What is Weight Gain All About Anyway?

The Therapy Center by Patricia Heredia (Jan, 2019)

If you were to ask a thousand health or fitness professionals why someone was overweight, the majority would answer that it’s all about a slow metabolism with the second, third and fourth answers being eats too much, eats too many carbs and does not exercise enough. Sound familiar? These answers lack compassion and are negative – reflecting how people view both those who are overweight and themselves.

It’s not about eating too many carbs, being lazy or lacking self-control. Nor, is it about getting older and older people are fatter. It’s not even about hypothyroidism and definitely not about a fast or slow metabolism.

I would like to offer an entirely different perspective and over the next few months share that different perspective with you and then give practical steps that anyone can implement.

There is a starring role in weight gain – the liver. Most of the time weight gain is really about the liver. There are two other factors – the thyroid and the adrenals, but both of them lead back to the liver.

There’s a trend right now to blame weight gain on the thyroid – this is a correlation that should not be mistaken for causation – the gland is not to blame. Health care professionals began linking the thyroid with weight trouble because the thyroid is believed to be the body’s metabolism regulator. Let’s look at the use of the word metabolism – we’ve been conditioned to believe that “metabolism” is a well-understood medical fact. We’ve grown up hearing the word used as though it is a rocksolid law of the universe, when the truth is that “metabolism” is nothing more than the antiquated discovery that the body is a living organism that assimilates food and uses it for energy – there’s no such thing as a fast or a slow metabolism. Metabolism is only a theory that has been repeated so often it sounds like fact. The truth is that many of the mechanics of how the body gains and loses weight remain medical mysteries, and metabolism is merely a convenient label. How the thyroid truly works is also not fully understood by medical research and science. Two unknowns does not make a known.

Also the adrenal-liver link – and this is where we need to be more careful: taking another part of the anatomy, the adrenals, that is also not fully understood and using that mystery to throw as much as possible under its umbrella. Adrenal fatigue, elevated cortisol, high cholesterol, hormonal imbalance – these are all being blamed for slowing down someone’s metabolism so that the person holds on to a “spare tire” regardless of exercise or diet changes. This theory is also not accurate. Remember what I just said about metabolism.

We’ve been conditioned to believe that “metabolism” is a well-understood medical fact … as though it is a law of the universe, when the truth is “metabolism” is nothing more than the discovery that the body assimilates food and uses it for energy.

Here’s why there is a correlation between thyroid issues and weight gain – because thyroid issues are viral over 95 percent of the time, and chronic viral infection weakens and burdens the liver – in part because the virus that causes thyroid problems nests in the liver on its way to the thyroid. When the liver gets damaged by viral activity and overloaded with its waste matter, it can’t filter as it is meant to, which leads to eventual weight gain.

And here’s why there is a correlation between the adrenals and weight gain – it is the level of excess adrenaline we are faced with that sets off a chain reaction that can lead to weight gain. That reaction begins with the stress and overstimulation of our nonstop lives – the liver does a remarkable shielding process when the adrenal glands pump out high levels of adrenaline by sponging up the adrenaline. It goes a step further by enlisting old stored hormones as bait and trap to defuse the new ones. A bonded hormone compound results and if the liver is not in good shape, it cannot flush it all out. Instead, it stores it which results in weight gain.

Liver storage is the missing link. What weight gain really comes down to is how fast or slowly your liver functions. That is not to say that this is blaming your body for being “faulty.” It is not about genetically inheriting a liver that is either lazy or more vigorous. It is about what we have come back to in past articles – it is what our livers are up against.

If someone can eat all kinds of processed foods and not gain any weight, it is not because they have a fast metabolism. It is because their liver has not yet hit its fatstoring or poison-storing limitation and therefore functions at a faster pace. That does not mean their liver is not overburdened or overstressed either. You could be thin and still have a liver illness developing or a liver complication that is causing symptoms such as high blood pressure, acne, or jaundice. Weight is about the troublemaker storage department of the liver – for the person who can eat what they want and not gain weight, it has not been compromised yet.

Compromised fat storage does not automatically mean that diet is the issue. While for some people, eating a lot of high-fat foods can certainly be a factor, several others should also be considered. Anything that overburdens the liver can be a factor. This includes toxic heavy metals, DDT and other pesticides, herbicides, fungicides – all other toxins. If any of these have built up in the liver, it can be a problem.

There is also viral and bacterial damage. One virus that should be infamous for disrupting the liver’s functioning is Epstein-Barr. EBV has a nesting period in the liver, during which time it can drill into the tissue and scar it, making it sluggish and damaging some of its storage capabilities. EBV also throws off poisons, excreting waste in the form of neurotoxins, dermatoxins, and viral corpses that give it more to process out and, when the liver is too overloaded for that processing, more debris gets stored within itself to protect us.

Ideally, the liver would be in robust enough shape to process fats, toxins, and hormones with ease, neutralizing and getting rid of the toxins altogether while only holding on to high-quality fats and hormones that could be useful to your body later. The reality is that for most people, the liver simply has too much to do. As a river of blood rushes into the liver, its assembly line of liver lobule workers scrambles to process and package all the good, bad and ugly. If there is too much bad and ugly, the liver’s next best option for shielding you is to store the excess. Trying to find space for all of it and moving at only a sluggish pace becomes a challenge.

What happens is that the liver stores the excess fat cells, hormones and hormone compounds, poisons, and toxic waste matter in the same compartments that are meant for nutrients. Storing goodness and garbage together is not the liver’s normal course of action. It is what happens to adapt and protect us: to prevent fat from getting through and gathering in your arteries and your heart, to prevent cholesterol from building, to prevent insulin resistance that leads to diabetes and so much more. As the liver is stressed, it gets weaker and more sluggish over time. Its protective processes break down. ✦

Patricia Heredia’s practice is The Therapy Center, located in Grand Rapids, MI. She has been a therapist since 1995 and offering a range of therapeutic services at her Center. Patti is a nationally certified and registered clinical Hypnotherapist, registered Colon Hydro-therapist, clinical Massage therapist and a trained Upledger Craniosacral therapist. The Therapy Center 3501 Lake Eastbrook Blvd., SE, Suite 345, Grand Rapids, MI 49546 616-706-8054 | 616-222-6070 | www.grandrapidstherapycenter.com | Pheredia50@hotmail.com