Weight Management 101: The Science Behind the Struggle (Free Article)

The reality is many of us struggle with our weight. Almost everyone can relate to one another in this area. Most of us fall into the category of wishing we were “thinner”, while the other percentage of folks struggle to “gain more muscle”. No matter where you land, the vast majority of people report feeling dissatisfied with their current weight.

As you read through our perspectives on this topic, we’d like you to remember: you are very much not alone.

We hope you find these articles helpful, insightful, and uplifting as you peruse the information.

The Elephant in the Room: Obesity and Health Risks

In our country, the single leading cause of preventable death is obesity. To put it simply… as weight goes up, so does the risk of death.

We know how frustrating it can be to hear those five daunting words at a doctor’s visit:

“You need to lose weight.”

We can empathize with these folks who struggle to gain traction in this department and hope to provide some new, insightful things to consider for your weight management journey.

To start, we would like to acknowledge and briefly lay out the health risks associated with obesity. We hope that learning and understanding more about these risks will provide natural motivation to help you strive towards living a long, happy, and healthy life. We have dived deeper into many of these associated health risks in our other write ups, so please take a look at some of these topics that pertain to you.

Common Morbidities Associated with Obesity

• Heart Disease (including heart attack and stroke)
• High Cholesterol
• High Blood Pressure
• Joint Degeneration or Osteoarthritis
• Type 2 Diabetes
• Gallbladder Disease
• Sleep Apnea (this increases your risk for heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, etc.)

The daunting fact: Obesity is associated with an increased risk of all cause mortality or death.

Our goal is not to scare you, but to help you understand why your doctor may be asking you to lose some weight.

If you have been diagnosed with any of the above conditions and obesity is also a part of your picture, then there is good news to consider. Just by simply working towards managing the excess weight, all the conditions listed above will improve and some can even be reversed! That is powerful.

What is BMI?

So, how do you know if you are overweight or obese? Has your doctor mentioned your BMI to you before?

In medical terms, there are certain parameters for what defines one as “overweight” or “obese”. There is a standard measurement for this, and it is widely accepted in the western medical model as a way to diagnose obesity. This measurement is called “BMI” or “Body Mass Index”. This measurement calculates your height and mass and converts it to one single number. Depending on what that number is you may be classified as overweight or obese.

Our take on BMI:

While we agree BMI can be a helpful benchmark for health, there are many other things to consider. We do not believe it should be the gold standard.

Continue reading this article to find our top 5 tests to talk to your doctor about. These tests can help paint a clearer picture of health in ways that BMI alone cannot.

Why Is it So Hard to Lose Weight?

Let’s take a second to really think about this…

Before food became so abundantly available in today’s high consumer world, food was simply viewed as a source of energy that kept us alive. It was sacred. Our ancestors worked hard to acquire it and then celebrated by sharing with one another.

While it is obvious that food is a necessity of life, one cannot ignore the fact that it is naturally a source of joy. You will be hard pressed to find somebody who disagrees with this. We are all familiar with the feeling of joy that spreads throughout us when we take that first bite from our favorite food.

This is exactly why choosing what we put in our bodies for fuel is the biggest obstacle when it comes to weight management. We are here to help you learn ways to continue to enjoy your food AND make healthier choices.

Enticing foreshadow: There are likely some hidden, less known factors contributing to weight gain. Even minor changes can make big impacts!

Why Does Food Feel So Good (and Why Do We Keep Going Back For More)?

You know that feeling you get when eating something you love? There is a part of you that literally feels better. Like your mood lifted just a little, your stress took a step back, or your day got a teeny bit brighter.

We are here to help prove to you that you are not just imagining it. When you feel these feel-good feelings from tasty food, your brain is releasing a shower of “happy” chemicals, called endorphins.

This release of endorphins is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, we love it when our brain dumps endorphins for us! They help reduce pain, increase pleasure, and they give us that cozy, content, “everything is right in the world” feeling.

Endorphins get released in response to some really wonderful things:

• Laughter
• Exercise
• Music
• Physical touch
• Our favorite foods 

Here is where it gets interesting…and challenging:

Some foods light up the same parts of the brain that drugs and other addictive behaviors do.

For example, many comfort foods like chocolate, ice cream, salty chips, cookies, etc., trigger a release of endorphins, dopamine, and serotonin (the brain’s “feel amazing” crew). These chemicals light up your reward system in the brain, which is designed to motivate survival behaviors, like eating.

Afterall, eating is essential to existing; it is a survival instinct. So, your brain remembers how good that food made you feel and files it away under, “We should definitely do that again.”

This hopefully helps you understand why when you’re feeling low or stressed, your brain might nudge you toward those same “feel good” foods… not out of true hunger, but because it remembers the emotional payoff!

