6 Medical and Metabolic Reasons that make it hard to lose excess weight:
Are you tired of trying to lose weight using willpower and highly restrictive diets, that only last for a short time?
Have you heard from doctors and others that you just need to “eat less and exercise more?” Like that is easy, and always works ? HA! I wonder why there is so much struggle with excess weight around the world, then, if it’s so easy to fix? (Sarcasm alert…)
What you WON‘T hear from many doctors and nonphysician “medispas” selling weight loss medication with no counseling:
The Top 6 medical and metabolic reasons struggle with excess weight:
1. Medications
Quite a few medications are associated with weight gain. Certain medications for depression and other psychiatric disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, many hormones, steroids, some chemotherapies, and some HIV medication are on the extensive list. Not ALL medications in these classes cause weight gain, but some do. Start a discussion with your physician about whether these could be contributing to your difficulty losing weight or with weight gain. The good news: Switching to an alternate type of medication for the condition could help.
2. Genetics
60 % of the genetic causes of obesity are “polygenic,” meaning there is more than one gene causing the risk of obesity. None of them guarantees that an individual will have obesity, but each increases his risk. There are several rarer “monogenic” causes of obesity (due to a mutation in a single gene), usually associated with severe obesity from early childhood. The good news: genetics do not doom an individual to having obesity! There are steps anyone can take to improve their healthy lifestyle and achieve a healthier weight.
3. Other medical problems
There are several medical diagnoses that are associated with obesity or weight gain, such as an underactive thyroid gland, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, and Cushing’s syndrome, and much more rarely, damage to the hypothalamus in the brain. Good news: these are all treatable.
4. Stress
Though short term stress can help us get through a difficult situation, chronically high stress causes hormonal changes that can lead to poor sleep, increased food cravings (particularly for high calorie processed foods), depressed immune system function, high blood pressure, and poor glucose metabolism (insulin resistance). The good news: simple techniques to help manage stress that take just a few minutes per day are deep breathing and meditation, mindfulness, and journalling. Regular physical activity, adequate sleep, and social support are also very effective to decrease the impact of stress on your health.
5. Sleep
Adequate good quality sleep is so critical to so many aspects of our health that there is a whole specialty of medicine dedicated to it! Too little or poor-quality sleep, or too much sleep, can all lead to weight gain. Sleep deprivation increases the hunger hormone ghrelin, as well as stress hormones that lead to increased fat storage around the abdominal organs (the higher heart disease risk fat) and muscle wasting. It may also lead to decreased metabolic rate and lower activity levels. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a very common sleep disorder associated with obesity, and it has many detrimental effects on heart and vascular health, stroke risk, type 2 diabetes mellitus, and cognitive disorders. The good news: improving sleep patterns through simple sleep hygiene techniques can help improve health and weight without medication. Treating obesity can greatly improve OSA, while diagnosing and treating OSA has many far-ranging health benefits.
6. Metabolism.
How much energy (calories) our body uses every day for activities like doing chores, exercise and fidgeting, and body maintenance like cell repair, and digesting food, affects appetite and excess energy storage in the form of fat (adipose tissue). Aging decreases metabolism. Higher activity levels and good muscle mass increase it. Men have higher metabolic rates than women (boo), mostly due to more muscle mass. The good news: you can increase your metabolic rate by increasing your daily activity, increasing muscle mass through resistance training, and a change in dietary patterns (eating more protein takes more energy to digest!). Simple changes like taking the stairs, parking further away in a parking lot, and getting up from your desk for a 5-minute walk break every hour add up!
Working with a physician with specialized training in weight loss, or obesity, medicine, can help you sort through medical causes of obesity as well as the other three pillars of weight management – nutrition, activity, and behavioral changes! It is a tough disease. There are those of us who understand and want to help.