10 Sneaky things making you Fat
10 Sneaky Things Making You Fat
Time to Get Lean and Actually Stay That Way.
Here's what you need to know...
The bacteria in your gut makes you crave more of what you already eat. If you want to crave healthier food, eat healthier food.
Food impacts the reward centers of the brain. Consuming more junk food will make it less rewarding unless you consume even more.
Some people need more structure than others in order to stay motivated. Figure out if you need a strict plan or tons of leeway.
Build muscle. Stop looking for a lifting program that won't add size. Hypertrophy isn't just for the lean. It can help you get lean.
Quit making up your own diet strategies without assessing them. Testing new things is fine... unless they're working against you.
The Less-Obvious Issues
Most people know exactly why they're carrying around too much fat: they eat garbage and they don't move much. It's obvious.
But there are others who do try to train hard and improve their diets, and yet they still struggle. Maybe they lose some fat, but it always seems to boomerang right back.
Sound familiar? Here are 10 less-obvious things that could be the problem.
1 – You're Battling Bad Gut Bacteria
Cravings aren't "all in your head." They're partly caused by what's going on in your gut. Your diet creates an environment for your bacteria – both good and bad. Researchers call it an ecosystem.
Problem is, when you try to change your diet, your "bad" gut bacteria will demand to be fed, making you experience cravings. It's a lot like withdrawal symptoms.
Bill Roberts explains:
"Metabolically-unfavorable gut bacteria can cause cravings of the junk foods that best feeds them. They can also cause you to feel dysphoric (bad) feelings when they're deprived of their favorite foods.
"The good news is, you can break their control fairly quickly by not giving in. When you consistently don't give in, these bacterial populations reduce, you become metabolically healthier, and you start feeling better than ever."
Think of it almost like a relationship between parasite and host. To continue thriving, your gut bacteria consumes what you give it, and makes you feel physically deprived when you go without it.
Fix It
If your gut's ecosystem makes you crave what you consistently eat, then change your cravings by changing your gut's ecosystem.
Want to crave healthy foods? Then consistently consume them. Feed the good gut bacteria.
How do you get rid of the bacteria that makes you want more crap food? You starve those little bastards.
Yes, you'll feel "deprived" at first. Count on it. But you can survive without junk food. The bacteria that feeds off it can't.
Eventually you won't feel as compelled to have low-nutrition foods densely packed with calories (i.e. junk food).
2 – You're Battling Your Brain
When it comes to cravings, part of it is in your head.
Researchers say that our desire to eat a balanced diet is reduced when we eat high sugar, high fat foods – obesogenic foods.
This has a massive impact on your brain's reward centers, driving you to eat more of it and actually decreasing your appetite for nutritious food. Regularly eating crap food will make all other food less appealing. You'll also be fertilizing the bad gut bacteria discussed above.
The more junk food you eat, the less rewarding it becomes to the area of your brain that measures reward/pleasure. You'll have to consume more to get the same positive response.
Sure, some people can eat moderate amounts of junk food without repercussion, but many others can't. For them it often just opens the floodgates instead of satiating the appetite.
Fix It
Think ahead. If a chip is going to make you want half a bag of chips, then eat an apple or have a protein shake instead. You know which option will satisfy hunger and which one will set you up for rationalizing more.
Junk food is only tempting to two kinds of people: Those who regularly eat it and those who've just begun to avoid it.
People who've gone without it for a long time usually don't crave it. It won't be a temptation once you develop an appetite for higher quality foods.
And once you're living there, then the rare special occasions when you do splurge won't even make a dent.
Again, there will be a period of time where you just have to tough it out.
3 – You're Becoming Your Parents
Everyone says they'll never turn into their parents, yet most do. We either revert back to the habits we grew up with or we spend a lifetime fighting them.
Junk food lovers, overeaters, chronic sitters, drinkers, smokers, hoarders, you name it – if these are your parents, you're going to need to be even more conscientious about avoiding the same path.
This is how adulthood was modeled for you, but it's not just about behavior. Our genes are like the "hardware" that's passed down to us. Epigenetics, meaning above genetics, is like the "software" – changeable.
Geneticists now say that even the choices and life experiences of our parents – their epigenetics – impacts our DNA. So if your mom and dad smoked, drank excessively, ate like crap, and now get around via a motorized chair, then you may have inherited more than height and hair color.
Not only that, studies show that overweight women who give birth to overweight babies are setting them up for a higher body fat and propensity to grow up overweight or obese.
Bottom line: If your mom and dad were out of shape or unhealthy, you'll have a harder battle ahead than those whose parents weren't.
Fix It
Don't blame your parental unit, but don't "go with the flow" either. You'll need to be more intentional than those who grew up under different circumstances.
The way you live determines how your genes manifest. Because of epigenetics you can actually turn on or turn off certain genes through your behaviors.
Nobody has more control over your choices than you. Whether you think you inherited "fat genes" or just developed the same bad habits over time, all the more reason to avoid the shit your overweight relatives have been doing.
First, don't buy or bring home any of the nostalgic foods/drinks you fell in love with as a kid. Leave them in the past. Your life's pleasures shouldn't revolve around things which evidently make you fatter and less happy overall.
Eat like your parents and move like your parents, but only if you want to suffer the same maladies, take the same medications, and get around the same exact way.
Know your vices, know their vices, then do the opposite.
4 – You're Not Increasing Lean Body Mass
Lean body mass is everything on your body that's not fat. You can raise it by packing on more muscle. But if you're obsessed with the scale, you won't want to.
This type of thinking is detrimental and ignorant for someone who's carrying extra body fat.
But some people (yes, even men) don't want to gain muscle lifting weights, or they want to find the training program that's not going to add any size because they think they're already too big.
Fix It
Don't think of muscle as more weight on the scale or more size on your frame. Think of it as metabolically expensive tissue that will help you get leaner and eventually lose a lot of fat.
Muscle mass improves your body composition: the ratio of fat mass to lean mass. It can also help you lower your body fat set point.
The more muscle you have, the more food you can eat without much repercussion. Everyone whose built it already knows this little secret.
Stop trying to avoid hypertrophy. It's not just for bodybuilders. It's for everyone who wants a healthier, leaner body.
5 – You Lie to Yourself
Some people get serious about changing the way they eat, then as soon as their cart passes the crap food aisle, they grab a couple boxes of cookies or a few boxes of sugary cereal.
Why? Rationalization – the act of making plausible excuses to justify your destructive behaviors.
We've all been there; telling ourselves we're only going to have a small serving a day, or we're getting it to save until we've been "good" enough to deserve a treat.
There are endless rationalizations you could come up with. And when a craving hits, your own mind will betray you by making you believe you can't be happy or live fully without eating XYZ.
Some people even say they won't "deprive" themselves by avoiding cookies, ice cream, or cake. But clearly, nobody is deprived without these things.
If you think these foods are what make your life meaningful, then you need to get a life.
Fix It
Call yourself out. Think back to all the times you rationalized buying crap and then ate more than you intended.
You're pre-planning failure when you make excuses. The best way to keep yourself from doing it is to remove the opportunity.
Don't try to avoid food when it's in your home; avoid it when it's at the store. Because once you get home you'll make even more rationalizations about your appetite, or what you deserve, how hard you trained that day, or how avoiding junk food is an eating disorder.
If you have access to all the healthy food and water you need, you're not deprived, you're just deceived and dependent on junk. Wake up.
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