Piling up kilos inspite of a calorie controlled diet and regular exercise…
It becomes quite hard to understand why those extra pounds keep piling up inspite of eating a healthy diet, keeping a check on calorie intake and exercising regularly. Gaining weight can be totally maddening when you don’t understand why the needle keeps going high on the scale. It is more likely that you are becoming fatter because of a combination of things, more than just one factor. We list down a few probable reasons that you may not have paid attention to.
Lack of sleep: For your body to function appropriately, it needs complete rest and an undisturbed eight-hour sleep. Your body experiences psychological stress when you don’t sleep properly and biochemically, it becomes more efficient in storing fat. Also, when you are tired, you don’t handle stress the best way and end up binging to cope up. When you are working late hours, invariably your desk is stocked with chips and biscuits and what nots and all you do it just snack on. Generally, you come to know when you haven’t slept well, but if you have been too busy to think, watch out for these symptoms – fatigue, low energy levels, nodding off easily and irritation.
Stress: It is something which is true for most of us – juggling way too many responsibilities, excessive work load, office politics, relationships breaking down, financial pressures, unreasonable bosses and a lot more. It all leads to one thing – stress – and triggers a biochemical process where our bodies go into survival mode. Our bodies start storing fuel, slowing down the metabolism rate and dumping out chemicals which are likely to cause obesity, especially, in the abdominal area.
Medication: Depending on the kind of drug you have been prescribed, the reasons may vary for the weight gain, as each medicine works a bit differently – from increasing the appetite to how the fat is stored in body to changing the insulin levels. Drugs used to treat depression, seizures, mood disorders, blood pressure, diabetes and migraine can all cause weigh gain. Certain oral contraceptive pills may also cause the pounds to pile up gradually.
Medical Condition: If you have been feeling lethargic, hoarse voice, swelling, intolerance to cold, sleeping too much and headaches, you must visit a doctor to test for hypothyroidism. It is one of the most common medical causes behind weight gain, where a person experiences appetite loss but weight gain which happens due to the deficiency of thyroid hormone which slows down the metabolism rate.
