TIME TO THINK OUT OF THE CHOCOLATE BOX

It’s that time of year again where we’re all desperate to escape a myriad of overindulgences, feeling bloated, dehydrated, overweight and absolutely no motivation whatsoever to do anything about it.  The mind is willing for that fitter, leaner and healthier body whilst the motivation is on a different page. 

Perhaps one of the reasons for this could be your disappointment at results in the past.BUT, understand this first: If you’ve tried honestly to lose weight, and it hasn’t  worked  – there are real reasons for this that have nothing to do with ‘willpower’ or ‘discipline’ –  and the usual rules for ‘fat loss’ simply do not apply.

Let’s go through some very real reasons on why you can’t lose weight and the myriad of issues that prevent fat loss and trigger weight gain.

You may be a tad surprised at the answers which are not your typical ‘diet and exercise related issues’.  Understand that you are your own laboratory test when it comesto your health and therefore if what you’ve been doing for quite some time has failed, you need to ask yourself why!  Whatever your beliefsbefore, your alarm bells should be ringing out loud now!!

1) Not getting enough shut-eye

If you’re a night owl and proud of it, guess what?  You won’t lose weight and will in fact gain weight.  The fitting quote “get your beauty sleep” now becomes apt for weight loss too.Lack of sleep interferes with your hormones, specifically the hormone leptin which tells you when to stop eating.  In addition lack of sleep will stress you out the next day, and your eating will be out of control!

To add injury to insult,lack of sleep also interferes with your appetite. Staying up late elevates the hormone (ghrelin) that regulates your appetite leading you to be hungrier with a ravenous appetite and cravings.

2) Stress

We all acknowledge stress and the impact it has on our health, in particular our mental health but let’s also be aware there are several sources of physical stress. Continued stress locks the stress hormone (cortisol) into high gear and since most of us have excess stress at one time or another, chronic stress will have you looking and feeling bad.  Now here’s an interesting point!  You may well assume that exercise will give you more energy, but it can (and often will) further stress your overwhelmed body. So, in this case a specific exercise programme would need to be prescribed. Cortisol loves to give you a pot belly, affects memory, lowers your sex drive and makes you crave sugar and stimulants.

Stress makes you fat, prevents fat loss and can kill you.

So if there’s one New Year’s resolution you need to really focus on achieving this year, manage your stress.This means sitting down and assessing your current stress situation and making a plan to reduce it as soon as you can.   How you respond to stress is the trigger to the outcome, but equally you will not be able to manage stress if you don’t eat enough, don’t eat enough protein, don’t sleep enough or work out too hard.Think out of the box by taking a different type of fitness class, start reading more, spend more time with your dogs and in the garden, get a massage, start painting or go on vacation, but manage it!

In the next issue of Life and Style I will discuss more reasons on why you cannot lose the weight.

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