Do you gain weight easily?

If you gain weight easily, you have a slow metabolic rate and it seems that it may be very difficult to lose the weight you want. I was like this-I was very athletic and active but the weight never came off! In this case, what I have learned from my own experience as well as from working with thousands of individuals is…following the meal plan will be the most important component in your success in losing the excess body fat you need! However, there are a few medical conditions that may be contributing to your weight gain and it is absolutely worth looking into!

The first medical condition to look into would be to get your thyroid checked because often times, people with slow metabolisms can gain a lot of weight very quickly, but have a very hard time taking weight off. It could be that you have a low thyroid, in which a visit to your endocrinologist may help you maintain your thyroid hormones at the right levels. This may take a matter of months but it will help you greatly in your battle in attaining a healthy weight. Getting your thyroid balanced is not an excuse to eat anything and everything you want – it is a way to take control of what could be a serious problem. Otherwise, the key to sustainable weight loss is to speed up your metabolic rate! But wait a minute-can you speed up a slow metabolism? Of course you can! And you don’t do it by building a lot of muscle-you do it by EATING!

You may also have a hormonal imbalance. Men experience this by going through the developmental stage known as andropause similarly as women go through menopause. Women going through menopause or peri-menopause can experience up to 30 pounds of weight gain during this period. This is because fat cells are able to produce estrogen. Your body always tries to maintain what is know as, homeostasis. It tries very hard to maintain the same levels of weight, blood sugar, hormone levels, etc. When you are going through menopause your estrogen production (along with other hormones) are reducing dramatically. In order to try to maintain that level of hormone, your body begins producing more fat cells so that it can produce more estrogen to maintain the original level. Eventually, the body gives up and, with far less estrogen in their bodies, women can become lean much more easily than before.