Everything You Need to Know About Food Sensitivities
Hey Angels and Alphas,
Throughout dealing with cravings, hormonal imbalances, stress eating, and all the potential roadblocks standing between you and your dream weight, weight loss can sometimes feel like a detrimental uphill battle.
But on top of that, you could be eating that simply don’t agree with your body, and this could be another contributing factor that is slowing down all your weight loss efforts.
Today, we’re here to talk about food sensitivities, what experts have to say about them, and how to deal with them if you suspect that you’re dealing with a food sensitivity.
WHAT IS A FOOD SENSITIVITY?
Usually, food sensitivities, food allergies, and food intolerances are all used interchangeably, but they are far from the same.
Food allergies will usually result in an immune system reaction. If you are someone who his allergic to foods, your immune system will start creating immunoglobulin E antibodies. Symptoms can vary from itching, swelling, and burning all the way to anaphylaxis (the reaction you see in movies that requires immediate medical attention.)
Food sensitivities are pretty much the most under-studied of the bunch. They’re very similar to allergies in the sense that they’re reactions typically controlled by the immune system that happen in response to specific nutrients. Symptoms of sensitivities can change and vary, meaning reactions aren’t guaranteed to happen in the same way.
Food intolerances are usually related to symptoms of the GI tract. They can occur when your body doesn’t have the ability to digest specific types of food. One of the most famous examples of this is lactose intolerance. When you lack the digestive enzyme required to digest lactose, this can cause digestive symptoms that aren’t related to immune responses.
If you’ve ever heard of FODMAPS, they’re the most common substances involved in most food sensitivities. They can include amines, sulfites, caffeine, gluten, dairy, and more. Generally, they will contribute to even more chronic inflammatory symptoms such as reflux, joint paint, eczema, psoriasis, migraines, and more. It could be extremely common for people with sensitivities to change up their symptoms day by day and week by week.
Food sensitivities can also prevent you from losing weight, science says.
For starters, if you’re someone who has a difficult time losing weight but you’re not really experiencing any other symptoms, you should likely look into food sensitivities as your first course of action. Experts have suggested that there aren’t any specific scientific pieces of research that conclude food sensitivities cause weight gain.
But even so, if you experience psoriasis, eczema, or other issues of the GI tract, as well as inflammatory symptoms, this could cause some resistance in your weight loss efforts. And one of the leading factors here include food sensitivities. That’s because there is a wide variety of ways through which food sensitivities contribute to difficulties in losing weight.
First, and probably most important, research on inflammation and weight loss has looked at how increases in weight typically lead to inflammation… and not the other way around! Experts have observed that once the underlying inflammation from various food sensitivities becomes manageable and you address it, this will likely speed up your weight loss efforts and make them much easier. Once you’re in that better, healthier state, you will find it much easier to settle into a healthy weight without having to resort to weight-loss strategies.
There’s also another factor that could contribute to sensitivities halting your weight loss efforts. When you don’t feel well, generally, you don’t feel as if it is necessary to spend energy on activities such as cooking healthy food and exercising, all of which are essential to speeding up your weight loss efforts.
And lastly, food sensitivities have been known to cause discomfort and bloating, and this, in its own right, could mimic weight gain. If you’re someone who starts restricting the foods you eat because you’re not really certain about which foods are causing you trouble, you might end up eating more and more processed food. And we all know how detrimental this could be for your weight loss journey.
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