If so, there is a good chance that your previous attempts to lose weight were not successful because you weren’t aware of the shockingly true facts about dieting.
This article will help you understand why your past efforts most likely failed and how to make sure that weight loss is achievable in the future!
Over the last four decades, the recommendations for weight-loss strategy have drastically changed multiple times, leaving us overwhelmed and unclear on what foods are actually beneficial to reduce excess weight and lower body fat.
With all the contradictory information out there, it’s no wonder why many people find themselves in an endless cycle of yo-yo dieting, by consuming fewer calories and then too many calories.
You may not realize it but following these constantly changing the type of calories you consume might be one of the reasons why you’re not losing weight and a hitting weight loss plateau and even worse experience weight gain even though you are consuming fewer calories.
In this article, we will uncover some unexpected factors that could impact your metabolic pathways and hinder weight loss progress towards a healthy weight.
I’m Jen Adams, my purpose is to help those who don’t lose weight by dieting, fasting and exercising to discover what they can do to move away from being frustrated, depressed and tired to feeling confident, and in control about what to eat and when so they can achieve and maintain their ideal weight.
It’s no secret that calorie-controlled meals have been the cornerstone of standard dietary advice for the past four decades. But while calorie counting may not necessarily be wrong, it is an incomplete approach to understanding what a healthy diet really looks like.
You’re about to uncover the truth behind why these flawed approaches to losing weight and eating healthy have become widespread.
It’s time to take control of your health and ensure you get the most accurate information possible going forward!
Many dieters have had the experience of making no progress in their weight loss goals despite making small changes to their eating habits. However, they are making a major mistake without realizing it – allowing big companies to profit from them through selling ‘diet food’ and fad diets.
This can range from ‘low-fat’ products that turn out to be packed with sugar and artificial sweeteners, or obscure diets that require restrictive eating plans and expensive ingredients.
Ultimately, these schemes only serve to make the companies involved wealthy, while leaving the desperate dieter stuck in a cycle of low self-esteem and frustration.
Unveiling this truth allows us to finally break free from this nearly 40 year old loop, making us far less vulnerable to being deceived by these huge organizations.
With all processed foods come hidden dangers that go overlooked too often, and fructose corn syrup is one of the most common ingredients used to sweeten them.
When fructose corn syrup is added in large quantities, it enables fast absorption by raising blood sugar levels quickly.
With such a rapid increase in blood sugar, the pancreas responds with an overabundance of insulin to inhibit the growth of glucose molecules which can cause fattening adipose cells and inflammation in both the physical body and within cell mitochondria when not mitigated.
Furthermore, fructose corn syrup and other ingredients such as aspartame, stevia and acesulfame K, which are commonly found in processed foods, are up to 200 times sweeter than common sugar.
These lower-calorie ingredients cause significant disruption to the balance of hormones that regulate appetite and hunger.
As such, while relying heavily on low calories processed foods may seem like a shortcut in nutrition and healthy food choices, these negative effects cannot be ignored, as they can cause mental health conditions.
The risk factors of only counting calories from processed foods can contribute to other health problems associated with trying to lose weight or weight gain over the years, such as polycystic ovary syndrome, insulin resistance and hypothyroidism.
A few pounds can easily be gained when the calorie intake from highly processed foods creates food addiction.
As these processed foods, low fat or low calories can also be loaded with hidden trans fats and chemicals that will cause an increase in bloating, water retention and tummy fat storage.
The long-term impact can be high blood pressure, sleep apnea, abnormal cholesterol and even heart disease. Therefore, it is important to be mindful of future health when relying on low-calorie processed foods as a long-term strategy for weight loss.
While calorie counting may not necessarily be wrong, it is an incomplete approach to understanding what a healthy diet really looks like and can lead to health risks if used without caution.
Taking an approach that focuses on whole grains and natural ingredients is more beneficial for metabolic health and gives you the power and freedom to make smart and informed decisions about what you eat.
It is important to explore how nutrient deficiencies can sabotage your metabolism and hinder weight loss progress
As growing evidence reveals, sugar cravings and intense hunger can result from nutrient deficiencies.
In a healthy diet, carbohydrates, proteins and fats should be balanced to offer all the vitamins and minerals necessary for normal cellular functions.
Without them, mood swings, sugar cravings and fatigue can set in—often making it difficult to stick with any long-term nutrition or weight loss plan.
Furthermore, fructose corn syrup has been found to be an addictive substance, which means eliminating or reducing sugar consumption requires determination and discipline that many struggle to find.
Similar to smoking and alcohol, the intensity of the sweetness in these food makes the emotional attachment to these foods more like the ‘Sugar Addiction’, which is an addiction that increases when consuming processed foods that are loaded with high fructose corn syrup and other artificial sweeteners.
