For chronic weight gain that you cant seem to shift you may need to go beyond diet and exercise and uncover additional triggers of weight gain. The first place to look is to your immune system which underpins all other body functions, including metabolism and fat storage. Your immune system can be weakened by drivers such as emotional stress, sleep quality, reactions to foods, as well as pathogens, chemicals and heavy metals. All of these factors can influence your weight gain or loss.
If you have weight loss challenges you may like to consider a program that focuses on your individual needs based on your medical and health history, symptoms, lifestyle, and emotional outlook. At Bill Giles Health Ecology we offer clients through our KickStart Program weekly support and guidance, stress therapy, detoxification programs, immune-reprogramming and natural medicines to assist you on your weight loss journey.
Many weight loss programs focus solely on fat-loss through dieting and exercise. Some people simply cannot lose weight on these programs while others lose weight but quickly regain it again once the ‘diet’ has finished. This is because these programs do not consider the additional factors behind the weight gain, such as a weakened immune system.
When your immune system is weakened, your organs may not function properly and this leads to weight gain for many people. Have you noticed how some people gain weight following an illness or a stressful event in their lives? Typical weight-loss programs do not work well for these people.
Also worth considering is most weight that is lost or gained quickly, particularly in the abdominal area, is due to lymphatic inflammation. The lymphatic system transports lymph fluid from body tissue to the liver and is composed of lymph nodes, ducts, capillaries, vessels and lymphoid organs. It has a major role in immune defence by collecting, transporting and disposing of waste, toxins and foreign bodies that cause illness and disease. The lymphatic system is concentrated in the abdominal area surrounding your digestive organs.
If your lymphatic system becomes inflamed, the lymph fluid quickly builds up in the lymph nodes and swelling occurs. Have you ever put on a few kilograms of weight in your abdominal region overnight? This is known as lymphedema and can be triggered by pathogens, foods or chemicals within your digestive organs. Even small amounts of foods like wheat, rice and corn can fuel this inflammation if the immune system is not working properly. When the lymphatic system becomes inflamed, swollen and clogged, fat is naturally deposited in the region where the lymph nodes concentrate—your abdomen, buttocks and thighs. When the lymphatic system works properly, the lymph nodes shrink and then fat surrounding them can be effectively removed through exercise.
Our KickStart Program works by improving immune efficiency. Once you know what causes lymphedema you are already well on the way to maintaining your optimal weight. If a type of food is triggering this response, you will be able to isolate the culprit through our Signature Food Trials. We then help you substitute other foods into your diet that do not trigger your chronic symptoms.
You can lose weight without going hungry and learn how to keep it off. For good!
For those who feel that emotional stress is a big factor in your life Our Health Ecology Solution Program goes further to addresses this, which is a huge factor behind comfort eating and weight gain. We offer therapies and strategies to improve your emotional wellbeing; lifestyle coaching and self-care advice; exercise tips and natural medicines to support you on your weight loss journey.
Emotional stress and comfort eating
All of us comfort eat from time to time when we feel lonely, stressed or bored. Sometimes we do it without being aware of it, reaching for an extra slice of cake with our cup of tea or buying two bars of chocolate at the supermarket—one for now and one for later. We justify bowing to the urge to eat another helping because the first one was so delicious.
From birth we quickly learn that eating makes us feel better. As infants we feel pleasure from our mother’s comforting embrace when breast-feeding, then as children we are given comforting treats when we are ‘good’, when we hurt ourselves and for special emotional occasions like birthdays and Christmas. As we get older, these comfort eating experiences can become ingrained and a part of dealing with challenging situations. We then eat for comfort when we feel unhappy, have a stressful day at work, when the future is worrying us, or when our desire for love and connection is not being met.
Comfort eating is a learned behaviour and varies from the occasional chocolate to binge eating. Unfortunately, most comforting and entertaining foods are made from ingredients that humans are not genetically adapted to eat, like sugars, fruits, dairy products, grain products, alcohol and synthetic additives. All these foods are connected with weight gain and if you are trying to lose kilograms, eating these comfort foods will strongly work against your goal.
The manufacturers of comfort foods deliberately make them high in sugars and carbohydrates and use emotive advertising to create a link between their product and happy times. Most of us have been guilty of saying to ourselves, “It’s the weekend so eating some ‘naughty’ food won’t hurt because I’ve been ‘good’ all week and will be disciplined again come Monday”.
If you are overweight and find yourself eating snacks between meals when you are not really hungry, you have been comfort eating. As with anything you do regularly enough, it becomes habitual, and habits are hard to break. Such habits cause suffering and losing weight becomes a struggle. Comfort eating really only gives us short-term happiness because soon after eating these foods we can feel just as miserable as we did before. In some cases even worse, because we feel guilty as well! If you do not address a habit of comfort eating, it can stay with you for life, always undermining and sabotaging your efforts to lose weight.
To find out more contact us and we’ll call you for a an in depth, zero obligation, chat about which Program is best suited for you. Alternatively you can call Jo Roy, our Program Manager, directly on 0421 889 164.