Written by Gina Sarten, Naturopath
Why is it that some people manage to maintain an ideal weight while others battle a bulge throughout their life?
Is there some explanation in our genetics? Does stress have an impact? What if stress is a regular part of our life? How important is our thyroid or our liver? What role does our beneficial bacteria have? What happens when our digestive system is not functioning properly, what is this trying to tell us? What foods best support healthy weight?
The answers to these questions may surprise you! For example, if we’re regularly in a fight/flight stress response, digestion becomes compromised and glucose and fats are released into the blood stream which increases our risk for obesity, high blood sugar and high cholesterol.
On August 21 at Body of Work I’ll be giving a free introductory session on weight management. This is a difficult topic for many people. Essentially: diets don’t work. Let me clarify that. Weight loss that focuses just on reducing food input and/or increasing exercise doesn’t often work in the long term. To be successful, weight management needs to include things that improve the overall health of a person. Understanding healthy eating should definitely be included but so should the role of beneficial bacteria, gut health, liver health, eating behaviours, metabolism, exercise and movement, stress and the adrenals.
However, we also need to consider more than our physical body and look at our emotional triggers — how we feel when we’ve had a bad day at work or an argument with a friend, or when we see images about the “perfect body shape” or our partner teases us about our weight. Why is it that even when we know eating chippies and chocolate is detrimental, do we continue to eat them?
From August 28 I’ll be running a set of six weekly group sessions to help those interested in learning how these components affect weight and what to do about them. The goal is to help participants start to reduce their weight, or just improve their health.
To register contact Gina Sarten
