How weight gain occurs

By Angela Young 14 months ago

Weight gain can occur through a variety of different ways, both intentional and unintentional. Weight gain is explained simply through the consumption of more calories than the body burns during the day. One pound equals 3500 calories, so you can easily calculate how much you would gain or lose based on your diet and activity level.

Other Causes

There are medical causes to weight gain that can be treated and help you lose the weight. Among these are endocrine disorders. These include Cushing syndrome and others. Other common causes of weight gain that happens unintentionally include:

• High carb, high calorie diet
• Quitting smoking
• Slow metabolism, slows with age
• Too many calories vs too little exercise
• Alcohol use
• Emotional factors
• Some medications
• Cushing syndrome

Talk to Your Doctor

One of the first things you should do is talk with your doctor about potentional medical causes of weight gain. They can assess your medications and test you for Cushing Syndrome to ensure those are not a problem.

Lifestyle

Assess your food choices and activity level. Adjust so you are burning more calories than you are consuming. One of the best ways to do this is set a healthy daily calorie limit (approx 1200-1500 for dieting women) and log your food in a daily journal. There are a number of free sites that offer this service.

See a Therapist

There are many psychological factors that can cause weight gain. Among them are depression, emotional eating and other triggers that may cause you to eat too much and exercise too little. Working on these issues can make the lifestyle changes easier and keep you from gaining the weight back. 

You can identify unintentional weight gain and find a way to work through the causes and put your lifestyle back on a healthy track to find a slim new you.