In today’s modern society, it’s no easy task to maintain a healthy, balanced relationship with food. Unless you live and work on an organic farm, eating only what you produce, the odds are stacked against you from the time you wake up until the time you go to sleep every single day. If you’ve been struggling to lose weight, it’s time to stop blaming yourself. There are some very real biological and societal reasons it’s hard to lose weight. Until you understand what those reasons are, it may be difficult to commit to a plan of action that allows you to finally shed the pounds that have been holding you back for so long. Take a look below at 3 major reasons it’s hard to lose weight.
#1. Our bodies were built to hang onto the extra fat
There’s no getting past the biology of the way your body was designed. Your metabolism is a beautifully designed system that provides you with energy in the present and saves any extra for potentially scarce times in the future. That extra energy is stored as fat, which, back in scarcer times, could have saved your life. Today, however, most of us eat far more calories than we need in a day, and that, combined with the sedentary lifestyles we lead, means the fat just builds up day after day with nowhere to go.
The solution: Commit to eating fewer calories than you burn or burning more calories than you eat every day.
#2. We all have the potential for sugar addiction
Your mesolimbic dopamine system (the brain’s reward system) once kept you from starvation. Now…maybe not so much. Like the metabolic system, this reward system was designed to ensure that you did not starve. The consumption of high-calorie, sweet, and fatty foods releases dopamine, which creates good feelings and a surge of energy. This “reward” signals to the brain that the event was positive, reinforcing the behavior so you do it again. Back in the days of scarcity, this was important. Today, it’s the foundation for addiction for many people.
We have an excessive amount of sugary foods available to us, and most serve the single purpose pleasure. They provide calories with no nutritional value. Most people use sugar and carbs (which turn into sugar after metabolization) to deliberately trigger the brain’s reward system when they’re feeling tired, sad, happy, deserving, undeserving, celebratory, irritable, or or to otherwise comfort themselves emotionally when they’re feeling low. This kind of dependence often develops into sugar addiction, which results in cravings for more sugar, followed by a destructive cycle of sugar consumption, weight gain, poor health, low self-esteem, more sugar consumption, shame, more weight gain, and so on.
The solution: Follow 10x guidelines on sweets and carbs to help break the sugar addiction cycle and reset your reward system to healthier choices.
What to Eat When Dieting and Craving Sweets
#3. Health is second to profit in the corporate food industry
The most abundant, cheapest, and most easily accessible foods at schools, grocery stores, workplaces, and restaurants are carb-rich, sugary, and processed. Why? Because that’s what’s best for the corporate bottom line. This is evidenced by the fact that it’s more expensive to eat whole foods than to eat fast food or processed food. In fact, the healthiest grocery stores and restaurants are found in white, affluent neighborhoods, while low-income neighborhoods exist in “food deserts,” urban areas where it’s difficult to find good quality fresh food. To the logical mind, it makes no sense that more natural and healthier foods are harder to come by than unhealthy, processed foods, but they are. In a culture where health is second to corporate profit, weight loss requires focus, commitment, and a clear understanding of where and how to find healthy foods.
The solution: Learn to shop the 10x way. We’ll teach you how to read nutrition labels so you can easily find the foods that support your weight loss goals.
Lose weight with 10x, a doctor-supported telemedicine weight loss program
Our doctor-supported telemedicine weight-loss program provides you with 24-hour online access 7 days a week. You’ll receive safe and effective medicine to help curb your appetite and manage cravings while you make the necessary lifestyle changes that support your weight loss goals. We’ll teach you how to read nutrition labels and shop for foods that help your body burn extra fat. Dr. Laverson and his staff are committed to helping you lose weight and keep fit for life. Join now and let’s get started today!