Leptin and its body weight relationship

Do you grab a doughnut first thing in the morning or do you crave midnight snacks? Even if you are following a diet that includes 80% clean eating, there might be times when you succumb to eating junk food or fast food. For those on cleaning eating diets, that usually is a cheat meal and it doesn’t hamper progress too much but for others, eating these extra treats is leading to weight gain and extra calories. What can you do about it?

So far I have talked about what all one can do about their diet and exercise to help lead a healthier life but you know what plays a big role in your weight control—leptin! Leptin is a hormone that signals to your brain whether you are hungry or need more food. For example, when you don’t eat a meal or a snack, your body fat goes down and therefore leptin signals the brain to eat more and burn less or if your body fat is going up, leptin signals the brain to tell you to eat less and burn more. Nice, right? You have an in-built detector to tell you to start and stop! So why are people fat or have extra belly weight?

This leptin detector might be off for a few people and that is known as leptin resistance so your body gets confused by the mixed messaging. This is likely due to the poor diet choices that have led to the weight gain. If you watch any weight loss reality TV show, you see the success story of those individuals but did you know most people gain that weight back because the leptin signals to the brain are giving mixed messages. Sad right? That doughnut or processed food or even lack of sleep could have contributed to this weight gain. How can you fix this?

As mentioned in many previous posts, eat right, exercise, and sleep are things that you can control. Avoiding processed foods (foods from a box or can, no matter how cheap it may be) and fast food are two solutions to get your body’s hormones working properly. Eat protein and eat fiber as both will keep you full longer and therefore result in less temptation to eat junk food or midnight snacks. Small changes can make significant health impacts!