Why is Weight Loss so Elusive? 10 Questions to Ask

Why is Weight Loss so Elu­sive? 10 Ques­tions to Ask

One out of every three Amer­i­cans are over­weight or obese. One out of every three  kids will be diag­nosed with dia­betes later in life. Los­ing weight seems like a rel­a­tively sim­ple con­cept, yet it evades us.

Weight loss is a lit­tle trick­ier than eat­ing less and mov­ing more. Chronic stress, expo­sure to dietary & envi­ron­men­tal tox­ins, med­ica­tion use, and hor­monal changes can all con­tribute to weight loss resis­tance. Many Amer­i­cans take on fad diets, surgery, weight loss sup­ple­ments and numer­ous other tech­niques to lose weight.

There are ways to lose weight fast, but these tech­niques are often unsafe and the loss short-lived.

Weight Loss “Guarantees”

I will be the first to tell you to pro­ceed with cau­tion if any­one attaches a “guarantee“to a weight loss pro­gram. I have patients who tell me they’ve “tried every­thing”, but often the one thing that could likely spell the dif­fer­ence is the one thing the per­son avoids.

Unfor­tu­nately the longer a per­son waits, the harder it becomes to make nec­es­sary change. But for­tu­nately, I love to see patients who have bounced around var­i­ous med­ical spe­cial­ists and have under­gone numer­ous tests. Peo­ple are sick of being sticked, scoped and prod­ded in an effort­less attempt to iden­tify a dis­ease. The advan­tage of being a holis­tic prac­ti­tioner is that I look for pat­terns of symp­to­ma­tol­ogy and attempt to cor­rect the upstream influ­ences on a person’s disease.

Some­times achiev­ing your goals too fast can be unhealthy! Exer­cise is an inflam­ma­tory activ­ity that your body may not yet be pre­pared for! Los­ing weight too fast can actu­ally put undue stress on your body, lead to exces­sively sore mus­cles and joints, and of course more excuses to pre­vent you from achiev­ing your weight loss goals.

Guar­an­tees can never be made because weight loss is a CoAc­tive jour­ney. Weight loss depends on a com­mit­ment by the indi­vid­ual to make the nec­es­sary changes in his or her lifestyle. It requires match­ing one’s val­ues to his or her goals and tak­ing daily ACTION to achieve them. It requires sur­round­ing your­self with a pos­i­tive sup­port net­work. It takes plan­ning. Most impor­tantly, it takes TIME.

It has taken me 4 years to get to where I am with my diet and lifestyle. It is never too late to begin tak­ing steps toward the out­come you desire. I con­sis­tently try out new recipes. I read blogs and jour­nal arti­cles to con­tinue to edu­cate myself. I keep a crit­i­cal eye.

The only thing ever guar­an­teed is that you have failed the moment you let your­self become discouraged.

Frus­trated? Join the Club

If the weight scale has not responded to your efforts, I urge you to look beyond the scale.  You may be over­look­ing other ben­e­fits of your actions.  Here are some exam­ples of over­looked  ben­e­fits of a weight loss pro­gram even though weight can remain stagnant:

• improved pro­duc­tiv­ity
• decreased stress
• increased energy
• improved skin complexion
• reg­u­lar bowel movements
• less men­tal fog
• health­ier body composition

You see when you begin fix­ing your lifestyle, your body begins chang­ing. It doesn’t take calo­rie count­ing and points sys­tems. It takes knowl­edge, plan­ning and effort.

Our soci­ety is used to tak­ing a pill and notic­ing an effect within 15–20 min­utes. This is not how holis­tic health­care works. If your pri­mary expec­ta­tion is for a lower num­ber on the scale, you’re set­ting your­self up for dis­ap­point­ment. The body will decide to let the pounds drip away when it becomes deflamed, detox­i­fied, and destressed. Learn to mea­sure your out­comes in months, not weeks

Lean mus­cle tis­sue could be replac­ing fatty tissue. Metabolism could be improv­ing.  Your abil­ity to heal and adapt to stresses in your life may be improv­ing. Sleep is likely improv­ing… But what hap­pens? We stop after 2 weeks…after 6 weeks, look at the unchanged scale, dra­mat­i­cally claim fail­ure and search fran­ti­cally for the next diet fad.

