The Reason Why It’s So Hard To Lose Those Last Few Kilos

Every week in clinic I see numerous clients struggling to lose those last few kilos. But did you know to lose weight and keep it off for good you actually need to get healthy? When it comes to weight loss there are numerous things to consider. It’s most definitely not all about calories in vs. calories out and spending hours each day exercising.

You need to consider your thyroid health, for example, are you getting the right nutrients in your diet to support thyroid health, because your thyroid is what controls your metabolism. You need to consider your adrenal health, and what your adrenals are doing to your thyroid, and then your stress levels and what your stress is doing to your adrenals because if you’re stressed your adrenals secrete stress hormones which affect thyroid health. You also need to consider your gut health, viruses, illnesses, emotional bases issues.

It’s my job as a holistic nutritionist to continually ask why, and uncover your why. Why is the thyroid out of balance, why are your adrenal stressed, why is your gut imbalanced. I work with people on a holistic level. This is why I’m a holistic nutritionist, even though diet changes can make a massive difference to your health and wellbeing. There are so many other factors to take into consideration, gut health, stress, exercise, sleep, hormones, emotional balance, toxins, viruses, nutrient deficiencies to name just a few. So when it comes to weight loss you really need to consider the wider picture to uncover the underlying root cause/s.

I see many people in the clinic looking at surface level things, lowering calorie intake (starving yourself isn’t the answer), fasting (another way to restrict calories and skip meals), and/or increasing their exercise levels, but this is absolutely unsustainable. You wear out the body too much and this will create roaming free radicals that will cause stress and damage to the body. I see people who over exercise all the time, over exercise creates free radical damage, this creates inflammation, can upset hormones, this stresses the body preventing you from losing the weight and letting the body heal. This type of stress increases cortisol which is a fat storing hormone, again, making it more difficult to lose weight.

So, if you’re struggling to lose those last few kgs, it’s not because you don’t “diet” enough, or exercise enough. You might actually be dieting too much and over exercising. It may be worth cutting back on the exercise or stop entirely for a week to allow the inflammation to die down. Then, if you lose weight or maintain your weight after one week of not exercising you could almost guarantee yourself that the level or exercise, or type of exercise that you’re doing is creating inflammation, which is forcing you to have dysregulated blood sugar and hormones, which is also forcing you to hold onto additional water weight. Because, for most people that have been eating well and exercising moderately those last few kgs is just toxic water weight that has to do with inflammatory based foods, food sensitivities, and hormone imbalances. Or, it could be due to getting your blood sugar levels in check and eating sufficient protein to help maintain muscle mass, because when you higher muscle mass you increase your metabolic weight. This is one of the reasons why undereating or restricting calories isn’t the answer, it can often dysregulate blood sugar levels, which can makes it harder to shift weight. 

If its food based or digestive based an easy way to check is when you wake up in the morning, does your stomach look flat? Are you a few kilos lighter when you first wake up verse when you go to bed? If you said yes, your stomach looks flat when you wake up you’re more than likely looking at some type of digestive based issues (for example candida overgrowth, food sensitives, H.Plyoiri, parasites, SIBO).

Another factor to consider is estrogen dominance. This predominately happens to women, but it can occasionally happen to men. When you are estrogen dominant you are more prone to holding weight all over, but especially around the hips. When a woman is estrogen dominant symptoms typically are lower moods, you feel like your gaining a little more weight, struggling to lose weight, you feel a little puffier, you might have more PMS symptoms, tender breasts, irritability, sometimes more acne-based issues around the chin, you feel a little more bloated, especially before you get your menstrual cycle. This makes it a lot harder to keep the water weight off, so much so this can cause you to feel a little puffier and like maybe you’re getting more cellulite.

So, what do you need to do? You need to control cortisol levels, stress levels, toxicity, you need to support liver health (I’ve written about ways to support your liver in older posts) and support gut health.

As you can see, there is so much to consider when it comes to losing those last few kilos. You need to uncover why. Is there some type of stressor going on in the body, whether it be emotional, work or relationship based, it could be viruses, heavy metals, immune dysfunction, food sensitives, gut-based issues, toxicity, congested liver, dysregulated blood sugar levels, imbalanced hormones. 

When you work on these different aspects in your life it then becomes much easier to lose weight, because your body becomes healthy. And remember, you have to have a healthy body to lose weight because when you’re healthy your body will go to its natural weight without trying, this is the amazing thing about the human body. Your body actually wants you to be at your best weight, it wants what you want!