ALCAT Test & Weight Loss
Food sensitivities knock the body’s biochemistry out of balance. As we know inflammation in our body contributes to Alzheimer’s, cancer, neurological diseases, autoimmune diseases, arthritis, and much more. These inflammatory mediators also have an effect on metabolism, which inhibit the fat burning, or induce the storage of fat.
With chronic biochemistry out of balance the metabolism becomes sluggish, the immune system becomes impaired, the digestive tract develops leaks, insulin and other hormones become imbalanced, and the body loses control of the neurotransmitters that control appetite.
Food allergies, inflammation and weight problems are intimately related. Eating foods to which you are allergic causes inflammation which makes your adrenal glands secrete hormones which destabilize your insulin and blood sugar levels. The high level of insulin affects the activity of two enzymes which cause your body to hold on to and deposit fat rather than allowing you to burn it for energy. Thus, food allergies can lead to weight gain, and a high amount of body fat can promote inflammation and exacerbate problems with allergies.
Excess body fat contributes to inflammation, although we may not be aware that we are experiencing silent inflammation. As we gain weight, our bodies do not add more fat cells. The fat cells we already have become larger and are filled with more fat instead. They may leak as they are stretched more and more. Then immune cells called macrophages come in to clean up the mess. The macrophages release inflammatory chemicals in the fatty tissues as they are cleaning up. This inflammatory response may be the mechanism behind many of the negative effects of overweight on health.
When your body counteracts inflammation by producing anti-inflammatory chemicals, some of them interfere with the function of the hormone leptin. In optimally healthy people, leptin is responsible for automatically maintaining weight at the right level. Some people do not gain weight no matter what they eat. If they overeat, their well-functioning leptin control system boosts their metabolism and decreases their appetite to restore them to their best weight. When leptin is made ineffective by inflammation, the dysfunction is called leptin resistance, meaning that even though you have normal or high levels of leptin, your leptin does not work to suppress appetite and speed metabolism, so it is a struggle to achieve or maintain a healthy weight.
This may sound like a depressing vicious cycle. Excess fat leads to inflammation and the chemicals that counteract inflammation (which are necessary to keep silent inflammation from causing symptoms) make it impossible for the body’s weight-control hormone, leptin, to function properly. But don’t despair – there is a way to break this cycle. There is also good news: As you slim down, leptin resistance abates and when you reach a healthy weight on the correct eating plan for you, you should not have to struggle to maintain a healthy weight. Your newly-functional leptin system will control your appetite and weight.
Weight loss is actually NOT all about calories; it is about controlling hormones such as insulin, cortisol, and leptin and decreasing inflammation.
