2. Emotional Overeating

Emotional overeating often results from stress or painful experiences. When you feel threatened or under immense pressure, you may binge on food as a physiological response to get relief.

People handle negative emotions differently, while some may withdraw or take drugs; others seek comfort in more plates of fries. The eating provides temporary relief from the cause of pain or stress. This may become a routine leading to more weight gain.

Eating may help to deal with stress that may arise from daily living. A stress-eating-reward loop may then be created in your brain to handle future challenges. If you abruptly stop eating as before, there will be cravings in your mind for the good times whenever you are stressed.

Emotional overeating may trigger low self-esteem regarding your weight or size. This may result from comparing your weight with the popular/social standards. And when it seems hopeless to match up to them, you give up and eat more. Emotional overeating is said to affect more women than men.*

3. Your Friends Eating Habits

Your current friends and especially those from your teenage years influence many parts of your lifestyle, including your diet. If your friends engage in ritualistic food and drinking binges, the chances are that you will adopt such practise yourself. Unfortunately, the result may be obesity.

4. Not Drinking Enough Water

Before you reach for the next pack of burger, be sure that you are really hungry. Sometimes, your body may mistake thirst for hunger, causing you to eat when you should be drinking more water. If you are dehydrated, you are bound to feel false hunger and thus overeat.

5. Diet Plan Procrastination

If you discover a method which you believe may help you lose weight. It may cause you to indulge more food in anticipation of successful future weight loss. This is because your brain doesn’t want to give up the pleasure of eating that easily.

You may convince yourself that everything is under control and think that you can shed the excess weight anytime you want. The result is overeating. A specific aspect of weight gain in adults is the middle-age spread, which is covered below.

6. Tiredness can Cause Over-Eating

Studies have shown that when you don’t get enough sleep, you increase your levels of a hunger hormone called ghrelin. You also decrease levels of the satiety/fullness hormone called leptin.

If you’re feeling tired, you are more tempted to reach for another cup of coffee and a doughnut for a quick shot of energy. Later you may skip the gym and pick up takeout as you’re too tired to cook. When you finally get to bed, you are too wound up to sleep. It’s a vicious cycle, and eventually, this sleep deprivation can sabotage your waistline and your health.

Middle Age Spread and Why It Occurs

It is everyone’s dream to maintain a great body while advancing in age. But this is rarely the case as aging comes with some unwanted changes to our body, one of which is the middle-age spread.

The middle-age spread is the weight gained from early 30s to mid-50s. At this period, your muscles begin to thin out. The fat that is normally used by your muscles gets stored in the body.

Men and women are likely to gain weight in middle age, even without a significant change in lifestyle. Hormonal changes are responsible for the loss of muscle mass and consequent weight gain.

Men lose about 1% testosterone per year during middle ages. In women, progesterone and estrogen declines during these years as menopause approaches.

Hormonal changes lead to lower muscle mass, which translates to lesser calorie burning. If you have less muscle mass but continue to eat as before, weight gain is inevitable.

The extra weight from middle-age spread is usually deposited around the waist area, especially for menopausal women.

Why Dieting Doesn’t Work

There is no shortage of diet proponents with claims of rapid weight loss in 2 weeks or less. But as many people have learnt, these are not magic pills they propose to be. People often switch to another promising diet only to be disappointed again.

Weight loss takes more than crash dieting. Crash diets can result in quick weight loss, but it is mostly in the form of water and not fat. With many dieting options, you will deprive your body of essential nutrients as a result of extreme caloric restrictions.

Your body will quickly learn and adapt to the scarcity condition. It will try to store as many calories as it can every time you eat. You may also experience a wild swing in appetite to encourage more eating.

The effect of the diet is temporary, and the result disappointing. About 95% of people who lost weight through dieting gain it back within five years. This is due to the restrictive nature of most diets, which is unsustainable in the long run.

9 Ways to Lose Weight

Aside from physical inconveniences of excess weight, you also run the risk of developing chronic diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure, etc. Living a healthy, active life can offer you more happiness and peace of mind knowing you are proactive in taking care of your body.

So how can you lose weight?

You have to be realistic and be mentally prepared for the long haul because losing weight takes time and energy.

1. Gradual Change is Better

You could eliminate all unhealthy foods from your diet and slash your portion at a go. But can you sustain it? For many people, this will be too sudden a change to tolerate, which eventually leads to relapse. A slow change in diet will give a better result.

2. Set Small Goals and Targets

Set small goals of losing .5 to 1 kilo per month. Even though you achieve small successes which may feel like a failure. It is these small incremental changes that last.

3. Reduce Calorie Intake

Eating more than your body needs will cause weight gain. Work with professionals to determine the best calorie input for your body and work towards maintaining it. The type of calories you eat is also essential, so cut back on carbs and sugars.

4. Increase Protein and Vegetable intake

Proteins are bodybuilding foods and help maintain muscle mass. Along with vegetables, they can keep you full without adding excess calories to your body. You are less likely to snack when on high protein or vegetable food.

5. Weight lifting

When you lose weight, your metabolism will slow down. Lifting weights will help you maintain your muscle mass and metabolism as it assists in preventing middle-age spread.

6. Stay Active

Trivial choices such as trekking to the grocery store or using stairs instead of lifts can add up to your weight loss and prevent further fat accumulation.

7. Keep a Scale

To measure progress, you need to monitor your weight regularly on a scale and record its values. Metrics such as BMI is better for determining your overall health than raw weight values.

Other ways to lose weight include drinking coffee and tea, getting a good night’s sleep, and eating food rich in soluble fibre.

8. Detox Your Body

When you detox your body from toxins and heavy metals, it naturally starts working more efficiently, and your metabolism gets boosted. Heavy metals can cause a state of weight-loss resistance, wherein the body cannot lose weight. Until toxins clear from your body, you can struggle to lose weight, regardless of following a healthy diet or exercise routines.

Familiar sources of toxic heavy metals, like mercury and lead, include amalgam tooth fillings, seafood, body care products, cookware, immunisations, and drinking water. Heavy metal toxicity affects individuals at the cellular level and compromises cells function.

9. Balancing Yourself Spiritually

When you’re emotionally/spiritually/energetically misaligned, you can feel empty. You can’t put your finger on why you feel unsatisfied. It can leave you searching to fill a void inside you, and you try to fill it with food. When you feel whole and aligned, you do not need to overeat, and you choose healthy food options. This keeps you in a balanced state that elevates your mood and life.

Take Action

This article covers a lot of ground about losing weight. To see any change in your body, you must create a plan, instil good daily habits and start taking action.

You may find that working with a practitioner will help you achieve better weight loss results. You can start your weight loss journey today.

Disclaimer: Forensic Healing, Marisa Russo and Spiritual Development for women are not a professional medical body. Any information contained in any videos/publications/comments/blog posts etc are for entertainment purposes only. All information is intended for general guidance and must not be considered a substitute for advice provided by a doctor or other qualified healthcare professional. Marisa Russo or Forensic Healing makes no warranties or representation of any kind concerning the accuracy or suitability of the information contained on this channel, websites, videos, social media pages, blog posts etc.”