Why Am I Not Losing Weight?

by urban-acupuncture | Dec 19, 2017 | Diet

This topic never seems to go away. This week an article by Dr. Melina Jampolis was circulating on Facebook that had some good practical ideas of what contributes to not being able to lose weight. Weight loss is still incredibly challenging for most people, as evidenced by the growing global obesity epidemic. At Urban Acupuncture Center we see people come in seeking help with weight loss, and it is a problem that we can help you with. With acupuncture, we can help you with sugar cravings, stress eating, help stimulate metabolism, and improve digestion. Please contact us if you have any questions about how acupuncture can help you with weight loss. Below are a few points from the article ‘Why Am I Not Losing Weight.’

According to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention statistics, more than two in three US adults are considered overweight (de?ned as a body-mass index over 25), and of those, 36.5% of US adults fall into the obese category.

According to a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, approximately half of overweight and obese adults report that they are trying to lose weight.

You have calorie ‘amnesia’ Put simply, people often eat more calories than they realize.

Total calories consumed matters when it comes to weight loss, despite what some popular diets claim. People frequently forget about the little things during or between meals that add up calorically and can interfere signi?cantly with weight loss.

You relax your diet too much on weekends

This is another very common issue that is a bit more challenging to ?x, as weekends are generally much less structured and more social than weekdays. Three days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) of more relaxed eating (and in many cases drinking) can easily erase four days of more focused effort.

Your medication is working against you

According to Dr. Caroline Apovian, president of the Obesity Society, frequently prescribed medications that may cause weight gain include Benadryl, Ambien, benzodiazepines, older antidepressant and antipsychotic medications, Paxil, beta-blockers (for high blood pressure), several diabetes medications including insulin, sulfonylureas and thialidazones, and some contraceptive methods, especially Depo-Provera.

You eat too much of a good thing

It is true that recommendations concerning dietary fat have changed in the past decade, and nutrition science has found that unsaturated fat, including nuts, seeds, avocado and olive oil, plays an important role in a healthy diet.
Why your diet should include more fat However, you can easily eat too much healthy fat along with other healthy foods, including whole grains. Fat has more than double the calories of carbohydrates or protein, so fat calories, even if they are healthy, add up more quickly. Whole grains have three times the number of carbohydrates as non-starchy vegetables per serving, so again, portion size matters.

Your body is resistant to insulin

Dr. Michael Rothkopf, president of the National Board of Physician Nutrition Specialists, con?rms is an often overlooked reason for weight loss failure. It may also require specialized testing to uncover. According to the CDC, approximately 30% of adults and nearly 70% of overweight adults have metabolic syndrome, a constellation of abnormalities strongly associated with insulin resistance and excess insulin production. Insulin suppresses the release of stored fat and promotes the formation of fat from sugar. The metabolism of a person who has insulin resistance or insulin excess will be shifted away from fat loss and toward fat storage. There are other potential reasons why the scale may not be budging: short sleep duration, excess sedentary behavior, overeating after workouts, stress eating and eating a highly in?ammatory diet ?lled with processed food and inadequate fruits and vegetables. But the above list should get you started ?guring out how to get the scale moving in the right direction.