The various causes of weight gain

Causes weight gain from the beginning of life, are many and varied. But they all come to the same result: the filling of fat cells, so the extra pounds.

Weight and heredity

Research and development of the study of genetics, in recent years have identified gradually genes involved in lipid metabolism and weight gain.

We now know that there are genes that influence appetite, secretion of enzymes needed to burn fat and curb their storage.

If you have a father or a mother too big, the risk is estimated to grow to 40%.

If both parents are above their normal weight, the risk is 80%.

A total injustice prevails in this area, but it is so. We can not change their genetic inheritance.

A cause of weight gain: poor eating habits

They are too often made in childhood. A child born in a family where "great food" is daily, and / or force-fed by an anguished mother who thinks that all problems are solved by eating, inevitably a stock of a few billion more adipocytes. Although he has the chance to not gain weight very quickly, he acquires bad eating habits. And he always refuge in food at the slightest problem.

Physical inactivity is a cause of weight gain

Less we move, less energy is spent. Car, no sports, walking, watching TV stays, etc. Physical inactivity is a major cause of weight gain.

Pregnancy and weight gain

Pregnancy is a period of pre-adipocytes into adipocytes transformation. Hence the pounds that accumulate with each pregnancy.

Weight and hormonal cycle outlet

The hormonal cycle often modifies appetite. There may be a lot less hungry during the menstrual period and that of previous days that ovulation, food cravings be a victim during the second half of the cycle. Estrogens, whose secretion is greatest during the first half of the cycle, rather decrease appetite while progesterone (production predominates in the second half) increases. The alternation between the secretion of these two hormones is the same hormonal cycle gasoline. One kilogram taken during the last two weeks is normally lost and without effort over the next two weeks. But for various reasons, many of which are still unknown, this cycle can be capricious. Estrogens facilitate the storage of fat in adipocytes thighs and hips. If their secretion is a little too large, the pounds settle.

One possible cause of weight gain: contraception

A large majority of women on hormonal contraception does not gain weight while others grow. The pill, which brings hormones as drug alters the natural hormonal balance. This is strictly individual is unique to each woman. Vis-à-vis the pill reactions can be as different from one woman to another. It can not increase or appetite, slow or non physical activity, change or not energy expenditure. If the feeling of hunger is increasing, so we eat more and it grows. But it is more difficult to notice a small physique, insidious slowdown. We see that we take the pounds although food is not changed. Weight gain may also occur after an IUD which nevertheless alter hormonal balance. Then it is a psychological conflict, contraception is unconsciously experienced as a castration. Hence an imbalance that leads to find elsewhere compensation, a need to fill ... eating.

Weight gain and age

Around age 50, menopause sets in women. The activity of the ovaries slows and the production of sex hormones decreases. They determine the location of the fat. But they do not play on quantity. Grow from 50 years is absolutely not inevitable because the energy expenditure is not reduced sufficiently to justify the weight. The pounds are psychological in origin related to the fear of aging: loss of seduction, fear of not being as good, no one escapes even if one magnifies the delights of the third and fourth ages looming on the horizon. Age is for everyone, men and women, a very good excuse for some sloppiness food and increased physical inactivity. Hence pounds more. In fact, there is no more reason to gain weight at age 50 to 30 years unless you let yourself go to absorb more calories than it spends.

A cause of weight gain: smoking cessation

Tobacco is a drug as soon as you can no longer do without. Quitting smoking is a good move to preserve his health. But she often punishes by weight. Nicotine is an exciting nervous system, but it also has an anorectic effect: one cigarette just before a meal cut or limit the appetite. Once the nicotine is removed from the body, hunger is stronger so we eat more. In addition, smoking consumes energy, about twenty calories per cigarette. This energy expenditure is deleted. To maintain a balance between food and energy inputs outputs should eat less to compensate for this expenditure. However, the appetite is increased due to the absence of tobacco anorectic. Finally, we often feel a great need to suck sugary foods to compensate for lack to also replace the routine act of raising the cigarette to his mouth. Decreased energy expenditure, appetite and increased fat snacks / sweet is making the decision almost inevitable weight, unless one really has a strong will to resist snacking and to increase simultaneously its caloric expenditure doing a lot of sport.

A cause of weight gain: stop sports

The more we practice a sport, the more energy expenditure, that is obvious. Energy needs to be important, accordingly we eat to satisfy them. Which is quite normal. You get used to a diet rich hearty and where discipline does not rule since it does not grow. Very often when sport crashes, for one reason or another, injury or change of lifestyle, we keep the same diet, simply because we have used. Energy expenditure is reduced, but the calorie intake remains the same, the weight gain is inevitable. But if we then think to eat less, if we are compelled to reduce its calorie quota, it does not grow.

Serotonin and snacks

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that acts among others on appetite, satiety, mood, sleep and stress. It is secreted in the brain from a precursor which is an amino acid, tryptophan. It must be substantial concentration in neurons and it can be if the diet is rich in carbohydrates. It may lack serotonin for various reasons:

The meals do not provide enough carbs, when we systematically deprives bread (often not fat!)

When is a victim of stress because it mobilizes a lot. The instinctive desire for a sweet product often has a compelling need to serotonin in the body: it nibbles and feels better then as peaceful.

Or when the serotonin regulation system is not working well. This is the case in "carbohydrate cravers" sugar hungry who have uncontrollable impulses towards sugary products. For them, they are like a drug that calms.

Whatever the origin, lack of carbohydrates, very stressful life and eating disorder, these sweet impulses to manufacture serotonin unbalance necessarily food, either by making too many simple carbohydrates, or by providing too much fat together with the carbohydrate (the majority of snack products are sweet and fat), or by providing generally too many calories. What makes gaining weight.

Drugs and weight gain

Antidepressants, tranquilizers promote weight gain because they slow basal metabolism. This is a good reason not absorb these drugs if we have not really need. Cortisone over a long period also has the same effect. It increases appetite and inhibits the excretion of sodium (salt). It may be necessary to make appropriate arrangements.