30-Second Summary
- Obesity or overweight affects millions of people worldwide.
- People search for the best weight loss tips or weight loss diets.
- The weight loss industry is flooded with fad diets and top-rated weight loss supplements.
- Weight loss is a complex process and involves both the brain and digestive system.
- Maintaining weight loss could be even more difficult.
- With aging, losing weight becomes more challenging.
- Slower metabolism, hormonal changes, unhealthy eating habits, excessive stress, and a sedentary lifestyle are the common reasons why many adults become obese or overweight.
- Long-term weight loss requires a long-term commitment.
- Thinking about your process and outcome goals will help you set a realistic weight loss strategy.
Common Weight Loss Hurdles For Adults
The CDC has revealed shocking data on adult obesity in the US. The obesity prevalence in the country has increased in recent years – from 30.5% to 42.4%. According to the CDC, adults aged 40 to 59 years rank high on the obesity prevalence list at 44.8%. Adults aged 60 and above follow closely at 42.8%, and next at 40% comes adults aged between 20 to 39 years. It would be wrong to say that people don’t think about weight management but losing weight could be quite challenging for adults after a certain age.
If you are obese or overweight and keep searching for the best weight loss tips that work, first, you need to identify the issues that can be your weight loss hurdles. So what are the obstacles that hit you hard while trying to lose weight? What biology-backed issues make shedding weight and maintaining it so difficult?
According to health experts, slow metabolism, hormonal changes, a sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy eating habits, excessive stress, and sleep deficiency are key factors that make weight loss difficult. Which among these do you think could impact your weight loss goal? How would you overcome these hurdles? Here we share 5 ways to overcome weight loss issues that come your way.
5 Weight Loss Hurdles And Ways To Overcome Them
- Sluggish Metabolism And Ways To Boost It – The series of chemical reactions by which the body converts foods and drink into energy is called metabolism. Metabolism plays a vital role in weight management. It works as an engine that never stops. Even when you are doing nothing or sleeping, your metabolism keeps working to keep the organs functioning.
This is called resting metabolism. How fast the metabolism works determines the number of calories it burns. People with a high metabolism burn calories faster and keep their weight in check. People with slow metabolism have lower energy expenditure and burn fewer calories. The following factors can slow your metabolism:
Consuming too few calories can affect your metabolism adversely.
Dehydration impacts metabolism negatively.
Aging affects metabolism. With aging, the muscle mass decreases, and fat mass increases.
Sticking to a low-carb diet for years.
6 Ways to Speed Up Metabolism
- Consume high protein meals. Start your day with a high-protein, low-sugar breakfast.
- Eat fiber-rich food.
- Stay hydrated. Drinking water helps burn more calories.
- Cardiovascular exercises help you burn more calories. HIIT training in the morning can boost metabolism.
- Sleep well. Sleep deficiency leads to metabolic dysregulation.
- Eat small meals at regular intervals.
- Healthy Eating Tips For Weight Loss For Adults – Unhealthy eating behaviors among young and middle-aged adults result in weight gain or obesity. The number of meals, portion size, canned or precooked food, drinking energy-rich beverages, watching TV while eating are all considered responsible for weight gain.
5 Dietary Strategies for Weight Loss
Making good dietary strategies can help you lose weight and sustain it. Follow these tips for better results with your weight loss goals:
- Opt for the volumetrics diet. Include non-starchy vegetables, fruits, cereals, grains, and lean proteins in your diet.
- Replace processed foods with fiber-rich whole foods.
- Cucumber, celery, and lettuce have high water content and are considered negative-calorie foods that help burn more calories.
- Stop emotional eating when you feel low or stressed. If you feel stressed or sad, go for a walk or listen to music instead of snacking.
- Practice mindful eating.
- Exercise And Get Into Shape – A sedentary lifestyle or physical inactivity is often the reason for weight gain. Therefore, while creating effective weight loss plans, it is crucial to promote physical activities. It is not mandatory to do HIIT training to become active. A brisk daily walk, a swimming session, taking stairs instead of elevators, doing aerobics or yoga may help you get active and shed pounds the healthy way.
