Sometimes, even when you’ve followed your doctor’s or nutritionist’s weight-loss instructions exactly, you still find that you can’t lose much weight. He may feel that she has done everything possible: counting calories, monitoring the amount of food she eats at one sitting, and even exercising or working out regularly. However, it still seems that she can’t lose much weight at all.
You may not know, sometimes weight gain is not caused by lack of exercise or bad eating habits. Actually, there are different medical conditions or diseases that can also cause you to gain weight. And even if these conditions don’t cause you to gain weight, they can make it very difficult for you to lose weight. However, by taking care of these standard medical issues, you should be able to start to see much greater success in your weight loss progress.
A common health problem that can cause you to gain weight is stress. When you’re stressed, your body produces a hormone called cortisol. Small amounts of stress and cortisol are usually not a problem. But when you get too stressed, your body starts making more cortisol, which can cause you to gain weight.
Depression is another very common reason for having trouble gaining weight or not being able to lose weight. This is usually because people tend to overeat when depressed. Or they eat more junk food because it’s what’s called comfort food to them.
Something you may not have heard of before is called insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is a condition in which your body resists insulin, causing your blood sugar levels to rise to excessive amounts. And when blood sugar levels get too high, you gain weight.
An active or underactive thyroid, also known as hypothyroidism, can also cause you to gain weight or make it very difficult to lose weight. The thyroid is what regulates your body’s metabolism. So when the thyroid is not working properly, your body may have a slower metabolism and therefore have trouble losing weight.
Another medical condition that can cause problems with weight loss is hormonal changes. For women in particular, hormones play a very important role in losing or gaining body weight. But men can have the same problem, because they can also have hormonal changes and balances.
If you think you may have a problem with one or more of these medical conditions, see your doctor and discuss the problems, then come up with a plan to correct the problems.