Doing everything “right” but still having trouble losing weight? Here’s a quick overview of some medical conditions that affect weight loss.
Video transcript:
Hi! I’m Dr Tina Marcantel.
In my years of clinical experience I’ve had quite a number of people who are eating well and they’re exercising and they can’t seem to lose or maintain their weight.
Well, this led me to explore medical conditions that affect weight loss. Let me give you a quick overview of some of those conditions.
Hypothyroidism is an under active thyroid. It slows our metabolism and thus causes weight gain. We can do a simple blood thyroid testing for this to confirm it.
Also, estrogen dominance. Estrogen hormones in meat and xenoestrogens in our environment, such as plastics, cause too much estrogen build up and it causes that estrogen to be high in ratio to progesterone, thus causing inflammation and fluid retention. We can do a saliva test to check that ratio of progesterone to estrogen to confirm if we have estrogen dominance.
Another condition that may cause us to have weight gain is insulin resistance. The more carbohydrates, especially refined carbohydrates, we have in our diet can cause our cells to become resistant to insulin and our blood sugars go up. This compromises our metabolism and just doing a simple blood fasting insulin test to confirm insulin resistance would be a good recommendation.
Overproduction of cortisol–we’ve talked about this before–from long periods of physical or emotional stress. Cortisol is a stress hormone and also a fat storing hormone. So we do a saliva test to check the four cortisol levels throughout the day to see if we’re having an overproduction of cortisol.
Another condition that may affect our weight is yeast overgrowth. Yeast overgrowth can cause cravings for sugar and refined carbohydrates and thus cause weight gain. Yeast needs sugar to grow, so that’s why we crave it.
The other factor is food sensitivity. Some of us may be sensitive to certain foods and that can lead to weight gain, as well. Doing a blood test for food sensitivity can confirm this.
So just remember, if you’re having difficulty losing or maintaining weight you may want to look into these possible conditions.
I’ll see you next time!
Learn more about hormone imbalances and their detection and treatment
