As a naturopath, products that promote themselves as ‘fat blasters’ aren’t my favourite. Usually, they’re filled with chemicals and highly processed ingredients. So, fat blasters are probably not good for you and they will NOT help achieve your long-term weight loss goals. Many ingredients are inflammatory to the gut which impedes long-term weight loss, and it’s unsustainable for the body.

Fad diets and ‘fat blasters’ only lead to one thing: unhealthy patterns and yo-yoing weight. Yes, you may lose weight (and fast, but we’ll talk about that later), but often the body does not maintain this weight loss. But why does this happen? Well, because weight-loss supplements are targeting those who want an easy solution. Unfortunately, with healthy weight loss, there usually isn’t one. Usually, the solution is a complete dietary and lifestyle overhaul. The bodies are extremely complicated, and maintaining a healthy weight is important for many reasons. Having ‘fat’ on your body isn’t the reason why it’s hard to lose, so ‘blasting’ it off doesn’t approach the underlying cause.

The causes of Weight Gain

This is extremely important in naturopathic medicine – finding the root cause and starting there! There are many reasons you may be struggling to lose weight, the two most common are:

1. Hormones: Dr Sara Gottfried, best-selling author, states most weight loss resistance has more to do with hormones than calories. Almost anyone who struggles with weight loss also has hormone imbalances. These can include excess cortisol (the stress hormone!), insulin or leptin blockage, or oestrogen dominance, just to name a few!
2. Stress: Your body doesn’t know the difference between life-in-danger stress and bad-week-at-work stress. Chronic stress can lead to HPA-axis dysfunction and excess cortisol, basically putting your body in fight-flight mode. This can shut down other, less “important” things, like your metabolism. Cortisol also tells our body to store fat (for energy), and when in excess, also links to food addictions and sugar cravings.

Losing weight fast also increases the load on the liver. Everything you consume, and everything you get rid of, goes through the liver. On top of that, a lot of toxins store themselves in adipose (fat) tissue. So when you start losing weight, these toxins all of a sudden are processed through the liver. This increased liver load can slow down your metabolism – therefore making it difficult to lose more weight if needed. Not to mention, this can cause an array of other health issues.

What IS healthy weight loss?

Healthy weight loss is considered losing weight at 1kg per week maximum. This is how much your body can really handle. Weight loss not meant to be a fast-tracked thing, as this often leads to rebounding weight gain!

The best way to lose weight is by firstly, addressing any underlying factor – such as those discussed above. It’s highly unlikely that if you are struggling with a hormonal weight gain,  under a great amount of stress, or your gut is heavily inflamed, any weight that you ‘blast’ off will stay off. Often these underlying factors can also use the help of diet and lifestyle – which will continue to assist you in your weight loss goals.

Diet approaches

The calorie-in calorie-out approach has long been touted as the only way to lose weight. While this may be true to some extent (if there’s no underlying factors), not all calories are created equal. The way your body metabolises 100 calories of sugar is completely different to how it metabolises 100 calories of protein – not to mention the effects these nutrients have once metabolised. If you are choosing your calories from a processed, highly inflammatory fat blasters supplement, this could possibly be leading to difficulties in losing weight. Furthermore, when calorie restricting, you may be restricting important nutrients that are crucial to improved metabolism, blood sugar control, energy and mood. Over time, this may trigger rebound weight-gain or inability to commit to stricter diets and exercise regimes.

A wholefood, anti-inflammatory or Mediterranean diet can be extremely helpful for weight loss. A Mediterranean diet is also useful for those who have metabolic disease, and is full of nutrients to improve digestion, hormone health and mood, therefore targeting underlying factors which may be contributing to weight gain.

Lifestyle approaches

Exercise is one of the most important things we can do for our health – it’s why it’s one of our 8 principles of health! If you’re finding that you’re exercising hard but still not seeing any difference on the scales – go for less stressful, or more targeted workouts. When your body has increased heart rate for long periods of time (think: constant cardio) it considers this a form of stress – if you’re doing this every day it may trigger that cortisol hormone we mentioned earlier. Try mixing it up with Pilates, brisk walks or tai chi.

Decrease stress through lifestyle practices such as taking time to be in nature, meditation or mindfulness. It’s also important to mention that self-love practices can go a long way. Decreasing the stress around “having” to lose weight can also improve weight-loss outcomes. Remember that weight-loss does take time, and everyone moves at a different pace. Self-love practices such as affirmations, decreasing negative self-talk and the occasional bubble-bath or massage can do wonders for you on your weight loss journey.