It’s an all too common story.
We transition into adulthood and midlife, with all of its complications and challenges and our weight slowly creeps up.
Before we know it we no longer fit into our clothes, fatigue sets in, and we get a stern talk from our doctor all about how we need to eat less and move more.
We download our favorite calorie counting app and increase our steps, but the scale doesn’t budge.
We try all the methods that worked for us in the past, but their magic is gone.
Frustrated, we resign ourselves to the fact that this must be part of getting older.
But what if you could jump start that magic?
What if it’s less about increasing your steps on the Stairmaster and more about having the right balance of body chemistry working the way it used to?
This is what functional medicine is all about – restoring and maintaining the body in peak shape – so it can work the way it used to.
The way it was supposed to before the stress work, sitting at the computer all day, etc.
What doctors rarely ever explain, is that increased body fat and resistance to weight loss are symptoms of underlying physiological imbalances.
The body does not store and stubbornly resist weight loss unless it has a reason.
If this reason is not investigated and resolved, the slow creep of weight gain will continue — as is obvious by the skyrocketing obesity rates all over the industrialized world.
In this blog we will briefly discuss three of the most common barriers to weight loss and how a properly formulated Functional Medicine plan can help you overcome them.
One of the primary reasons for resistant weight loss is stress.
But, when I say stress I’m not just referring to the daily grind of modern life, but rather the proper interplay between brain and the primary stress hormone Cortisol.
Cortisol has many vital functions in the body and among these are dictating how the body uses versus. stores energy.
The proper production and rhythm of cortisol output leaves the body relaxed and energetic.
It also enables our bodies to effortlessly switch between burning glucose from our food, or fat from our bodies.
If cortisol is significantly disrupted we accumulate fat around our abdomen, which is not just a vanity problem but increases our risk of chronic disease.
When the stress response is disrupted, sometimes referred to as HPA axis dysregulation or adrenal fatigue, the body is experiencing prolonged stress and it will fight back ruthlessly against any efforts to give up its precious energy reserve in the form of body fat.
Luckily, restoring the proper balance of stress hormones in the body can be accomplished through a simple “mail in” lab test to measure what’s happening.
Once the test come back, all it takes is a therapeutic supplement program to correct the production and rhythm of cortisol, and appropriate lifestyle coaching to correct the root of the stress.
The stress response sits at the apex of all the body’s hormones. If this is not corrected permanent fat loss is almost impossible!
There are several others barriers to fat loss like impaired detox function,(drugs, pollutions, etc.) and insulin resilience – and I’ll discuss both of those in future blogs.
However, this blog post is not meant to be an exhaustive listing of all the ways our fat burning can break down.
But, rather to point out that it is not a failure of your willpower.
You are not holding 20 extra pounds because you are weak willed, but because your body is screaming out that something is wrong and it does not want to burn this valuable fuel.
It is not that you are just getting older, have weak will power, or can’t count calories in vs out.
We all dislike extra weight for vanity reasons, but your body will thank you for discovering and correcting the reason why that stubborn fat exists in the first place!
Lastly, this stuff can sometimes sound scary, and hard – but don’t let the big words or “calorie counting” or your time scare you out of it.
Once you know what is going on and how to solve it, the feeling is priceless.
Our goal is to find out what is happening and why, make it less scary, and provide you with you a doctor that you can contact via phone or Skype for advice along the way.
You can literally do the test in your own house and send it to our lab for results, then contact us via Skype, phone, or video conference – so you don’t even have to miss work.
We are professional doctors that want to change lives, and harness today’s technology to make it quick and easy and give you better access to health and medicine.
We believe in functional medicine to help restore your body to the figure and feeling of your youth, as well as to prevent future health issues.
I would like to take the test.
I would’ve read more, but the pop-up was constant and it’s very hard to hit the x at the top.