Why does not a diet lead to the desired and expected result while we adhere to it reverently?
Almost every day we come into contact in the clinic with people who have a common complaint: that they can not lose weight, despite the effort and the constant diets they do. What happens in these cases? why a diet does not lead to the desired and expected result while we adhere to it reverently?
Problems With The Thyroid
The thyroid is a gland that coordinates the function of the cells of our body. But when it doesn’t work properly, it can produce either more or less thyroxine, its main hormone.
In the case when the production of thyroxine is low, the cells work more slowly, which leads to a decrease in metabolism and difficulty in losing weight. At the same time, the same problems can be seen when the patient with hypothyroidism does not take the correct dosage of thyroxine on a daily basis.
Change In Smoking Habits
We will probably all have heard or met people who quit smoking gained at least five to ten pounds in the next six to twelve months. This happens for a number of reasons, most importantly nicotine withdrawal.
Nicotine is a stimulant for our metabolism, which makes our body’s cells work faster. With each cigarette we burn about 17 extra calories, which if we reduce it to the usual pack per day of chronic smokers, means a medium meal.
At the same time, quitting smoking causes an embarrassment to the smoker, who will often replace the cigarette with food and even with snacks intense in taste and texture such as nuts, sweets, crisps, etc.
Change In Exercise And Activity
When the conversation revolves around physical activity, the obvious thing to bring to mind is exercise and the possible reduction in its frequency, duration and intensity.
However, we often forget about the importance of movement throughout the day. For example, many times we will hear about people who saw their weight increase without understanding the reason, ignoring that from a job with enough standing and movement (e.g. in focus, in store, etc.) they went to a purely sedentary job, or how they stopped walking for their work and started using the car.
Pharmaceutical Treatments
There are medications that affect our metabolism, as well as medications that can affect our behavior with food, reducing our resistance and the limits we set ourselves.
To this category belong both cortisone drugs, and several psycho-pharmaceuticals, especially those of the older generation. This of course does not mean that we stop the treatment: instead we adjust the diet taking into account the treatments we take.
On the other hand, there are drugs that favor weight loss such as metformin, for example, to treat insulin resistance and Type II diabetes mellitus, and here we will see several patients gain weight when they finish treatment and stop treatment.
Insulin Resistance
Insulin resistance is a very important chapter in its own right in weight management, but also an issue facing many people, both men and women. The patient, even with mild insulin resistance, will experience more difficulty in losing weight and will need more help, perhaps parallel medical support for a while.
Excessive Stress
Beyond the obvious symptoms, stress is accompanied by a series of changes at a hormonal level, the most important being the increased secretion of cortisol, which also reduces our metabolism. To determine this, you will need a morning cortisol test, an hour after getting up, or a 24-hour urine test.
Sleep Apnea
It is estimated that four out of ten adults with obesity suffer from sleep apnea, and this may occur even in people with overweight or normal weight.
This condition is characterized by airway obstruction during sleep, which results in the patient waking up several times in the night and not even remembering it in the morning.
People suffering from sleep apnea may sleep six or more hours, but they wake up feeling very tired and will often notice their metabolism decline and have difficulty losing weight.
Other Sleep Problems
Along with apnea, insomnia can lead to weight gain through various mechanisms. For a start, the patient suffering from insomnia is more likely to turn to food, both during the night, and during the day, to have more energy. At the same time, insomnia leads to increased cortisol, which as we have seen before leads to an increase in weight.
Peri-menopause And Menopause
The period preceding menopause is also accompanied by a big change at the hormonal level. Along with the rest of the symptoms, women in this phase of their lives will notice an increase in weight or a difficulty in losing and maintaining it.
This does not mean that there is no solution or that they are doomed to gain weight, but at that time they should pay more attention to their diet and exercise in order to stop this phenomenon.
We Do Not Follow The Diet as we Think
We chose to close with this issue which is perhaps the most common problem in our effort to lose weight. When we have spent enough time on a diet, it makes sense to get tired, bored and pay less attention to the details.
This can mean a little more, a little more frequent eating outside, more alcohol or some sweets, or snacks that we don’t consciously record, but cumulatively set back our effort.
An extremely useful tool here is to record for a time exactly what we eat, when and in what quantities and discuss it with a nutrition specialist to see what we can improve.
