A common thing I hear from both my patients and from people in general is that they are trying to lose weight to get healthier. Of course, for many “get healthier” is code for “look better and be more attractive”, but that’s a whole different issue. Most people are under the impression that being overweight is causing their arthritis, their high blood pressure, their diabetes, and a host of other health problems. Many doctors reinforce this concept and may say things like, “Mr. Jones, you simly MUST lose weight to get that blood pressure of yours under control”. But is being overweight the CAUSE of health problems, or is it just another SYMPTOM?
Yes, numerous research studies have shown an association between being overweight/obese and having other health problems. But an association simply means that they are commonly seen together. It does not prove that one causes the other.
Think about it for a minute, do ALL overweight people have high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.? I can tell you that from 15 years of experience as a health care provider, the answer is “No”. Let’s look at the opposite side of the coin. Do normal weight or skinny people EVER get high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.? The answer is absolutely “Yes”. So, obviously, being overweight in and of itself is NOT the cause of high blood pressure, diabetes, and other conditions commonly associated with being overweight.
In fact, as I mentioned before, being overweight or obese is actually just another symptom of some other underlying problem. Now, that problem may be physical or emotional, or some combination of he two. It may even be a conscious choice for some people who, for one reason or another, prefer being overweight.
For the purposes of this article, I won’t be discussing emotional and personal choice reasons for someone being overweight any further, but I wanted to acknowledge those factors.
The physical causes of being overweight usually come down to the interactions and balances of various hormones. Most people who are overweight due to physical causes will have one or more of four basic underlying problems. These can be categorized as the thyroid pattern, the adrenal pattern, the liver pattern, and the estrogen pattern. These basic patterns were first described by Dr. Eric Berg. Dr. Berg references the last pattern as the “Ovary” pattern, but I have found that it is primarily related to excess estrogen, and it can occur in males (who have no ovaries, but do have some estrogen), so I feel it is more correct to refer to it as the estrogen pattern (with all due respect to Dr. Berg). More information is available on these patterns on other posts on this blog, and more will be added in the future. For this article though, I simply want to make you aware of these basic patterns.
This brings me back to the concept of losing weight to get healthy. In actuality, most people would do better to focus on getting healthy to lose weight. For example, someone with a liver pattern will typically have an extremely difficult time losing weight because their excess weight is largely in the form of water retention. You can’t exercise away water retention and while diet is important to help the liver pattern, the wrong diet can actually make things worse. Specifically, a high-protein program like the Atkins diet will almost always make someone with the liver pattern GAIN weight. It will also tend to give them elevated cholesterol and triglyceride levels and increase their blood pressure. This is not to say that the Atkins diet is a bad diet. It’s just completely wrong for someone with the liver pattern.
Diet isn’t the only factor though that determines whether someone becomes healthy enough to lose weight. Exercise is another big factor. For example, the best type of exercise for someone with the thyroid pattern (high intensity, short duration exercise) would be the worst type of exercise for someone with the adrenal pattern.
When you know what to look for, the body will give you signs to tell you what’s wrong and what needs to be done to restore balance and health. Once balance and health are restored, losing weight becomes a much easier process.
Stay tuned to my natural remedies blog for more on getting healthy to lose weight.