What is Individualised weight loss? and why it works…..

Here are the top areas that can influence your ability to lose weight:

1. Nutrition – It’s more than just calories

Nutrition is perhaps the primary environmental trigger for weight loss and gain but not for the reason many people think. What you eat and what you absorb acts on your genes, your hormones and your gut which in turn affects your metabolism and your ability to lose weight. The standard Western Diet is calorie rich but nutrient poor which means so many people are both overweight and undernourished. The other problem is many weight loss diets are imbalanced, nutrient poor, creating deficiencies that interfere with our body’s ability to lose excess pounds. Food sensitivities and intolerances to allergens like gluten and dairy are factors that fuel body wide inflammation and undermine our absorption of micronutrients, both of which make it more difficult to lose weight.

2. Metabolism.

People often complain that they have a “slow metabolism.” But thinking about metabolism in simple terms of “fast” or “slow” is a vast oversimplification of a central and complex system — one that plays a critical role in determining not just your body composition but also your overall health and vitality. Your metabolism is a combination of all the chemical reactions in your body that keep you alive and healthy. This includes how your body uses proteins for building muscle and how it breaks down macronutrients to use as fuel. Excessive hunger, cravings, low energy, anxiety, depression, digestive disorders, hormone dysfunction, are all signs of a reduced or overactive immune system. These often indicate there is an underlying issue. Eating too little and exercising too much are both metabolic stressors that can inhibit weight loss, meaning that eating a little more, exercising less intensely, and going for relaxing walks might rebalance your body so that it is able to start to heal itself. Knowing more about your body’s current metabolic state can help you design a precise fitness and recovery program that maximizes fat loss while minimizing wear and tear. It can also help you shape your nutrition regimen for optimal weight loss and energy.

3. Microbiome

There are some 100 trillion bacteria, yeasts, and fungi living inside us. Sounds scary I know, but these organisms influence a myriad of processes in your body, including fat burning and storage. Bacteria in your gut modulates weight and metabolism by extracting energy and calories from the food you eat. In fact, people with healthy microbiomes may host gut flora that “eat” more than half their daily calories, aiding in weight loss and maintenance.

On the other hand, insufficient or imbalance in gut bacteria can lead to weight gain. Antibiotics, poor nutrition, and environmental toxins can damage the microbiome. Infrequent bowel movements, bloating, stomach aches, even being overweight can all be signs that there is imbalance.

Studies show that a high ratio of Firmicutes to Bacteroidetes correlates to increased body fat. But remember any unhealthy imbalance in the microbiome can dramatically influence metabolism and vitality and inhibit weight-loss efforts.The balance of gut bacteria can really affect your caloric energy use and storage, as well as nutrient absorption. Also, the health of your microbiome can affect your brain and, with it, food cravings.

4. Hormones

You produce some 50 hormones that carry messages from more than a dozen endocrine glands and signal functions in cells throughout your body. They regulate growth, sleep, hunger, metabolism, reproduction, and sexual arousal, to name a few.

When any of these hormones get out of balance, it can result in weight gain or problems losing weight. The “fat hormone” leptin is produced by fat cells to tell the brain when you’re full. It works in tandem with ghrelin, a hormone that stimulates the hunger centre in the brain, controlling appetite and keeping both energy and weight in check.

The other issue is that excess body fat blunts the body’s response to leptin. The result is that ghrelin tells the brain that you have to eat while leptin never gets to deliver the signal to stop eating, even when there’s no need for extra calories.

When someone comes in to see me and says, ‘I’m doing everything but the weight won’t budge,’ I will always consider the thyroid, adrenals, and sex hormones. We will test to see if this person has an under-active thyroid, look at their stress levels and check for oestrogen dominance. Hormones issue the instructions that control metabolism, mood, energy, appetite, and food cravings.

5. Environmental Toxins

Growing evidence shows that our modern environment — including exposure to countless toxins we don’t necessarily see, smell, or even think about — is wreaking havoc on our bodies’ ability to appropriately process, store, and let go of fat. Non-organic compounds (found in processed foods, cosmetics, personal-care products, dental fillings, and storage containers, to name a few) affect our appetite and metabolism, and can damage the body’s natural weight-control mechanisms.

These compounds can have very different mechanisms of action, “some affecting the number of fat cells, others the size of fat cells, and still others the hormones that affect appetite, satiety, food preferences, and energy metabolism. Your exposure to toxins and nonorganic compounds can alter your body’s natural weight-control mechanisms.

6. Genes

There are at least 20 genes associated with obesity which we need to look at synergistically as they, and numerous other genes can affect our weight in many ways. Most importantly these genes can be ‘switched on’ by an individual’s diet, lifestyle and environment. The good news is although certain genes can predispose you to gain weight, having the right diet in and lifestyle help determine whether those genes turn on.

Epigenetic testing is so exciting as it enables us to identify who does better on lower-carb diets, higher-carb diets, and whether genotypes are better suited to eating more fats. We can also identify what type of exercise, the intensity, duration and best times for the individual to exercise to create optimum benefit.