Is Your Stomach Causing You to Gain Weight?

I wrote about stomach problems being a cause of overweight a few weeks ago, but I only touched on the subject. Now I want to dig into it a little more.

I wrote about how I had to do research about my weight problem, I had to learn why I was overweight before I could lose the weight and keep it off.

Losing weight is in part psychological  and part physical. In other words, part of your problem maybe stomach problems, which I’ll explain later, and the other part might be  a subconscious feeling that  you can’t lose weight and by trying your only setting yourself up to fail. Some people who lost self-esteem have been rewarding themselves with food, generally comfort food which usually is high in calorie and low in nutrition.

Overeating is the main cause for overweight. And overeating can be caused by many different things. It could be as simple as bad eating habits. (you eat the same way your parents ate and never saw anything wrong with it. )  Well, Corn, mashed potatoes, and fried chicken may have been the typical dinner a couple of generations ago, but today we know that you can’t eat like that everyday. We shouldn’t eat like that at all. That’s overindulging, and eating dinner with that much heavy food will only set you up for a weight gain. That brings me back to why, and besides bad habits that you inherited there’s the subconscious you that wants to reward them self maybe because no one else will.

Both of these psychological reason are the hardest to overcome. The first one, the person with bad habits, might know he or she needs to lose weight, but they don’t see anything wrong with the way their eating, so they think “if I cut back a little I can lose weight.” But the real truth is that person is probably eating the wrong foods. Not eating a healthy diet for this type of person is the problem.

The next type of person has fits of depression and doesn’t realize what it doing to them. This type is overweight because they’re using food to reward themselves. Eating makes them feel better and so they eat their favorite foods to fight depression and even if they know their overweight, a diet will only work temporarily until the next bout of depression.

So the best advice I can offer both types is that weight counseling can help. If you better understand the problem you have, then maybe you can beat it.

The other reason for overweight can be caused by stomach problems. It’s a little more complicated than that and I’ll explain. In order to properly digest your food and I mean turn “food into energy” so your body can use it, you must have a proper balance of good and bad bacteria in your stomach and small intestine. That’s were your body removes the nutrition from the food and waste products are processed and then disposed of. I know it sounds simple but there’s a little more to it. This is something that science is now still working on. I know I said it was complicated because science knows that your body should keep the balance of good and bad bacteria as a normal function. We shouldn’t have to worry about it. But for some reason we are losing good bacteria and throwing off the balance.

What science is looking for is possibly something we’re eating that’s destroying the good bacteria.  Personally, I think it’s the chemicals in the food we eat. Chemicals that are used as pesticides and fertilizers. A lot of chemicals are banded in the states, but we buy so many fresh foods from other countries and there’s no chemical bands in those countries. But, there’s some chemical in this country that are not banded and that’s “Hormones”. Hormones in meat stimulate the growth of the animal so they can get it to market faster. So what’s wrong with that you might ask, Hormones do nothing to add more nutrition to the meat, in fact, if the animal is rushed to market before it can grow naturally to maturity, some nutritionists say that the meat has less nutritional value.  That’s one reason the “grass-fed beef” is supposed to be healthier. It has less hormones or it suppose to have less.

Science has made some progress and does know how we can put the good bacteria back in your digestive track. I’m sure you’ve heard of fermented foods. Fermented foods were very popular in other countries. If your grandparents came from another country I’m sure you’ve seen Kimchi, Kefir, Sauerkraut, yogurt and other veggies and fruit fermented. When eating yogurt especially, look for “plain greek yogurt”, pick the one with the lowest sugar content. I use a brand  with only  6 mg of sugar.  Sugar or sweetener are some of the things that kill good bacteria in you stomach. Don’t confuse pickled with fermented. Your looking for fermented and unpasteurized versions or make it yourself.

Probiotics will help replace good bacteria, but consider supplements that have reasonably high potency.

Now, you might ask “why does all this matter”. If you’re not digesting your food properly then you’re not producing enough energy for your body. This is all about this energy balance that nutritionists talk about.

You see you maybe cutting back on your food but still can’t lose weight. And that might be because your body is not creating enough energy to burn the calories your eating. When this happens more food is being stored as fat and less food is being turned into energy.

All of this can be corrected by changing your diet. Eating fresh and cooking with fresh foods. Try to buy organic if possible and be careful the type of meat you buy. Our food supply today is much different then it was for your parent’s generation.