The Simple Cycle That Needs Help Breaking

The problem with being human and having super smart brains, is the brain is efficient at making us feel better. Over time, when these joyful food experiences become hardwired habits, we succumb to eating pro-inflammatory foods that actually cause more stress on our bodies, even though the short-term endorphin release makes us feel good during that time of stress (or boredom, or emotional discomfort).

The Big Takeaway

We are not saying food joy is bad…actually, far from it! Enjoying food is tied to so many enriching experiences for us as humans. Food is culture, comfort, connection, and celebration.

What we are trying to shed light on, is the awareness one needs to have when our everyday emotional satisfaction is tied to food.

While we acknowledge the battle is real, it is important to help explain why our brains are so powerful. And, why so many people struggle when trying to make food choices that support a healthy outcome. Frankly, it is true… food should be recognized as its own addiction. After all, it affects the same parts of the brain!

How Does the Strength of My Immune System Relate to Obesity?

Let’s get down to the nitty gritty science facts…

There is a direct correlation between obesity/overweight and chronic disease. This is somewhat good news, if you choose to look with the glass half full approach! This is why so many diseases can be improved or even reversed by managing excess weight. Stay tuned…

The Crucial Role of Inflammation and The Cycle of Destruction That Can Be Tough to Break

Inflammation is quite complicated to say the least. This term is thrown around fairly often by medical professionals when talking about disease processes and diagnoses. Truth be told, we are no exception to this. As research continues to understand deeper and more complicated processes within the body, it is becoming abundantly clearer that at the root of (dare we say all) chronic illness and disease processes is inflammation.

One of the great drivers of chronic inflammation is what is called “Oxidative Stress” or “OS”. Oxidative stress can be responsible for the onset and worsening of many disease processes including:

• Cancer
• Cardiovascular diseases
• Diabetes
• Atherosclerosis
• Metabolic Disorders
• Many more…

Research has shown that excess fat actually activates the immune system by releasing pro-inflammatory messengers into the body which can result in cell damage and eventually tissue damage. This cycle is a positive feedback loop and results in “oxidative stress”. This continued cycle leads to what is called low-grade systemic inflammation and increases the risk of nearly all (non-transmittable) disease.

This chronic, low-grade systemic inflammatory state is connected to those unwanted comorbidities listed above.

There is a link between pro-inflammatory foods (like high sugar foods, fried foods, soft drinks, sweets, processed meats, etc.) and an increase in inflammatory “cytokines” (our immune system messengers). These cytokines are seen as a causative factor in ongoing weight gain because these messengers also stimulate appetite! Wait… that’s not good!

How Disease and Immune Health Are Related

Disease is simply dysfunction in the body, and any body system can be affected.

For example, coronary heart disease (CHD) means there is dysfunction in the blood vessels that carry blood to the heart. In this instance, there is likely a blockage of some degree that is causing a narrowing in the blood vessels which results in a restriction of blood flow to the heart. In other words, there is dysfunction in how the blood vessels should be working.

Our immune system is involved in all disease processes. Most diseases are a result of ongoing inflammation to some degree. Inflammation is our body’s natural response to minimizing insult or injury. Funny enough, our immune system oversees creating and reducing inflammation. Confusing, right? Frankly, it is constantly working.

But our daily decisions can help support our immune system so that it is equipped to handle inflammation and foreign invaders with as many tools as possible. To read more about what you can do to help reduce inflammation in the body (likely resulting in weight loss), then check out our article on How To Be Successful On Your Weight Management Journey.

A Sneaky Secret: The Gut Microbiome

Our gut microbiome greatly influences how our bodies metabolize and process food. This is becoming more and more understood in today’s world although the specific details remain a little murky. Part of that reason is because our microbiome is so vast! We rely on bacteria, fungi, virus, and parasite species to work in our gut. In a perfect world, these bugs would all be considered our friendly inhabitants. Although for a myriad of reasons, we know an imbalance of our gut microbes can result in some very unwanted symptoms.

Even excess weight is now known to be one of those symptoms. Repeatedly, research is showing that certain imbalances in gut microbial populations are being found in people who are overweight or obese.

But, Why Does This Matter?

Our gut wears many hats. We know the obvious: it oversees the breakdown and absorption of nutrients from our food and then it carries the waste outside of our bodies. But we need to give our gut much more credit than that. It also carries out these two very important functions:

• Immune system regulation = Our gut oversees many immune functions, but most importantly it houses 70-80% of our immune cells. If you’re interested in learning more about how to maintain the integrity of our gut, check out our write up on Leaky Gut.
• Endocrine regulation = The gut microbiome also greatly influences the very complex system that controls our hormones. To put it simply, our hormones are little communicators that run around in the body and instruct our organs to act in a certain way. A few of those functions control our metabolism of food, appetite, digestion and even brain function.

These two important factors are very connected to weight gain and obesity. So, if we can better understand what influences our gut microbiome, then we can look at how to target specific microbial populations.