Physical activities offer other additional benefits. Regular exercise can improve cardiovascular health, lower blood pressure, minimize stress, boost mood, and help you sleep. Wear a fitness tracker to track your progress and keep yourself motivated.
- Sleep And Weight Loss – What You Need To Know – Is there a link between sleep and weight loss? A study confirms that sleep deficiency is one behavioral factor that impedes weight loss. Lack of sleep or insufficient sleep disrupts appetite hormones – increasing ghrelin, which creates food cravings, and lowering leptin, which signals satiety. Sleep deficiency also impacts weight-loss interventions negatively.
5 Useful Tips to Sleep Better
- Performing gentle yoga poses may reduce stress, promote relaxation, and help
sleep better.
- Create a sleep routine with a consistent sleep-wake schedule and follow it.
- Avoid caffeine consumption before sleep.
- Avoid heavy meals at night.
- Diming the lights signal the brain to release melatonin, the sleep hormone.
- Are Hormones Your Hurdles To Weight Loss? – Hormones play a role in how fast you lose weight. As we age, there’s a decline in estrogen and testosterone levels. Estrogen promotes fat storage to conduct female reproductive functions during the reproductive years. During perimenopause, levels of progesterone decline, causing estrogen dominance.
Estrogen dominance is one of the reasons women accumulate fat around the belly, hips, thighs, and butt. Low testosterone in men creates energy deficiency, weight gain, and other health issues. As this study mentions, testosterone therapy promotes lean body mass and lowers total body fat mass in obese men.
Ghrelin: Ghrelin is called the hunger hormone. The stomach releases ghrelin to signal that it needs food. Increased levels of ghrelin trigger overeating.
Tips to optimize the levels of ghrelin in the body:
- Sleep well. Create a sleep cycle and follow it consistently.
- Lower stress. Research at the UT Southwestern Medical Center indicates that chronic stress boosts ghrelin levels that promote binge eating and cause weight gain.
- Your weight loss plans should include protein-rich meals that can significantly reduce body weight and keep ghrelin levels in check.
Leptin: Leptin is the satiety or anti-hunger hormone that signals the brain to stop eating. However, obese or overweight people often develop leptin resistance where the brain can’t receive the ‘i’m full’ signal. Leptin resistance causes overeating and burns fewer calories than it should, resulting in weight gain.
Tips to optimize the levels of leptin in the body:
- Exercise regularly.
- Cut down on processed foods.
- Get sufficient sleep.
- Try a cyclical ketogenic diet. A cyclical ketogenic diet implies that you will be in and out of ketosis within a cycle of 7 days – a stage where the body uses fat as fuel instead of glucose. Supplements such as Keto GT may help you get into ketosis faster and accelerate weight loss. Furthermore, a ketogenic diet may increase insulin sensitivity, which, in turn, may improve leptin sensitivity and lower ghrelin levels in the body.
Top-Rated Weight Loss Supplements: Do They Work?
Overweight or obese people often turn to dietary supplements for weight loss assistance. Many weight loss supplements are formulated with herbal extracts and stimulants that boost fat burning and suppress appetite to promote weight loss.
Ketogenic dietary supplements, such as Keto GT, include BHB ketones that quickly help users get into the state of ketosis. Dietary supplements that reduce appetite are often formulated with caffeine or green tea extract. However, the supplement industry could be tricky, and it is wise to buy from a renowned brand or one that your physician or dietician recommends.
The Final Advice
If you want to shed the extra pounds and maintain a healthy weight, the best weight loss tips we suggest are changing your lifestyle, focusing on mindful eating, and removing psychological blocks. Don’t let a negative body image damage your self-worth. Don’t let an occasional setback dampen your spirit. Stay motivated and boost your confidence by creating healthy weight loss plans. Set realistic goals.