10 Ques­tions to Con­sider Regard­ing Resis­tance to Weight Loss

I know weight loss is frus­trat­ing. We have a cul­ture that feeds into the need for a bikini body. We have a Fast Food Nation where we are bom­barded with mar­ket­ing mes­sages daily for delec­table treats. If you’re still stuck on the weight loss con­cept, here are the thoughts that come to mind when I see resis­tance to weight loss:

1. ) Is the per­son stressed? Do they have unsup­port­ive per­sonal rela­tion­ships? What tech­niques do they engage in to man­age stress?
2. ) How often does the per­son exer­cise? Do they engage in resis­tance AND aer­o­bic train­ing? Do they have peri­odic high-intensity inter­val train­ing? Do they vary their work­out rou­tine?
3. ) How clean is their diet? Are they fil­ter­ing their water? Are they eat­ing organic when they can?
4.)  Are they eat­ing enough pro­tein at mod­er­ate lev­els THROUGHOUT the day?
5.) Have tox­ins from diet and the envi­ron­ment accu­mu­lated in the person’s tis­sues? (Their ini­tial release can com­mu­ni­cate with the body to resist fur­ther weight loss!)
6.)  How is their thy­roid func­tion­ing? Do they have sub­clin­i­cal hypothy­roidism (which may be attrib­uted to high stress and tox­ins)?
7.) What have they tried, have they tried it long enough? Are their goals rea­son­able and safe?
8.)  How are they sleep­ing? Most calo­ries are burned between work­outs, par­tic­u­larly when you are asleep!
9.) What men­tal bar­ri­ers are lim­it­ing the per­son to action? This ques­tion may get into emo­tional fac­tors behind the person’s dis­ease state. After being sick for so long, some­times peo­ple just need to give them­selves per­mis­sion that it’s time to become health­ier. This ques­tion can reflect more lit­eral men­tal bar­ri­ers. For instance, it’s eas­ier to make a salad with veg­gies that are pre-washed and chopped.

10.)  What in the person’s lifestyle, job and socioe­co­nomic cir­cum­stance may be lim­it­ing them? Hard to eat 5 small meals a day when you feel forced to eat out for lunch or have trou­ble afford­ing gro­ceries. As a pub­lished expert on this sub­ject, I under­stand the stress, but I do really believe that it comes back to what the person’s val­ues. Peo­ple will spend $100 on their hair, their phone bill or even their cable bill. This is a sub­ject beyond the scope of this article.

What is CoAc­tive Care?

These ques­tions elicit very impor­tant infor­ma­tion con­cern­ing a person’s resis­tance to weight loss. I under­stand that as a Chi­ro­prac­tor and Nutri­tion­ist, I have to take what is “ideal” and fit those rec­om­men­da­tions to a person’s lifestyle. I have to be hon­est and upfront with my patients. If a patient is in an unhealthy rela­tion­ship, my efforts are not going to have their best impact. They may need to see a clin­i­cal psy­chol­o­gist, or I may begin approach­ing their spe­cific con­di­tion with indi­rect approaches tar­get­ing their stress and men­tal fatigue.

Mal­colm Glad­well wrote a best sell­ing book enti­tled Tip­ping Point. Tip­ping Point is the moment when small actions over time lead to a sud­den dra­matic change. Arguably, the Tip­ping Point can also be when hard work meets oppor­tu­nity. Many suc­cesses have been made because a per­son was will­ing to go the extra mile to achieve a goal. Have faith that the tougher things feel, the closer you are to achiev­ing your desired result. Where in your life are you being resis­tant to change? Start there.

It’s tough to expect a plant to grow if you give it water and sun­light, but put it in poor soil. It doesn’t mean the water and sun­light are not healthy for the plant, it just means you haven’t addressed all the areas a plant requires for growth. What’s the miss­ing piece to your life? How can you reach your tip­ping point?

This infor­ma­tion is not intended to treat, diag­nose, cure, or pre­vent any dis­ease. All mate­r­ial in this arti­cle is pro­vided for edu­ca­tional pur­poses only. Always seek the advice of your physi­cian or other qual­i­fied health care provider with any ques­tions you have regard­ing a med­ical con­di­tion, and before under­tak­ing any diet, exer­cise, or other health program.