You’re gaining weight (or for some reason can’t gain weight) and as a result are tired. Because you are tired, you don’t have the energy to do what is needed to lose the weight. You feel like you’re fighting a losing battle – but you’re losing your mental and physical energy, not the weight! What are you to do?
While being overweight is fatiguing, in of itself, it may not be the only reason you don’t have enough get-up-and-go to get up and get going. Maybe you do. Maybe you are forcing yourself to work out but nothing helpful seems to be happening.
For some, working out at a gym, walking every day, or doing strenuous exercise is just the key that is needed to start the process of losing weight…. if only you could get the energy to do it. For others, you push yourself to work out, even though you are fatigued, and it isn’t working off the weight no matter what you do. If you work out more than you have the energy to do it, you could be doing more harm than good. Using up valuable energy resources to work out may actually make you resistant to losing weight as your body tries to hold on to all the reserves it can.
While a gym can no doubt be helpful, sometimes a simple at home regime can be more so. Exercises such as “Tabata” where you exercise “all out” for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds and repeat 7 more times may be a better option for those limited on energy. This is a very rigorous 4 minute exercise, originally developed in the 1970’s for Japanese Olympians. It is a great fat-burning regime that you can adjust to the level you are at.
But that is just a small snippet of what is needed. Not all energy sucks are exercise related. As you gain weight, the body compensates by increasing vascularization to support the extra girth. That means blood has to flow through more feet of arteries, which takes energy to do.
You may also be insulin resistant. Now the energy you are supposed to get from the foods you eat aren’t making it to a cellular level. As a result, the mitochondria – your energy machines within the cells – aren’t firing off and providing energy. This can be helped with the right nutrition.
The adrenals and the thyroid glands are also responsible for energy production. There are many things that affect these two important glands and an understanding of what those are and how you can change it is important. Though I’ve made this article seem simplistic, it is complex, but not so much so that you can’t get a handle on things. We’d like to help you to end the vicious cycle of fatigue and weight gain, once and for all.
©2019 Holly A. Carling, O.M.D., L.Ac., Ph.D.
