25 Jul Why We Are Overweight & Overeating
As much as I talk about nutrition, how we balance the body, and how we get to our ideal weight, I don’t often talk about the reason why we actually get here. The whole basis of why are we overweight is because we overeat. It’s simple math. The only reason that our body stores fat is because we have excess coming in than what our body needs to function and operate.
The question then is…if you are overeating, do you recognize that you have in your past overate? Also, why is it you overeat? This may give us some clues as to why your body is holding on to additional weight and/or fat.
I have encapsulated this down to two key categories of why we are overweight:
The Physical Aspect
The first thing that we need to do is to take a look at your history. How you have been eating in the past may give us some indication of the imbalances of hormones and/or desires that your physical body is prompting you to want to eat more.
A couple of the main things for me that I look at is blood sugar regulation.
Are you eating a diet that’s very carb heavy, low in fat, or low in protein? The position that I take as a nutritionist balances both the metabolism and hormones by regulating blood sugar and insulin levels. And that stems from eating three balanced meals a day. Some people want to do intermittent fasting, but every time you eat, we need to be eating all of the macronutrients in a good proportionate range for us. So that means proteins, fats, and complex carbohydrates every time we eat to helps regulate our blood sugar and our insulin levels, which then contributes to our satiety levels, and also our hunger hormones.
Are you eating a low-fat diet? This type of approach really sets us up for more fat. It might be a mind bender to some, however, I think this is becoming more mainstream now where low-fat diets increase the amount of carbohydrates we take in and, as we know, the more carbohydrates that we take in, increases our blood sugar levels which releases insulin, causes us to store fat and also create more hunger. So that low fat diet is what can be prompting us to crave desire more food.
The next thing is mainstream packaged or convenience foods are loaded with all kinds of concentrated flavorings, products, substances, and chemicals that can wreak havoc on our whole metabolic system as well as hormones. They’re often concentrated flavors that includes sweet and/or sour. These are also contributing to the dysregulation of insulin or metabolic issues from a blood sugar perspective. That taste of sweet is really a prompter or a driving force for us to want more sweet. There is this thing between the gut and the brain, this access point that even though we may not be able to taste sweet physically, even if it’s a savory taste, there’s sugar or something sweet hidden in there. This is a trigger that’s received in our gut and sends a signal to the brain to want more of that sweet and causes those sweet cravings.
The Emotional Aspect
The second category is desiring food from an emotional perspective.This is the emotional hunger that we have and we’re trying to fulfill it with food. These emotions can be a whole wide range of different emotions that can prompt the desire to eat food to make you feel good, better, entertained, comfortable or like a reward.
Food can be used as a way to smother or actually heightened the emotions that we otherwise may not be so comfortable in dealing with whether it’s boredom, looking for entertainment, because of stress, feeling overwhelmed or tired, needing some love, pleasure, or joy in our life…These are all little clues, and potentially triggers that can cause us to desire more.
The two things we need to address is…
The mind – that is triggering all of the thoughts. The more we continue to take the same action, that’s going to create our results.
The body – how we support the body so that the hormones and metabolism is regulated in balance, so we don’t have this desire to keep eating more than what we actually need.
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