Tuesday 26 March 2013

Weight gain: Are food intolerances to blame?

 

Are you following all of the weight loss rules — counting calories, counting carbs, exercising — and yet still struggling with stubborn pounds? Making things worse, are you also experiencing a perpetual state of fatigue, achiness and bloat? Your so-called healthy diet may be to blame.


If you’re experiencing a losing battle of the bulge, along with chronic health issues, it’s no wonder you’re frustrated, wondering if you’re ever going to feel better. Guess what? All of these symptoms can often be traced back to what you eat. And often the culprits are the very foods you’re eating in an effort to be healthy. The reason is food intolerance: a negative reaction to certain foods that can sabotage your health by triggering inflammation and causing a host of nasty symptoms.


Unlike food allergies that are acute and severe, food intolerances can be tricky to pinpoint. If someone with a peanut allergy eats peanuts, she can go into anaphylactic shock and immediately need medical attention — this is acute and severe. Someone with a food intolerance, on the other hand, will experience subtle symptoms that can worsen over time.


Food intolerances fire up your immune system just like food allergies do, but their effect is more subtle and symptoms may not appear for several hours or even days, after you’ve eaten a highly reactive food. So you may not make the connection between, say, the egg-white omelet you had for breakfast and that late-afternoon splitting headache. Food intolerances develop when you repeatedly eat a highly reactive food. They can trigger leaky gut, immune reactions and inflammation, and can also stall fast fat loss.


Food intolerances trigger numerous symptoms. If you recognize even one of these symptoms, you could be suffering from a food intolerance.

Digestive trouble – bloating, gas, constipation, diarrheaSleep issues – fatigue, insomnia, restlessness, waking during the nightCongestion, sneezing and coughingMuscle aches and joint painDark circles under your eyesDull, lifeless hairSkin problems, including acne and rosaceaMood problems – lack of focus, brain fog, depression, anxiety or irritabilityPoor or unsteady energyPremature agingWeight gain or inability to lose weight

Because food intolerances trigger an immune reaction, they can also cause inflammation. Chronic inflammation is connected to just about every disease on the planet, from dementia to cancer. Inflammation also makes fat loss impossible.


When my clients eliminate highly reactive foods from their diet, their symptoms disappear, they look and feel better, and they lose weight. Those last stubborn pounds their bodies clung to finally go away.


I’ve narrowed food intolerances down to seven common culprits: soy, eggs, gluten, dairy, peanuts, corn and sugar/artificial sweeteners.


You know that sugar is bad, but some of the other foods may shock you. “But what about whole grain goodness,” clients ask me, “and my favorite health expert who said eggs are nature’s perfect food?” My response is that some of these foods can be healthy — unless you have food intolerances. One problem is that people tend to over-rely on certain foods, and repeatedly eating them can create food intolerances over time.


Try removing the above foods for three weeks, and chances are you’ll look and feel dramatically different. Besides a decrease in chronic symptoms, you may finally see weight loss in the first week alone. Seeing is believing, so take my challenge and completely eliminate these seven foods for three weeks (it's only three weeks!). You can learn more about how these foods create havoc in your body in The Virgin Diet.


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View the original article here

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