Fatigue and weight gain: A vicious cycle

You’re gaining weight, or for some reason can’t gain weight, and as a result you are tired. Because you’re 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 and not the weight! What are you to do?

While being overweight is fatiguing, in and of itself, it may not be the only reason you don’t have enough energy 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 for, 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 regimen can be more so. Exercises such as “Tabata,” where you exercise “all out” for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds and repeat seven more times, may be a better option for those limited on energy. This is a very rigorous four minute exercise, originally developed in the 1970s for Japanese Olympians. It is a great fat-burning regimen 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 major players in fatigue and weight management. Attend tonight’s health class, “Adrenals & Thyroid: Answers to Fatigue and Weight Gain,” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 16 at Vital Health in Coeur d’Alene. Discover how the adrenals and thyroid function, what causes them to perform at a suboptimal level and how their reduced function affects your life and your waistline.

Though I’ve made this article seem simplistic it is actually 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.

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Holly Carling is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, Licensed Acupuncturist, Doctor of Naturopathy, Clinical Nutritionist and Master Herbologist with nearly four decades of experience. Carling is a “Health Detective.” She looks beyond your symptom picture and investigates WHY you are experiencing your symptoms in the first place. Carling is currently accepting new patients and offers natural health care services and whole food nutritional supplements in her Coeur d’Alene clinic. Visit Carling’s website at www.vitalhealthcda.com to learn more about Carling, view a list of upcoming health classes and read other informative articles. Carling can be reached at 208-765-1994 and would be happy to answer any questions regarding this topic.