Do you feel like your doing everything right yet struggling to shed those few extra kg's?

It could be down to internal hormone imbalances - any and all hormonal imbalance can lead to difficulty in loosing weight. Unfortunately the most common hormonal imbalances cannot be solved just by altering your food intake. If you haven’t been successful in dropping the kg’s it may be down to one or more of the following:

1. Inflammation

Digestive disorders, allergies, autoimmune disease, arthritis, asthma, eczema, acne, abdominal fat, headaches, depression or sinus disorders are associated with chronic inflammation, which has become recognized as the root cause of obesity and most diseases associated with aging. At the 2007 Postgraduate Nutrition Symposium at Harvard University, researchers revealed findings suggesting that inflammation and excess insulin are the major contributors to rising rates of type 2 diabetes and the overall fattening of America.

If you think inflammation may be the culprit try: 

Improve your digestive health by adding l-glutamine to assist with digestion and the break down of food as well as general stomach health. 

Get your immune system in check. Many experts now view inflammation as a symptom of an immune system in constant overdrive. When the body is stuck in this state, even ordinarily mild stressors such as viral infections, emotional stress or exposure to household chemicals can cause the immune system to wildly overreact. Adding colostrum into your diet is a great way to assist with your immune system and general bodily functions. 

Get rid of the nasty nutritional habits, over carb eating can contribute to inflammation, so get your macros in order stat!

Test your blood inflammatory levels

Add in systemic enzymes

2. Excess insulin

Insulin is an essential substance whose main function is to process sugar in the bloodstream and carry it into cells to be used as fuel or stored as fat. However if your in taking too much sugar based foods your stored body fat is likely in increase, despite restricting your calories if you are still in taking high sugar levels it will be harder to move that fat, especially in the abdominal region. The main culprits for excess insulin are, consuming too many nutrient-poor carbohydrates (the type found in processed foods, sugary drinks and sodas, packaged low-fat foods and artificial sweeteners), insufficient protein intake, inadequate fat intake and deficient fiber consumption.

3. Depression or anxiety

Serotonin exerts a powerful influence over our mood, emotions, memory, cravings (especially for carbohydrates), self-esteem, pain tolerance, sleep habits, appetite, digestion and body temperature regulation. When we’re depressed or down, we naturally crave more sugars and starches to stimulate the production of serotonin.

Plenty of sunlight; a healthful diet rich in protein, minerals and vitamins; regular exercise and good sleep support serotonin. When we measure our current lifestyle against all the elements necessary for the body’s natural production of serotonin, the wide ranging epidemic of low serotonin is certainly not surprising. Add in chronic stress and multitasking — two of the main causes of serotonin depletion — and it’s a wonder any one of us has been left unaffected by low serotonin.

4. Toxic estrogen

Researchers have identified excess estrogen (in both sexes) to be as great a risk factor for obesity as poor eating habits and lack of exercise.

There are two ways to accumulate excess estrogen in the body: we either produce too much of it on our own or acquire it from our environment or diet. We’re constantly exposed to estrogen-like compounds in foods that contain toxic pesticides, herbicides and growth hormones. A premenopausal woman with estrogen dominance will likely have PMS, too much body fat around the hips and difficulty losing weight. Menopausal women and men may experience low libido, memory loss, poor motivation, depression, loss of muscle mass and increased belly fat. Diindoylymethane (DIM) can assist with levelling out hormone levels. 

References

You and Your Hormones (http://www.clearmedicine.com/the-hormone-diet )

Osterberg ET AL. (2000) Effect of acute resistance exercise on postexercise oxygen consumption and resting metabolic rate in young women. International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism.10(1):71-81.

Schuenke ET AL. (2002) Effect of an acute period of resistance exercise on excess post-exercise oxygen consumption: Implicationsfor body mass management European Journal of Applied Physiology. 86:411-417.