What Can Cause Slow Weight Loss?

What if by making a few small changes, you could jumpstart your weight loss today?

Weight loss resistance is sometimes referred to as a weight loss plateau. This happens when an individual develops some sort of metabolic imbalance which makes losing weight seem impossible! No amount of hours you spend in the gym or how healthy you eat will make the scale move until the causes for the metabolic imbalances are addressed. This may not be your fault, let me explain common reasons for weight loss resistance:

Common Causes for Weight Loss Resistance:

1. Chronic Inflammation: Extreme dieting (excessive low calorie intake, over-exercising, little sleep, too much caffeine, etc.) and stress can lead to body-wide inflammation. The stress of the extreme lifestyle can causes C-reactive protein, an inflammatory marker, to spike. This causes a metabolic imbalance leading to difficulty losing weight.

2. Nutritional Deficiencies: We all know a nutritious diet is critical to normal function for the human body, but did you know that being deficient in certain nutrients can stall your weight loss? Lack of vitamins, vitamin D3, magnesium, calcium, iron, chromium, coenzyme Q10 can absolutely stall the fat-burning process as they are used in metabolism and detoxification.

3. Insulin Resistance: This is where insulin is present but does not work as it should. This causes the body to store glucose (blood sugar) as fat.

4. Environmental toxins: The choices we make in our every days lives is leading to over-exposure of harmful chemicals (found in electronics, clothing, cookware, cleaning products, detergents, hair care products, food packaging, pesticides, and much more) which can easily build up in our blood streams and disrupt the normal functioning of our bodies making it difficult to lose weight.

5. Poor Gut Health: A healthy gut is probably one of the most important factors to our every day lives because it is connected to literally everything. When our gut health is poor it can lower immunity, increase weight, cause hormonal imbalances, affect mental health, cause endocrine and metabolic disorders.

6. Thyroid Issues: When we have an underactive thyroid (also known as hypothyroidism) there is not enough T3 (triiodothyronine) and T4 (thyroxine) hormones being produced. This is a problem because these hormones are a key factor in our metabolism, so when they are low, so it our metabolism, which makes weight loss very difficult.

7. Adrenal Issues: When cortisol increases chronically, not only is it causing inflammation, it increases your blood glucose. This increase in blood glucose and inflammation can make it impossible to lose weight.

I know it seems like a lot. But do not worry. I have been exactly where you are.

I went through weight gain, tons of brain fog and irritability and had symptoms of hypoglycemia-sweaty and nauseous between meals due to resistant weight loss. But I took the time and did the work and was able to lose all of my baby weight! My personal journey took me through the adrenal package, gut health package, CGM package and detoxification. This was when I hit the sweet spot postpartum!

Written By:
Josie Phillips-Ross Pharm.D., ABAAHP, FAAMM