Common factors that cause excess weight gain

In order to maintain a healthy weight your body requires the right nutrients as well as a decrease in perceived stressors. While a seemingly simple concept, it can be difficult to determine what your body fat regulating system feels threatened by. Below are some of the common factors that cause excess weight gain.

* Emotional & Environmental stressors: Depression, anxiety, fear and apprehension can all cause your body to feel threatened. These stressors can either be from internal strife or from reactions to your environment – home, work, etc. Often it is an emotional or environmental stress that first cues or chemistry to change. Ruling out depression, anxiety and fatigue from lifestyle is a critical portion of decreasing unwanted weight.
* Chemical stressors: Hormones (thyroid, sex hormones, cortisol) and neurotransmitters are the chemical messengers that your body makes to direct its internal functions. As we have emotional, environmental and physical changes these messengers can be altered in such a way that they work against us. Chemical changes can result in adrenal fatigue, blood sugar problems (diabetes or insulin resistance), hypothyroidism, and even early onset hormone decline in both men and women.
* Physical stressors: Some common physical stressors include chronic pain, insufficient sleep, and over exercise. Chronic pain changes our chemistry, especially cortisol our main stress hormone. Insufficient sleep is perhaps the least talked about or recognized problem contributing to weight. Sleep apnea, insomnia, and waking often all contribute to weight gain. Over exercise is very surprising to most of our patients. If a person is not meeting their basic needs, like proper nutrients and sleep, and they are exercising heavily often there will be a decrease in basal metabolic rate. Persons in this situation can exercise daily and still not lose weight.
* Other environmental stressors: These include stimulants, poor nutrition and irregular eating. Caffeine, nicotine and sugar can all cause excess stress on your body both by inappropriate stimulation of your nervous system and by affecting your glucose-insulin interactions. Poor nutrition is not only eating bad food choices, but also poor choices for you such as foods you may be intolerant to. Insufficient vitamins and minerals, essential amino acids, and healthy fats will deprive your body even if you are eating enough. Often we check to be sure this is not a more serious problem with a blood test. Irregular eating habits, like skipping meals and binging on junk will also trigger your body to store extra weight.

As you can see from the list above, emotional, chemical and physical stressors play a large part in your body fat regulation system. Your body’s inherent response when it’s under increased stress is to stock up on fuel to defend itself.

Watch our video to learn more

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAlAuxF5cys

Contact Young Naturopathic Wellness Center for your weight management

The Young Naturopathic Wellness Center was founded to provide patients with appropriate diagnoses and effective, individualized treatment and education to help them achieve wellness.
To achieve your own wellness, call 408.761.6781 today to schedule your appointment. For more information about the Young Naturopathic Center for Wellness, visit http://www.drreneeyoung.com/ and http://www.youngwellnesscenter.com