Sometimes we have patients who are doing all the right things to improve their health and lose weight. They eat well, they exercise regularly, they sleep well…and yet they’re not getting the results they should. One place we’ll often look in these situations is food sensitivities.
Eating food you are sensitive to causes inflammation–it’s your body’s response to something it doesn’t tolerate well. Interestingly, this inflammation can cause weight gain through a few different mechanisms:
- Exorphins. Some foods break down into opioid-like substances which can create food cravings, very similar to drug cravings. That can cause us to overeat even if we aren’t hungry just to get the feel-good hit.
- Ghrelin, the hormone responsible for appetite stimulation, is released in response to inflammation. That makes us feel hungry even when we are not.
- Inflammation causes water to enter our cells and this leads to fluid retention and bloat, making you feel heavier then you actually are. Many of our patients who eliminate the foods they are sensitive to, lose 5-10 lbs almost right away, largely due to the loss of this water from the cells. That’s just water loss, but it can go a long way toward feeling successful in your quest for better health.
Finding out what you’re intolerant to is easy. A simple blood test can measures your reaction to 96 different foods, and an elimination and re-introduction diet can help to determine what might be causing your imbalance.