggle to lose weight? Inflammation could be the problem.

by CandiceCAdmin | Sep 13, 2019 | Lifestyle, Womens Health

In our lifetimes, almost everyone at some point is trying to lose some weight. Could be a little bit, could be alot. It could be for an event or something like a trip coming up, it could be for life. Regardless of the reason (this may be the only time I say that), weight loss is a part of most of our lives at some point. Yet many have no idea that inflammation within our bodies may be the culprit for weight gain.. and/ or the reason we struggle to get it off.

You may have tried everything cutting calories, exercising more, working out harder, eating only fats or proteins, cutting carbs, trying cleanses…. There are so many options out there…. yet nothing works now or anymore. Not to mention most of them are only going to hurt us in the long run. Why is that? To keep it short…. We are stressing our body in some way when we do these things, and whether it was in the past or present if done too long, we cause chronic stress… which can and will cause weight gain, then struggling to get it off when that time comes.

Chronic stress is caused by inflammation and only leads to more within us. When it comes to weight gain/loss inflammation is a major culprit to our progress.

Inflammation is a response our body has that is natural within us. . When our immune system senses something foreign (like an illness or bruise) it defends us by firing up white blood cells to defend us and cytokines. However it does the same when we eat something that is processed and unnatural or if we have an allergy (even a slight one we may not typically notice, like brain fog) or ingest toxins in our water or skin care products. These stress responses overtime trigger our cortisol (stress hormone) and histamine to rise. This can lead to hormone imbalances due to more and more elevations of these and our body starting to think it is normal, so it re adapts. Unfortunately hormones are what control our metabolism so in turn it affects our metabolism function. In a similar fashion this process can also lead to insulin resistance.

Insulin resistance essentially means continuously high blood sugar because cells are not responding to insulin how they should when it is released (a normal process again our body does). This leads to an increase in fat cells within us (especially with visceral fat, in women). Fat cells when stored can start to have the ability to expand beyond what they should because they want to hold onto fat stores to live off of because our body is tricked through this process to think it needs to. And once again this adds more stress and inflammation in our bodies. Inflammation can also affect our brains ability to release leptin which is a hormone that is released to tell us when we have eaten enough and to get full….. Another factor to weight gain… and more fat cells.. Making us more inflamed.

So to wrap it up – Inflammation is essentially caused by a stressor that we experience for an extended period of time. – it can be any sort of stress be it physical, mental, from eating bad foods, to taking certain medicines for too long, from lack of sleep, from toxins in our environment, etc.  – This “stress” develops inflammation through our immune system by it attacking certain parts of our body (autoimmune conditions), other diseases, increase in weight through fat cells and insulin resistance.

So how do we fix it?!? Or work on fixing it??

We need to decrease the inflammation and toxins we are exposed to, we need to replace certain things with better supplementation, better foods, better things that can help first fight inflammation and bring it down, and then restore and heal parts affected.

One of the best ways to start is by learning the right stuff to add to your diet. Here is a FREE grocery list for you with all of my favorite anti inflammatory foods.