Weight gain or accumulation of body fat, especially in visceral area, is a symptom. Which means, there is a cause for why you have been gaining more fat. Although "calorie in/ calorie out" concept is good place to start for anybody who is planning to lose body fat, however, there may be more issues that need to be addressed than simply cutting down amount of food you are eating.
When underlying issues are not properly addressed, all the effort you are putting into exercises and the meal preparation may not lead to the results you are looking for. It is vital for weight loss program to be addressing all possible issues rather than just a calorie.
Signs of Digestive Issues
One of the common issues among people who are struggling to lose body fat is digestive health. Digestive system itself includes several organs such as, mouth, esophagus, stomach, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, intestines (small and large), colon and so on. Within digestive system, many of the cells are responsible for absorbing nutrients from food and protect our body from foreign chemicals and virus. They are like country boarder line patrol where they check to make sure they are safe and if not reject their entry. When we encounter digestive issues, those boarder line patrol may not function the way they should be, which allows anything to pass through into the body. When you have digestive issues following symptom may be experienced:
heartburn
bloating
constipation (less than 1 bowel movement per day)
diarrhea
excessive gas or belching
skin issues
headaches
sinus congestion and allergy symptoms
fatigue
muscle cramping
Some of the reasons to have gut problems are excess stress to the digestive system by consuming excess alcohol, caffeine, sugar, processed food, smoking, and medication. Gut health can also have issues when intake of water, dietary fiber, and healthy fat is inadequate. Another common issue is gut bacteria, prebiotics and probiotics. Even when the food sources are healthy, if body has sensitivity or allergy towards those food sources, such as gluten, symptoms above or more severe cases can occur and interfere with your weight loss even when you are working religiously with your exercises.
For medication, you should consult with your primary doctor to see if there are any overlapping medications. It is surprising that few of my clients had 10 out of 13 medications removed because of the overlap. Think of what that does to your body. To medication to be effective, some of the chemical must shut down those immune response, which make sense because some (not all) medication has chemical that is foreign to the body. This is important because if the immune system is working strongly, chemical that help reduce the symptoms may not have any effect. Therefore, a lot of time, physician may pair vitamin supplements with medications to help support the immune system.
One more thing to consider is bowel movement. From the time we consume food, it takes about 2-5 days to be digested and pass through the body. This, of course, may vary from person to person. There is also a data shows that person may hold 8-25lbs of fecal matter. Although some experts claim that it is not possible for our gut to hold that much mass, when person has digestive issue and have less frequent bowel movement, it is possible to hold stool. Stool is made up of bacteria, liquid, undigested food, dietary fiber, fat, mineral and protein. Although it is not possible to eliminate all the waste products from our body, however, keeping it for extended period of time also does not seem to be healthy. If you have symptom like, constipation, bloating, skin irritation, and less than 1 bowel movement per day, it is possible that you may have some accumulation in your body. Few of my clients have experienced 4-8lb of weight loss overnight by improving their bowel movement by increasing fiber and water intake.
4 Things to Improve Digestive Health
To recover your digestive health, first thing to do is to eliminate sources that may be causing an issue. This may include alcohol, sugar, processed food, and smoking.
Elimination may be temporary. However, most likely, when digestive health is improved and recovered, amount you may consume them again may need to be in moderation.
Second is clean out your digestive tract by consuming more dietary fiber (target 40g per day) and increase in water intake. This may mean eating more fruits and vegetables such as broccoli, asparagus, cabbage, lettuce, banana, berries, and so on. Fermented food sources such as sauerkraut, miso, kimchi, yogurt, pickles are great sources for bringing in healthy gut bacteria. Only caution is for sauerkraut and pickles, get them from refrigerated section and not from canned. Microbiome or gut bacteria may not survive in room temperature. This is also true with probiotic supplements. Get it from refrigerated section and keep it in the fridge. Don’t leave it out on the kitchen counter.
Third is stick with consuming whole solid food. Rather than liquid diet like juicing, it is ideal to be consuming solid food. This will help your digestive system to work. Just like training muscles, when you are recovering from digestive issues, your digestive system should be retrained.
Consuming, meat, fish, vegetables, eggs, fruits will put digestive system to work. It is also important to give digestive system a time to digest, which means you shouldn’t be eating all the time. Resetting to 3 meals per day to start is a ideal. In between meals, you should get hungry. Hunger is a good indicator that your digestion is working properly and moving the food. Being hungry for 1-2 hours won’t kill you. If you do not get hungry, don’t force yourself to eat.
Fourth is eat slow and chew more. Satiety hormones typically kicks in after 15-20 minutes of eating. By eating slow you are avoiding overeating. Also by chewing more, it becomes easier for the digestive system to handle. I do realize that we are in rush all the time and hard to slow down but give it a try for your health.
Fixing digestive system does take time. If you are struggling to lose fat, give yourself 3-6 month to improve your digestive system. Not only this will help your digestion, but also help improve your metabolism and fat utilization because all the nutrients you are consuming will be absorbed and use properly.
Kota Shimada
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