Weight Loss Resistance: Foundational Causes, and How We Can Help
If you’ve been feeling at a loss with your weight loss journey and struggling with weight despite doing all the things—you’ve modified your lifestyle, you’ve changed what and how you’re eating, you’re exercising more—and yet are still not seeing any changes (potentially even gaining more despite it all), you may be facing weight loss resistance.
The approach to addressing weight loss resistance is not to further restrict your diet or increase exercise. In fact, sometimes exercising and restricting food more can further aggravate the situation. Healthy weight loss is not as simple as the conventional calculation of calories in versus calories out. Rather, the key to shedding weight is to look holistically at what other foundational metabolic factors might be at play.
Causes of Weight Loss Resistance
Common foundational imbalances associated with weight loss resistance include (but are not limited to):
- Thyroid dysfunction
- Thyroid hormones are primarily responsible for managing the body’s metabolism. The main hormones released by the thyroid are thyroxine (T4) and triiodothyronine (T3). These two hormones play a vital role within the human body, affecting nearly every cell by:
- Regulating metabolic rate—the rate that your body uses and converts calories into energy
- Manages heart rate
- Manages body temperature
- Affects peristalsis—the process of moving food through the digestive tract
- Affects brain development
- Manages muscle activity
- Manages cellular growth and regeneration
Through this lens, its easy to see just how much impact thyroid dysfunction can have on the body’s ability to manage energy consumption and weight. Studies show insufficient levels of thyroid hormones are associated with decreased metabolic function. Insufficient levels of T4 and T3 can also affect levels of serotonin, beta-endorphins and other key neurotransmitters that help regulate appetite, cravings, energy, and mood.
Stress and cortisol imbalances
Stress can have a significant impact on weight. During times of stress, the adrenal glands release cortisol, the stress hormone responsible for managing our fight or flight instincts. Cortisol is crucial to our survival—it gets our blood pumping and adrenalin flowing so that we can escape danger. It also temporarily suppresses other processes our bodies deem as “nonessential” during a crisis, including digestion. In a well-balanced nervous system, once the threat has passed, the brain sends a signal throughout the body that all systems can return back to normal, including digestive function. However, when exposed to constant or consistent stress, the nervous system can become overwhelmed and get stuck in a perpetual state of “we’re under attack!” Once in this state, the calories we consume tend to get stored as fat as the body deprioritizes balanced metabolic function.
Stress comes in many different forms, but common physiological stressors (especially when looking from the perspective of weight) are diet culture and highly restrictive diets. Many diets or eating habits that severely restrict caloric intake can put high stress on the body and cause it to go into starvation mode. Once in a state of starvation, the body will do everything it can in order to protect itself. It hoards calories and immediately stores them in fatty tissue out of fear that it might not get any more fuel. Additionally, starvation has a fascinating impact on the body where the body will remember and try to safeguard itself from starvation again in the future. Studies show starvation mode changes our physiology and hormones as the body works to protect itself, resulting in it being resistant to future weight loss endeavors.
Insulin resistance
Insulin resistance plays a massive role when it comes to weight management. Insulin’s main responsibilities is to regulate blood sugar. When you eat a meal, the food gets broken down and insulin gets to work by carting off the nutrients to various organs and tissues throughout the body for proper storage. A metabolically balanced body is capable of dipping into these various fuel reserves whenever it needs. In cases of insulin resistance, however, the body loses that ability. It gets to a point where the body becomes so overwhelmed by insulin that it stops responding to it. This completely disrupts all metabolic processes, causing the liver and other organs to stop absorbing the vital nutrients they need. As a result, most of the calories we eat end up getting stored as fat instead of being used for fuel, and the body is unable to tap into that storage as a source of energy. This not only negatively impacts weight, but energy levels and mood as well.
Gut health and digestive imbalances
The overall health of the digestive system and the bacteria that live in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract impact the body’s ability to manage weight. Research shows that digestive imbalances or other conditions that negatively impact digestive function, including IBS, can cause an overgrowth in a specific species of gram negative bacteria called lipopolysaccharides (LPs). Overgrowths in LPs can result in metabolic endotoxemia, a condition highly associated with increasing inflammation, increasing insulin resistance, and encouraging fat storage.
Other Factors
There are many other foundational factors associated with weight loss resistance, including:
- Sex hormone imbalances, including estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone
- Neurotransmitter imbalances, including gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA)
- Inflammation
- Food sensitivities
- Environmental toxins
- Over exercising and undereating
- Deficiency in essential fatty acids
How AWH Can Help with Weight Loss Resistance
If you are struggling with weight loss resistance, the most important thing you can do is to talk to a health care provider who is cognizant of all the foundational factors that go into the body’s ability to manage weight. Work with someone you can trust who will look thoroughly through your lab work, talk through your history, and understand what is going on within your metabolic pathways on a physiological level. Gift yourself with support and grace rather than fall into the toxic paradigm of diet culture, over exercising, restriction, the vicious cycle of guilt, and developing negative relationships with food.
You are not alone, and there is nothing wrong with you or your body. We can work together to figure out what’s happening on a physiological level, and customize a supportive plan on how to nutrify yourself so that you can enjoy eating while feeling good in your own body.