Transcription
Are you struggling with weight gain and feeling like no matter what you try, you are unable to lose this excess weight? Well, you might be surprised to know that the real reason behind your weight might be actually chronic inflammation, and not the excess fat that you were thinking about recently.
Several celebrities like Vidya Balan and Selena Gomez came out with their struggles with weight gain, and the real reason that they identified was this underlying inflammation. Once they addressed this underlying inflammation through simple lifestyle choices, they were able to lose this weight easily. In today's video, this is exactly what I'm going to talk about: four anti-inflammatory foods that can help you to lose weight easily.
Hi, I'm Dr. Anal Gupta. I'm a board-certified physician with advanced training in functional medicine and integrative medicine. I've helped thousands of people to lose the excess weight in their body without doing extreme dieting. Chronic inflammation is a hidden cause of weight gain problems and also the stubborn fat. Most people have been told that it is their fault that they are eating too much or not exercising, and that's the reason they are unable to lose weight. But in reality, it is this underlying chronic inflammation that they have not yet addressed which is causing them to have this excess weight. People have been doing low-calorie diets for a long time and doing extreme workouts, and still they are unable to lose weight, and they do not know the reason why this is happening. And even a lot of their providers and doctors are unable to answer any questions to them. And that is exactly the reason you need to look at the latest research in weight loss categories so that you know that actually it's the underlying inflammation which is not letting people to lose weight.
Now let's first understand why inflammation causes weight gain. So it is actually the chronic inflammation which is present in your body for day in day out which is responsible for weight gain because it causes hormonal imbalances in your body. The way it does is that mainly it affects your adrenal glands. Your adrenal glands produce a stress hormone called cortisol. Now cortisol is a stress hormone; the function of cortisol is very simple: do not let your body to lose weight because it is perceiving that there is a threat out there on your body, and if you lose weight you might not be able to fight off that threat. Another function of cortisol is that it is an anti-insulin hormone, that means it creates insulin resistance in your body and doesn't let insulin do its job. What is the job of insulin? It helps your body to process excessive carbohydrates and fats in your body. So by these two ways, cortisol causes excessive weight, especially if you have excess weight around your belly area or around your hips area; that weight is because of this chronic inflammation.
The second way chronic inflammation causes excess weight gain is by creating insulin resistance. What that means is that whenever chronic inflammation is present in your body, it releases several different kinds of chemical mediators. The job of these chemical mediators is that they attach to the same receptors that insulin gets attached to, and by doing that actually again creates insulin resistance. So again, insulin cannot do the job and causes insulin resistance, and that's a reason that you gain weight.
The last way chronic inflammation causes weight gain is by water retention. Most people who have chronic inflammation will feel that their body is swollen up; they will feel bloated a lot of times, as well as they feel that they're retaining more water in their body. That is because of the chronic inflammation, and this excess water in the body again causes this weight gain. So now you know why this chronic inflammation is causing this weight gain. Now the question is that how do you get rid of this chronic inflammation? What is this anti-inflammatory diet, and how do you follow it? So let's talk about it.
So there are two components to this anti-inflammatory diet. The first component is the food which is actually causing inflammation in the body that you need to get rid of, and the second is the food which have highly anti-inflammatory properties that is going to reduce inflammation in the body and help you to lose weight. So let's talk about four foods which have high anti-inflammatory properties that are going to help you to lose weight.
The first food in this category is turmeric and ginger. Turmeric and ginger are spices, but you need to find ways to include them on a regular basis in your diet. The reason being turmeric has something called curcumin, which has the highest anti-inflammatory properties out of any natural compound. Curcumin can block NF-kappab, which is the gene which causes inflammation in the body. Ginger has something called gingerol; this is a potent antioxidant, that means again that helps your body to reduce inflammation significantly. The other way ginger also helps your body is promoting gut health, especially your digestive capabilities, so that whatever food you are eating, especially the healthy food, your body is able to digest it properly and absorb all the nutrients from it. So that's the reason to find ways to include ginger and turmeric in your diet. The best way is to prepare turmeric-ginger teas. You can also add grated ginger and grated turmeric when you are cooking your food.
Also, the second anti-inflammatory food that is going to help you to lose weight is fats. Yes, you might be surprised to hear that fat can actually help you to lose weight. We have been told for several years now that fat is really bad for your body and you should go on a low-fat diet, and now even the conventional medicine realizes that a low-fat diet is not helping people to lose weight. The reason being 60 to 70% of our body is made with good fat; without good fat our body cannot function properly. So it is very important to include good anti-inflammatory fat. What are those anti-inflammatory fats? We are looking at olive oil, coconut oil; we are looking at avocados; we're looking at healthy nuts and seeds, especially chia seeds, flax seeds, almonds, and walnuts. These all have good ratios of Omega-3s to Omega-6s. When you have high-quality Omega-3s in your diet, that helps to reduce inflammation very quickly in the body. So it is very important to include good fats in your diet so your body can function properly and can actually eliminate the bad fat which you are storing in your body.