Key Takeaways from Recent Microbiome Studies

1. Continued confirmation that certain strains of bacteria are either beneficial or damaging (causing more inflammation) to our overall gut health. This is important to identify because we know that many obesity-related diseases, like Type 2 Diabetes and heart disease, are associated with ongoing chronic inflammation.
2. Certain Bifidobacterium species help to work against obesity. Such as:
3. B. longum
4. B. bifidum
5. B. breve
6. B. dentium
7. B. infantis
8. A few specific Lactobacillus strains were also identified to be helpful in creating an environment that helps to reduce inflammation and obesity. Specifically:
9. L. acidophilus
10. L. hominis
11. L. iners

We are all for learning more about simple, targeted treatments to aid in the journey of weight loss and management! If this feels right for you, then maybe trying probiotics could be an easy addition. We dedicated a whole write up to Probiotics as there is so much benefit to these little buggers. Check out our write up if you would like to learn more.

Supplement Spotlight

We explain more about this particular supplement in our Supplements for Supporting a Healthy Weight article, but wanted to briefly share some specific options that are now available in light of these recent microbiome studies.

Nutritional GLP-1 Support (not medications):

There are many companies on the market now offering GLP-1 support. To be clear, these are supplements and are not the same as the GLP-1 prescription medications (like Wegovy, Mounjaro, or Ozempic).

Some examples include:

• Prebiotic fibers
• Certain probiotics/postbiotics
• Bitter compounds (e.g., hops-derived xanthohumol)

These supplements are an exciting new option for people looking to support metabolic health, appetite regulation, and digestive balance without taking drugs. These are a nutritional support formula that are designed to enhance the natural GLP-1 signaling and gut health.

How do these GLP-1 supplements help?

1. Enhance GLP-1 receptor activation using synergistic ingredients.
2. Reduce food cravings and promote feelings of fullness.
3. Support digestive health and regularity.
4. Help sustain balanced glucose regulation and metabolic balance.
5. Support appetite regulation and satiety signals.

How do these differ from Prescription GLP-1 Drugs?

• Prescription GLP-1 medications (like Ozempic, Mounjaro, or Wegovy) are peptides that directly activate GLP-1 receptors at levels comparable to endogenous hormones, with well-studied effects on appetite, insulin secretion, gastric emptying, and weight loss.
• Supplements that support your natural GLP-1 hormone use food-based fibers, probiotics, and botanicals to indirectly influence gut health and metabolic pathways that may support GLP-1 signaling, but they don’t substitute for pharmacologic GLP-1 activity and have much subtler effects.
• These supplement options are not a replacement for prescription GLP-1 medications. These supplements are a much gentler approach to weight loss and will not be as effective. However, they do come with less side effects.

Reminder: Like all supplements, individuals should consult with their healthcare provider before use… especially if they are taking medications, have health conditions, or are on GLP-1 drugs already.

Top 5 Tests to Ask Your Doctor About

Here are some helpful labs to discuss with your doctor. Evaluating the results of these tests listed below along with a BMI measurement, would be a much stronger assessment of one’s overall health.

1. hs-CRP = This is an inflammatory marker that helps to give insight to the level of systemic inflammation in the body. Depression and obesity (among other disease states) are correlated with elevated hs-CRP.
2. Lipid Profile = This will look at cholesterol levels which are important to assess as we know there is a direct correlation between elevated cholesterol levels and heart disease. If you are interested in learning more about Cholesterol and the ongoing debate, check out our write up where we dive deeper into the research here: Cholesterol.
3. TSH, Free T3 and Free T4 = These will evaluate the function of your thyroid gland. If you’re interested in understanding more about how our Thyroid function is related to the overall health of our body, then check out our Thyroid write up here: Thyroid.
4. HbA1c = This will give insight to your average blood sugar over the last 3 months and help determine if you have insulin resistance. This is helpful information to have because persistent elevated blood sugars will eventually lead to Pre-Diabetes or Diabetes which is correlated with poor health outcomes. Check out our Diabetes write up here: Diabetes.
5. Fasting Insulin = Along the same lines as HbA1c, this will help evaluate how sensitive your body is to insulin. Over time, poor diet choices can lead to the insulin receptors on our cells to become “desensitized”. This is not good news. We want our body to be appropriately responsive to insulin. This will help us stay in a state of balanced health and avoid sliding closer to developing diabetes.

Worthy Mention: Lifestyle Factors

Lifestyle factors are important as well. Subjective data can be as important as objective data! Your lab results give us a snapshot as to how your body is handling life in that particular moment, but your lifestyle factors can give more insight as to some potential future health outcomes.

To Wrap Up…

We hope you’ve learned a little more about how and why weight loss can be such a struggle for so many people. The good news is there are many minor lifestyle changes that can carry a lot of weight (pun intended).

Feel free to peruse our Weight Management category for more informative topics!