5 Reasons Why You’re Gaining Weight
Obesity is one of the biggest health problems in the world. Although weight gain is largely a result of eating behavior and lifestyle, some people are at a disadvantage when it comes to controlling their eating habits.
Weight gain happens when you take in more than you expend, and weight loss happens when you use more than you consume.
How much weight a person gains or loses also has a lot to do with the individual’s metabolism the process by which the body’s cells convert the calories from food into energy for bodily functions such as breathing.
The body’s metabolism is responsible for the majority of calories a person uses.
5 POSSIBLE REASONS:
1. Genetics:
Children of obese parents are much more likely to become obese than children of lean parents. Although what you eat can have a major effect on which genes are expressed and which are not.
2. Food addiction:
Many sugar-sweetened, high-fat junk foods stimulate the reward centres in your brain. In fact, these foods are often compared to commonly abused drugs like alcohol, cocaine, nicotine and cannabis. Junk foods can cause addiction in susceptible individuals. These people lose control over their eating behaviour, similar to people struggling with alcohol addiction losing control over their drinking behaviour.
Junk Foods:
Heavily processed foods are designed to be cheap, last long on the shelf and taste so incredibly good that they are hard to resist. By making foods as tasty as possible, food manufacturers are trying to increase sales. But they also promote overeating.
3. Hormonal imbalance:
Leptin Resistance:
Leptin is a hormone produced by the fat cells in your body. Its main role is to regulate fat storage and how many calories you eat and burn.
Leptin resistance can cause hunger and reduced the number of calories you burn.
Leptin is another hormone that plays an important role in obesity. It is produced by fat cells and its blood levels increase with higher fat mass. For this reason, leptin levels are especially high in people with obesity.
In healthy people, high leptin levels are linked to reduced appetite. When working properly, it should tell your brain how high your fat stores are. The problem is that leptin isn’t working as it should in many obese people, because for some reason it cannot cross the blood-brain barrier. This condition is called leptin resistance and is believed to be a leading factor in the pathogenesis of obesity.
Insulin:
Insulin is a very important hormone that regulates energy storage, among other things. Several studies suggest that high insulin levels have a causal role in the development of obesity. One of the best ways to lower your insulin is to cut back on simple or refined carbohydrates while increasing fiber intake.
4. Sugar:
It changes the hormones and biochemistry of your body when consumed in excess. This, in turn, contributes to weight gain. Added sugar is half glucose, half fructose. People get glucose from a variety of foods, including starches, but the majority of fructose comes from added sugar. Excess fructose intake may cause insulin resistance and elevated insulin levels. For all these reasons, sugar contributes to increased energy storage and, ultimately, obesity. Scientists believe that excessive sugar intake may be one of the main causes of obesity.
5. Stress:
Another source of weight-loss resistance is stress. Stressful thoughts activate metabolic pathways that cause weight gain and insulin resistance. Most of us become over-eaters when we’re feeling a lot of pressure. Levels of “the stress hormone,” cortisol, rise during tension-filled times. Because increased levels of the hormone also help cause higher insulin levels, your blood sugar drops and you crave sugary, fatty foods.
“More stress = more cortisol = higher appetite for junk food = more belly fat.”
