5 surprising reasons you CAN’T lose weight – from too much exercise to fizzy water
Making a few changes to your daily routine could see you ditch the excess weight faster
WORKING your butt off yet still not losing any weight?
You’re not alone and despite everyone’s best efforts sometimes the weight-loss journey can come to an almighty STOP.
But small lifestyle changes that you can make now could help you shift some of your unwanted Christmas weight.
Nutritional director Rick Hay reveals five reasons you might not be losing weight, and you may just be surprised.
1. Your morning coffee
Does it seem unlikely that you could ever get by without your must-have morning coffee?
You might need to re-think how many cups of coffee you are having a day.
Cutting down on coffee could actually help you reverse the direction of that dial on the bathroom scales.
"Coffee is a nervous system stimulant," Rick said.
"Amongst its many effects on the body, coffee can accelerate the pace of various body functions and, in so doing, our blood sugar levels drop to generate the energy necessary for such functions."
You may think that means coffee can help you burn calories faster, that is sort of correct – but it’s not the full story.
"When our blood sugar levels drop, our brains instantly get us to eat something to reset to those correct levels," Rick added.
However, once we start eating, there is a delay between the point we have actually eaten enough and the brain getting the message that we are well fed, this means we end up eating more than we actually need to.
"Our bodies also release glucose into our bloodstream from the glycogen stored in our muscles and liver," he said.
"Again there is a small delay between the point at which our system recognises that the low blood sugars have been fixed and the point it signals to the liver and muscles to stop releasing sugar into the blood.
"Ultimately, the result of these two mishaps is that you get sugar spikes in the blood which leads to insulin release from the pancreas."
Insulin is the hormone that promotes fat storage so if you get these sugar spikes often, it will have a negative effect on your waist line.
2. Too much exercise
Hallelujah! There's a reason to calm your workout down.
"If you go for a fast and explosive sprint, the very first thing your body will burn is its muscle creatine phosphate stores, but they only last for about 20-30 seconds," Rick said.
"The body then needs to look for something else if you continue to exercise.
"This is where carbohydrates come into play. Carbohydrates are efficient sources of energy because they release energy fast.
"Gram by gram, fats release more energy (9kcal per gram) compared to carbohydrates (4kcal per gram) however, they do so at a slower rate, so it is not a very efficient process."
This doesn’t mean however that you should shun carbs before exercising.
Rick added: "Your body is constantly trying to synchronise what it burns with how fast it is burning energy at any given point in time."
This is where you can synchronise your activity to the rate at which the body specifically burns fat, with minimum effort but maximum satisfaction.
"The body takes a lot longer to process and extract energy from fats than it does from carbs," Rick said.
"So if you exercise at near maximum performance, it will burn carbs in preference to fats because the compatibility between the rhythm of exercise and the rate of energy released from carbohydrates is near optimum."
Hence the reason to slow things down and not exercise at maximum performance for your whole workout.
LISS stands for Low Intensity Steady State training.
Unlike its more famous cousin HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), which relies on short bouts of near-exhaustion exercise, LISS relies on low intensity, gentler forms of exercise performed for longer periods.
The idea here is to take your performance to about 70 per cent of your maximum performance level.
"This sort of training is much better synchronised to the rate at which your body extracts energy from fats and so it chooses to burn fats in preference to carbs and proteins," Rick added.
3. Your bottle of fizzy water
So, you are probably thinking "I know this already, sugary fizzy drinks are not only bad for your weight, they are bad for your health in general".
But it might not only be down to the sugar they contain.
A study published on the journal Obesity Research and Clinical Practice in 2017 showed that the carbon dioxide in fizzy drinks can affect weight gain by increasing ghrelin release.
Ghrelin, more commonly known as the hunger hormone, is a hormone produced mainly in the stomach and one amongst its many effects is an increase in appetite.
It is ghrelin that controls your appetite in the short-term by alerting you it’s time to eat.
"With regards to carbonated drinks, the solution is simple. Just go for their de-gassed, boring-but-safe counterparts," Rick said.
"And yep, I’m afraid I’m going to burst the proverbial bubble here because that includes sparkling water."
This study showed that, even though sparkling water doesn’t contain any sugars, or artificial sweeteners for that matter, the carbon dioxide itself, the gas that gives the sparkle to your water, can itself lead to an increase in weight via ghrelin release.
4. Sweet and salty
Sodium is a mineral the body uses to control the amount of water present in our system.
The more sodium is accumulated in our bodies, the more water is kept and not excreted in our urine, which may make your body retain extra fluid.
Now, don’t go crazy and completely cut out all the sodium from your diet. Sodium is an important component of cell metabolism and, as such, all cells must contain it.
That is not to say that a little added salt to your food to make it tasty is prohibited, that’s not the case at all but restricting it is certainly beneficial.
When we say salt, people immediately assume salty, savoury foods. But artificial sweeteners for example, especially sodium saccharin and sodium cyclamate, are abundant yet relatively unknown sources of sodium, which sugar-free foods and drinks are often full of.
Rick suggests that we limit the addition of salt to our food by using herbs and spices instead. Go sweetener-free whenever possible, especially when drinking tea and coffee.
If you absolutely must add a little sweetness to your drinks, go for natural, healthy alternatives such as honey, palm sugar, agave or even molasses.
These still contain a lot of sugar but they also have health benefits and little or no sodium.
5. Simply breathing
Yes, even the air you're breathing could be making you fat.
It's all down to the pollution.
How on earth can pollution affect weight? Well, it turns out in many ways.
But then if every breath we take makes us a little heavier, surely there’s not a snowball’s chance in hell we are going to get any closer to our target weights, right?
"There is increasing evidence to suggest that pollution can even affect our weight", Rick said.
A Beijing study published in 2016 reported that chronic exposure to air-borne particulate pollution can increase the risk of obesity and metabolic syndromes such as type 2 diabetes, hypertension and heart disease.
MORE ON WEIGHT LOSS
The pollution-induced weight gain was associated with the activation of pro-inflammatory pathways and oxidative stress.
Oxidative stress has been shown to be one of the culprits in the development of various metabolic syndromes including Type 2 Diabetes.
Another study published in the scientific journal Nature reported on how persistent organic pollutants (POPs) such as polychlorinated bisphenyls (PCBs) can lead to weight gain, insulin resistance-related glucose intolerance and, again, type 2 diabetes and other metabolic syndromes.
";The fact of the matter is that it’s virtually impossible to avoid exposure to air pollution and chemicals such as POPs," Rick added.
"They have permeated every nook and cranny of our environment. They were banned in the 80’s but their effects persist. We can, however, adopt habits to limit their negative effects."
Eating organic foods will help you avoid the toxins, as will reducing the amount of fish and meat you eat.
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