These addictive properties can be just as hard to break away from as any other habit or addiction, making it harder for people to make healthier choices and stay on track when only calories counting for weight loss.
Consequently, an understanding of underlying nutrient deficiencies is critical when exploring how calorie controlled dieting can sabotage your metabolism and weight loss journey.
With the right knowledge about macronutrients and micronutrients, you can create sustainable, healthy eating habits that support your efforts towards successful weight loss.
Look beyond calories to improve metabolic health for sustainable weight loss.
Almost everyone has heard that the key to shedding pounds is to count calories and be calorie-deficient through physical activity such as hour-long aerobic exercise and lifting weights.
While these strategies do reduce caloric intake in the short run, they do not necessarily promote metabolic health.
A functional health approach is about getting to the root cause of health issues and addressing the damage from the years of rapid increases in blood sugar and potential insulin resistance to deliver the energy from the glucose into the cell.
Instead, move past the thinking of calories in and out and focus on eating whole, unprocessed, and natural foods to reset metabolism and set up the body to burn fat as fuel.
As the more holistic strategy consists of seeking food in its most natural form, eating food with a balanced macronutrient ratio, emphasizing food quality over quantity, consuming fibre-rich whole foods which promote satiety and feed beneficial gut bacteria, avoiding processed foods as much as possible and supplementing key nutrients to support and restore cellular function.
Combined with portion control, avoiding empty calories and sugary foods with short bouts of exercise and functional weight training, this approach can provide long-term metabolic health while also supporting sustainable weight loss.
By taking a more comprehensive approach to nutrition that looks beyond calories to promote overall health and wellness, the risks of relying on processed foods can easily be avoided. This will help you reach your goals without sacrificing your health in the process and enable sustainable weight loss.
With the dietary recommendations changing frequently, it can be difficult to determine if and how these suggestions would work for an individual’s long-term health.
The best way to build a healthy eating plan personalized for you and your body is through consultation with a nutrition professional who can help you tailor your diet to meet all of your specific needs.
This way, you will be able to get the most out of every calorie consumed while ensuring that micronutrient deficiencies don’t sabotage your weight loss strategy.
Building a personalized plan of eating can provide lasting results as individual needs are taken into consideration when choosing natural, nutritionally balanced foods.
By finding and understanding how one’s individual body responds to different types of food, a healthy eating plan for the individual can be implemented for life-long success.
It’s important to recognize the faulty dietary advice which has been uninformed to us over the last four decades and that these recommendations haven’t been based on scientific fact, leading us to make mistakes in our pursuit of weight loss.
Our bodies require more nutrients than just calories; we must provide it with the right balance of proteins, fats, vitamins, and minerals in order to achieve good health.
We must look beyond calories for metabolic health and lasting weight loss.
Feeling optimistic, confident and stylish are all within your power
I believe with knowledge comes power, my role is to teach people to learn about nutrition which creates motivation, willpower and determination to go beyond achieving their ideal weight, which gives them space and freedom to make healthy food choices every day and discover their own world to unleash the version of themselves they gave up on.
Do you feel inspired and ready for action after reading and listening to what you have discovered about how your food choices influence your future metabolic health?
If so, pose a question to yourself: How dedicated am I to bringing about a change? Why is this important to me? What difference to my life will improving my metabolic health actually have?
What could I achieve after losing weight that I can’t do now?
The ultimate transformation is to master self-control by having the skills to manage impulses, emotions and desires, to know you have a choice in what food to eat that is right for you, to take action, make a plan, stay focused, and above all else – enjoy good food in its most natural form. This is the key to long term success and a healthy relationship with food.
But where do you start? It can be overwhelming to change your diet, especially if you have been following certain eating habits for a long time. But the good news is that it’s never too late to start making positive changes for your health.
One way to begin is by educating yourself about nutrition and understanding how different foods affect your body. Start by reading labels and paying attention to the food ingredients you consume. Are they natural and whole, or processed and full of additives?
Educating yourself about what goes into your body is an important step towards making better food choices.
Learn the basics about nutrition – CLICK HERE
Take the Healthy Eating Quiz to discover your knowledge of nutrition – CLICK HERE
What’s next? What is your metabolic health age – use the online Metabolic Age Calculator and answer a few simple health and lifestyle questions. It takes a few minutes, but it could help you change how you manage your energy levels forever.
If your Metabolic Health Age is equivalent to or lower than your actual age, then that is great news! This means your blood sugar levels, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein, (HDL) cholesterol, blood pressure and waist circumference are potentially all within an ideal range.
However if your Metabolic Health Age is more than 10 years of your actual age, and you are struggling with low energy and fatigue you could be prone to some or all of these conditions as these are all markers that directly relate to your risk of insulin resistance, fatty liver, dysbiosis, high cholesterol and blood pressure.