How Weight Gain and Weight Loss Affects Your Body

There are more than 45 million Americans that go on a diet each year. Many of those are people that have done diets before, lost weight, and have gained back the weight. “Yo-yo dieting” is when people lose and gain weight over and over. It’s great to slim down and to get healthier, but what happens to your body when you’re constantly gaining and losing?

How Weight Gain Affects the Body

Did you know that it is much harder to lose weight than to gain it? If you yo-yo diet often, then you know this. NBC News did a study into why it’s so hard to diet and why dieters often gain weight back. Their interactions with doctors and researchers with PhDs found that the brain regulates how much you weigh. It can get used to you weighing a certain amount and will try to push back when your weight changes too much.

Habits can get stuck in your system (like always eating sugar compared to cutting it out) and your body might literally fight you when you diet. Your body knows how many calories and nutrients you need and it will give you cravings until you eat more. However, the benefits of weight loss are worth how hard it is to get your body on a new routine.

Weight Gain and Weight Loss Benefits

If you want to be healthy, you need to be at a healthy weight. Working with a professional can determine what that weight is. However, we do know that:

• Weight gain (especially excessive) can lead to countless chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease, premature death, stroke, fatty liver and more.
• More weight gain increases your blood pressure and pressure placed on joints and bones.
• Losing weight improves your heart health, your sleep quality, your mood and can help you live years longer.
• Your risk for cancer and chronic diseases is much less if you lose weight correctly.

These are just a few examples of benefits of weight gain and weight loss. Basically all the good benefits you get from losing weight get reversed when you have weight gain.

Consequences of Yo-Yo Dieting

Many people yo-yo diet simply because they don’t know how to diet and exercise correctly for their body’s needs and they don’t have support from others. If you want to diet, have a friend do it with you, or be accountable to a loved one for your diet and exercise decisions, even if you have to be accountable daily. Yo-yo dieting can have real, damaging effects on your body such as:

• A higher body fat percentage over time because you gain fat easier than muscle.
• Muscle loss over time is common, as you lose muscle as well as fat when you diet, and it’s harder to build up your muscle tissue.
• Weight fluctuations are hard on the body, and give patients an 80% higher risk of dying earlier than expected.
• Your mood is affected. You constantly go from being happy about your weight to being frustrated and depressed about your weight gain. Mood changes can affect other aspects of your life.
• Your long-term decisions can be affected. When dieting fluctuates because of not reaching goals over and over, it’s harder to reach more important goals and long-term decisions.
• Many people sink lots of their money into “get-slim-quick” diets that don’t actually work for their bodies.

How Do You Stay Healthy?

Many people think it’s hard to be “healthy”, when it’s really not. Small, daily decisions lead to big results in the future. Those results can be weight gain or weight loss, bad health or great health. If you have health goals, write them down! Pick a time-frame for your goals, tell a loved one or friend what you want to accomplish and stay accountable! These type of goals are called SMART goals, which stands for “Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound”.

Getting Help for Weight Gain

Diet and exercise make up a vital part of your health and can determine how healthy you are, if you have chronic conditions, how you will function every day and much more. If you’re not eating correctly or getting enough nutrients for your body, you will inevitably have health problems. If you don’t manage your diet, exercise and nutrients correctly for your age, weight, and health conditions, you can have developing or worsening conditions over time.

That is why we focus on patient’s diet, exercise, and daily living when it comes to their therapy and health. We have the following services to help patients with problems such as weight gain and yo-yo dieting:

• Nutritional Assessments: It’s hard to know how healthy you really are, which is why we do full blood testing to see what’s in your body. We test your blood for nutrient deficiencies and test your body with gentle electricity to see where fat deposits lie. Based off of what your body lacks and what it needs, we can customize a nutrition plan that will help with weight gain, chronic conditions and will help you live longer.
• Medical Weight Loss: Many people hit a wall with losing weight. Customized help from a professional can help you with proper exercise to strengthen your body and to combat weight gain. Services such as Laser-Like Lipo, exercise counseling and support, and supplementation can help you lose weight where you want to.

Make Changes Now

It is never too late to start making changes with your health. Don’t wait until the New Year to make goals for diet, weight loss and eating better. Start today! Eating well and avoiding unnecessary weight gain can help your body work better and live longer. If you struggle with weight gain and weight loss, don’t do it alone. Call Texas Spine & Sports Therapy Center today at (512) 806-0015 and we can teach you how to eat and exercise to keep your body healthy.