If you’ve been struggling with resistant weight loss, this post is for you.

Please make sure you check out Part 1, where I delve into the primary consideration, 1. here.

2. Food sensitivities. 

One of the most important considerations in getting to the root of your weight loss conundrum is addressing whether food sensitivities are at issue.  The resulting inflammation that’s happening when you continue to eat a food to which you’re sensitive can wreak havoc inside your body. 

While a food sensitivity may be tricky to diagnose, becoming your body’s health detective puts you in the driver seat of determination.  Are you experiencing persistent headaches, fatigue, joint pain, or skin rashes? Other signs or symptoms such as bloating, gas and diarrhea are also good indicators to consider whether a food sensitivity is the culprit. And while some inflammation in the body is welcome, chronic inflammation can be to blame for your body’s insistence to hold onto weight.  

One client I work with was experiencing chronic and uncomfortable joint pain. We experimented by removing particular foods, one at a time, and cleaning up her diet.  Then, she would add back in a food that we took out to determine whether that food was the cause of her discomfort.  In her case, she experienced improved symptom relief after she removed dairy and gluten, and point-in-fact, she lost weight too.

Do you have food sensitivities? Possibly.

An Elimination Diet is often used as a starting point to make this determination.  This includes the removal of the most common culprits, such as gluten, dairy and sugar.  An expanded elimination diet would include other well known instigators such as eggs, soy, corn, nuts, etc. An alternative to a proper elimination diet, you can experiment by simply removing foods (one at a time) for a period of time (several or more weeks, at least).  The key is adding the food back in over several days and paying close attention to your body’s reactions not only on the day you eat the food but on the days following.

Removal of food doesn’t have to be permanent yet paying attention to what your body tells you, i.e. noting any particular signs or symptoms when you add a food back in, is critical to knowing whether a particular food is aggravating to your system.  Journaling this process can support your efforts in keeping track not only of the foods but any associated reactions.

Testing for food sensitivities is very popular and may shed light.

In addition to the price tag, however, food sensitivity testing is not completely accurate and sometimes will just be stating the obvious. For example, during a period of time when I was on an extremely restrictive diet, the results indicated a higher sensitivity to the exact foods I was consuming.  While at the time, I wasn’t able to expand my repertoire very much, the lesson hit home.  Regardless, food sensitivity testing can be another tool on the road to clarifying whether a particular food should be removed from your diet. 

A diet that is derived from whole foods, reaches into a variety of food groups and represents a rainbow of color is more likely to provide you with the balance of nutrients your body needs.  It is also less likely that you are aggravating your interior when you’re consuming from a rainbow of whole food sources.  

The key is tuning into your body and becoming aware of what it’s telling you.  Awareness is a key proposition to getting to the root cause of your health challenges, whether it’s weight loss resistance or other wellness conundrum.  

The bottom line is that while a food may appear to be perfect, it may not be perfect for you. Determining whether a particular food isn’t jiving with your system is a process that takes time and patience.  The information can yield you valuable information that can support you on your road to a happy, healthy bod.  

Are there foods that you know you are sensitive to? What are they and how did you figure it out? I’d love to hear from you below.