If you're considering going on a diet to lose a few pounds, it's helpful to know things that affect your weight because they're not all as obvious as you might think. When it comes to weight loss, we all know about the dynamic duo of diet and exercise. It’s no lie when people say that those two are really the only things that you should be doing when trying to shift those extra pounds, but the matter of body weight can sometimes be more complicated than you might imagine. You might not know it, but there are plenty of other things besides the food that you put into your body that can have an impact on your weight. Let’s take a further look, shall we? Here are some surprising things that can affect your weight, sometimes on a day to day basis!
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1. Gut Microbes
Thanks to gut microbes, two identical adult twins can have different weights by more than five or six stone! They live deep in your gut, and the more you have, the thinner you a likely to be because they all like to dine on and absorb food that you eat. The fewer microbes you host in your gut, the more calories you are likely to absorb with each and every meal.
2. Genes
There might not be such a thing as being big boned, but there is definitely a genetic factor to weight. Up to 70% of the weight you carry can be determined by your genes, affecting things like appetite, metabolism and the places on your body that excess like to be stored. Changes in diet and exercise will obviously help this, but you can only fight genetics so far.
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3. The Time
Ideally, you should start the day with a big breakfast, have a medium lunch and then a small dinner, because our bodies have a much harder time digesting food efficiently during the night. You will have burned the bulk of your daily calories before 7pm every day, so eating lots of food after then will always lead to the risk of extra weight gain.
4. Brain Tricks
Sticking to a diet is just as much about tricking your brain into going along with you as it is the actual food choices. You need to do things like remove all visual temptations from your home to increase your willpower. You can also make the simple switches in habits like opting for the diet version of all soft drinks and buying a set of smaller dinner plates so that you still look like you are having a big, full portion every day.
5. Hormones
Basically, our appetites are dictated by our hormones, and there isn’t always a lot you can do to try to control your hormones. However, in extreme cases, surgery is an option. Bariatric surgery is an operation that involves reducing the size of your stomach by as much as 90%, but you can only be considered for this operation if you have a BMI of at least 35.