Spoiler Alert. It’s INFLAMMATION.
Inflammation? What!? You hear “inflammation” and you probably think of acute inflammation, which happens when you stub your toe, get a cut or a burn, or even a black eye. Your body’s natural inflammatory response is redness, warmth, swelling and maybe even numbing. This acute inflammation is necessary and is your body’s mechanism to help protect and heal itself— this type of inflammation is GOOD.
However, the kind that is blocking you from losing any weight, and keeping you stuck in a painful cycle of diets that don’t work and belly fat that’s not going away….THIS is the BAD kind of inflammation. And this is what I’ve found to be the #1 reason why EVERY SINGLE WOMAN I’ve worked with over the past 12 years has not been able to lose weight and keep it off…until working with me. 🙂
Okay, I’m listening…
Great! So, the kind of inflammation you need to get rid of in order for your dieting and exercise efforts to actually be fruitful is this chronic kind.
And chronic inflammation is very sneaky—especially because the symptoms aren’t obvious like they are with acute inflammation. Chronic inflammation manifests itself in different ways from one person to another. In one woman, inflammation may show up as acne or achy joints or headaches. In another, her inflammation may show up as belly fat and out of control sugar cravings. And in everyone, inflammation shows up as your #1 weight loss blocker.
The real problem with it is that you can’t see it, and you can’t feel it. Chronic inflammation is low grade and systemic, festering deep inside of you, constantly engaged and growing, blocking you from your weight loss while causing all kinds of damage beyond weight gain.
It’s not just weight gain, either
Furthermore, inflammation doesn’t just make your body incapable of losing weight. Science shows that inflammation is at the root of heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and joint diseases, allergies, Alzheimer’s, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), and there’s even a link to cancer.
So, even though it definitely impacts your weight, we need to take care of this debilitating chronic inflammation to be healthier overall.
How can inflammation halt weight loss?
If you have any amount of inflammation in your body, the last thing your body will focus on is fat-burning! Your body is designed to first and foremost SURVIVE, so it always prioritizes taking care of big fires in your body to keep you alive, so that’s where it allocates its resources when this is present.
Your body knows inflammation is bad, so it allocates all of its energy toward destroying it. Until this chronic inflammation is taken care of, you won’t have much (if any) energy leftover for burning fat, or feeling vibrant, energetic or healthy. In fact, it’s practically impossible to lose weight while in this constant battle with the inflammation inside of you (and even if you were to lose a few pounds with strict dieting, you’ll surely end up gaining it all back because you did so without addressing the actual reason for the pounds hanging on in the first place!).
How do I know if I have inflammation?
If you haven’t done anything to destroy it, it’s there. And if you’ve got any of the red flags my team and I look for: belly fat, low energy, cravings for carbs or sweets, trouble sleeping, joint aches, back pain, digestive issues, skin issues, or pounds that won’t budge no matter how hard you try, then it’s there.
Inflammation is the root cause of ALL weight gain and chronic disease, and almost ALL of us have it for one reason or another.
How did I get this inflammation!?
Chronic Inflammation can be caused by:
- Sugar
- Artificial sweeteners
- Refined carbohydrates (bread, pasta, cereal, crackers and of course, cookies, muffins, bagels)
- Vegetable oils (canola, soybean, corn, safflower, sunflower, etc.)
- Trans fats
- Stress
- Over-exercise
- Alcohol
- Food sensitivities
- Lack of sleep
- Conventionally raised meat
- Hormonal imbalance
- Smoking
As you can see, most of these are lifestyle habits that YOU can personally manage, which is great! It’s empowering to know that we have it in our control to halt any further inflammation from happening.
But, if you’re anything like me, you’ve got years of inflammation already under your belt. (Pun intended.) Who would have thought that sandwiches on whole grain bread could cause inflammation? And didn’t they say exercise was good for us? Weren’t we told that vegetable oils were healthy for our heart? And aren’t artificial sweeteners supposed to be a better alternative to sugar?
But it’s true. Eating foods that our body cannot process (like artificial sweeteners, trans fats and damaged oils) and embracing inflammation-triggering habits (like over-exercise, sleep deprivation, or a few too many glasses of wine) put a lot of stress on our body over time. Think of it as little fires in your body…and if any of these triggers are happening on a daily basis, your body, in essence, is in a state of emergency, and it’s going to be allocating all of its resources toward putting out that fire (read: healing the inflammation.).
How do I get rid of the inflammation?
This is the most exciting part of it all! Until now, you didn’t know why your diets and workouts weren’t working. You probably even felt a little crazy, or like there was something wrong with YOU because no matter how hard you tried, nothing seemed to work. Good news: It’s not your fault! There’s not something wrong with your body, and your system isn’t broken. This is the reason you’ve been struggling all this time.
There are some simple steps you can take right now to get rid of the inflammation, so that you can start to lose weight (and keep it off!) because you are healing the underlying reason for it in the first place!
I’ve done a lot of research on this, and there’s a lot to learn! Go ahead and download the free guide I created to get you started. I’m going to walk you through the step-by-step process of getting rid of inflammation so that you can finally be liberated from the endless dieting cycles and lose the weight once and for all!
Click to download the free guide to learn the 7 simple ways to heal inflammation and melt away those unwanted pounds.