The third food on this list is non-starchy vegetables, especially the green leafy vegetables. The green leafy vegetables can be spinach, kale, or chard, or any other local greens that are found in your community. Now here's a cautionary advice: some people cannot tolerate spinach. The reason being spinach is one of the highest oxalate-containing foods. Recently we came to know that high oxalate-containing foods, especially spinach, when consumed on a long-term basis in some people can fuel the fire of inflammation. So be cautious with consuming spinach; so preference would be other greens that you can consume. Otherwise, having colorful non-starchy vegetables will be very, very important because they are going to help you to lose weight, as well as these colors on these vegetables have high antioxidant properties; again they are going to help to get rid of inflammation.
The fourth food in this category that is going to help you to lose weight is good quality protein. Proteins are made with amino acids; we have essential amino acids without which we cannot live. So it is very important to consume a good quality protein which has all the essential amino acids. These amino acids take part in different enzymatic processes which are responsible for reducing inflammation in your body. One of the best sources of proteins is wild-caught fish. So if you can consume salmon, tuna, sardines, those are one of the best sources of Omega-3s as well as good quality protein. If you are vegan or vegetarian, then the sources of protein are limited, and you have to rely on lentils, legumes, beans, chickpeas for your protein source. But make sure each and every diet that you are eating has some good quality protein which is complete in itself so that you can get all the amino acids.
So these are the four anti-inflammatory foods; if you consume them each and every day, they are going to help reduce inflammation and help you to lose weight. But wait, before you leave over here, we have only spoken about the one part of the diet which is including the anti-inflammatory food, but you also have to remove the inflammation-causing food, without which your body's inflammation levels are never going to go down.
The number one food which causes too much inflammation in the body is sugar. You might have heard it before, but I'm telling you again: sugar is the biggest fuel for inflammation in the body, whether it's white sugar, brown sugar, whether it's honey, agave, maple syrup; all of these sugars are adding fuel to the inflammation. So if you want to reduce inflammation quickly, you have to give up all different kinds of sugar. Most people will ask me this question: well, nature made the sugar; honey is pretty natural; fruits are very natural; coconut sugar is natural; so why do these natural foods harm our body? The reason being, right now your body is inflamed, and we cannot give any little bit amount of fuel to this inflammation. So that's the reason for a short amount of time to remove each and every sugar-containing food from your diet so that your inflammation can die down quickly.
The second food which causes inflammation is processed food. So again, if you're eating any kind of fast food or processed food, this is increasing your inflammation substantially. So get rid of all the processed food from your pantry today.
The third food to give up will be gluten. Current modern-day gluten is really inflammatory to our body. It is estimated currently that more than 70% of the gluten which is consumed worldwide is genetically modified, and it is not the same wild gluten that our ancestors used to eat, and that's exactly the reason this gluten is causing leaky gut and causing too much inflammation in the body. So get rid of this gluten.
The next thing to get rid of is vegetable oils like soybean oil, like canola oil, corn oil. These are all seed oils which are very high in Omega-6 levels. The problem with Omega-6 is that in moderate amounts they are good for our body, but when we consume them day in day out they cause inflammation in the body. So eliminate all of these seed oils and replace them with good healthy oils like olive oil, your coconut oil, as well as Indian ghee.
And the last food to eliminate is dairy. The reason being the current dairy which is produced by the livestock has been fed a diet which is very high in pesticides, which is very high in gluten, which is very high in different kinds of hormones, and all of these things from the diet in the livestock comes into the milk and the dairy, and that's the reason they are very, very harmful for your body.
So now you know, along with the four powerful anti-inflammatory foods you need to consume daily, you need to remove these inflammation-causing foods. Now a lot of people will ask me this question: majority of the food that you have told us about which is good for a body has a high amount of calories. So I tell people it is not about the quantity of the food, it is about the quality of the food. If you consume good quality food that is going to reduce inflammation in the body, you are going to lose weight, but if you focus just on the calories then your weight is never going away from you. So I hope you have a better understanding of the anti-inflammatory diet and things you can do today to help you to lose weight. I hope you like this video; if you do, please like and subscribe to my channel and share this video with others who can benefit from this great information. Until next time, take care. Bye-bye.