Maintaining a healthy weight is an important way of enhancing your health but managing your weight isn’t always easy. There are a variety of reasons why you might gain a few pounds or find it hard to shift unwanted weight, so it’s important to figure out what’s causing your weight gain.
Once you know why you’re gaining weight, you’ll be able to adjust your lifestyle to help limit weight gain and optimize your health. While it’s always worth visiting a medical professional if you experience sudden weight loss or gain, there are numerous things that could be affecting your body’s composition.
To learn more, take a look at these five surprising things that could be contributing to your weight gain:
1. Consuming Diet Products
When you want to lose weight, choosing diet products seems like an obvious way to achieve your goals. After all, anything with the word ‘diet’ has to be good for you, right? Not so much.
Diet products tend to be low in fat, but they often contain a variety of artificial ingredients. This is because fat contains a significant amount of flavor. By reducing the amount of fat a product contains, manufacturers cut the number of calories it holds but they then use additives and artificial flavors to make the food taste nice.
However, fat is also satiating, which means it keeps you feeling full for much longer. If you don’t feel satisfied after consuming diet products, this is probably why. While some diet products may be good for you, don’t assume that ‘diet’ on the label means it will promote weight loss. In some cases, you might be left hungrier than ever and eating a surprising amount of artificial ingredients. Focus on recipes like salads for weight loss and high protein foods instead!
2. Not Getting Enough Sleep
If you want to lose a few pounds (or more) or maintain your current weight, you’re probably focusing on what you eat and how often you exercise. While these are both important, you should also be aware of the impact that sleep has on your waistline.
Lack of sleep affects your appetite and makes you feel hungrier, which can lead to snacking and overeating. If you can’t figure out why you want to eat more than usual, analyze your recent sleeping pattern and see if you’re missing out on a decent night’s rest.
In addition to this, poor-quality sleep can affect the way your metabolism functions. As a result, the calories you do consume are more likely to be converted into body fat than used to fuel your body.
People often assume that a lack of exercise is responsible for weight gain but, in actual fact, it could be a lack of sleep that’s causing you to pile on the pounds. To combat this, implement a healthy sleep hygiene routine, try herbs for improved sleep, and give your body the rest it needs to function optimally.
3. Too Much Cardio
Regular exercise is a great way to enhance your physical and mental health and it can also help you to maintain a healthy weight. When it comes to weight, however, all exercise isn’t equal. If you’re working out regularly but you’re still gaining weight, the type of exercise you’re doing could be to blame.
Studies have shown that strength training can be a more effective way to regulate your weight than cardiovascular exercise. This is because it takes more calories to maintain muscle mass. If you gain muscle, your body will use more of the calories you consume to build and maintain muscle tissue. This means that your basal metabolic rate (BMR) will increase, and your body will burn more calories, even at rest!
By incorporating strength training into your exercise routine, you can regulate your weight more easily and enjoy feeling stronger and fitter. You can learn more about the metabolic renewal program start your journey in a diet and exercise program customized for your needs.
4. Gaining Muscle Fast
We’ve just highlighted the virtues of strength training but do be aware that gaining muscle quickly can result in fluctuations on the scale. As your body builds muscle, it can retain a little extra water. Depending on when you weigh yourself, this can make it seem like you’ve gained weight. In reality, your body will flush out this excess water and the scale will reflect the shift.
However, you may already know that muscle weighs more than fat, so if you gain a significant amount of muscle tissue, you may weigh more but there is a caveat here. When people talk about ‘weight gain’, they’re usually referring to an increase in body fat. With strength training, you’re gaining muscle but losing fat. While you might technically experience weight gain by doing this, your body composition is changing, which means you’re likely to look and feel leaner, slimmer, and stronger, regardless of what the scale says.
5. You’re Doing Too Much
If you have a packed schedule and you’re constantly chasing your tail to get everything done, your waistline could creep up in direct correlation to how busy you are. Many people attempt to multi-task when they have a lot to get through, but studies have shown that activating different areas of your brain in this way can have an impact on your self-control. As a result, you might find it harder to resist unhealthy foods.
As people often associate this type of eating or snacking with stress, it’s worth thinking about how you manage your time if you’re gaining weight and you don’t know why. By resetting your schedule and figuring out how to prioritize, you can give yourself time to focus on the task at hand. This could have a positive impact on how in control you feel and, as a result, prevent unhealthy eating habits.
Keeping Your Weight in Check
Being under or overweight can have a substantial impact on your health, so it’s well worth practicing healthy habits. With help from your doctor, you can figure out exactly what’s causing your weight gain. From there, you’ll be able to make sustainable changes that enable you to maintain a healthy weight, boost your energy, and enhance your well-being.
