We have always maintained that it’s not necessary to eat less, it’s extremely important to eat right when it comes to weight loss. The kind of food you choose can help you shed weight or may add extra pounds to your body. In fact, weight loss can materialize with 80% dieting and 20% exercise. Just the way, metabolism-boosting foods can help boost the weight loss efforts, certain foods can raise inflammation in the body and stall the whole fat-burning process. In this post, we list down inflammatory foods that make you fat (no, our intention is not body shaming). But before that, let’s find out the connection between inflammation and obesity.

How Can Inflammation Make you Obese?

There are two types of inflammation – acute and chronic. Acute inflammation happens when there’s an injury on the body and there’s increased blood flow and influx of white blood cell to that area, protecting the body against foreign intruders like bacteria and germs. The common markers of acute inflammation are redness, swelling, pain, and warmth. Acute inflammation helps to repair damaged tissue, healing of wounds, and defend the body against germs. On the other hand, chronic inflammation, caused by dietary and lifestyle factors and aggravated by these same factors, leads to accumulation of free radicals and toxins inside the body, acts as a trigger to life-threatening diseases. Chronic inflammation affects normal functioning of the body – from digestion to hormonal function, from disrupting metabolism to internal scarring. When the body remains in inflammation for a long period of time, it can lead to cardiovascular disease, stroke, high risk of cancer, digestive issues, type 2 diabetes, and the obvious outcome, weight gain/obesity.

When someone leads an extremely stressful life, eats processed food, sleeps only for a short period of time, a protein called as C-reactive protein (which is an inflammatory marker present in the blood), shoots up, making the pH of the blood acidic. Metabolic changes and hormonal factors raise CRP levels and push the body into inflammation status. One of the major contributors to inflammation in the body is your diet, the food you consume. As mentioned above, the other dynamics that play a part to cause inflammation are lack of sleep, high stress, lack of physical activity, etc. Other lesser known agents can cause chronic inflammation – pesticides, pollution, phthalates, free radicals, smoking, vitamin D deficiency, vitamin B6 and B12 deficiency, etc.

Inflammatory state turns on the body’s alarm system, which means the immune system is always in a heightened state, and this continuous inflammatory response can lead to weight gain, a lot of metabolic diseases, and in fact, the inability to lose weight.

Now that we have deduced that inflammation is one of the factors that cause weight gain, let’s find out what foods lead to a situation of chronic inflammation:

Factors Leading to Chronic Inflammation in the Body:

1. High Omega-6 ratio compared to omega-3 ratio: Our daily diet should not exceed omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of 4:1. But some diets take the omega-6/omega-3 ratio to levels as high as 50:1. Omega-3 fatty acids, as we all know, reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, lowers cholesterol, is great for hair and skin. Omega-6 fatty acids, on the other hand, increase inflammation in the body.
2. Studies have proven that sugar triggers the production of free fatty acids in the liver. When these free fatty acids are processed in the body, it leads to inflammation, and eventual weight gain.
3. Vegetable and seed oils such as sunflower, soy, safflower, canola, corn, etc. are oils that raise inflammation in the body.

16 Inflammatory Foods That Make you Fat:

1. Gluten
2. Sunflower oil
3. Soft drinks
4. French fries
5. Fried food
6. Refined sugar
7. Dairy products
8. Refined carbohydrates like maida, white bread.
9. Alcohol.
10. Margarine.
11. Palm oil.
12. Artificial sweeteners
13. Artificial color
14. High fructose corn syrup
15. Transfat
16. Monosodium glutamate (ajinomoto).

How To Reduce Inflammation in the Body:

1. Sleep for 7 to 8 hours: We need to rest our bodies properly to allow normal functioning the next day, so that it can repair damage, correct dysfunctions, and to flush out toxins. When you do not give that rest, everything can haywire and so does inflammation go up.
2. Stop the inflammatory agents at the gut: Like enough sleep, a lot of us underestimate the power of gut. A strong gut can prevent diseases, weed out toxins, and reduce inflammation. Do you know nutrients, vitamins, and minerals are absorbed into the body through the gut wall and sent into the bloodstream. That’s why Rati Beauty diet programs includes a lot of gut-friendly foods in the diet meals. Fermented food such as idli, dosa, etc. and probiotic food such as yogurt are great for the gut. Here’s a list of gut-friendly food.
3. Lower Stress: Losing weight itself can be a stressful job for some of us, but did you know, it could be one of the reasons your weight isn’t going down? When you overthink or take unwanted tension, you opt for activities that can be extremely unhealthy. Practice meditation, yoga, and listen to relaxing music to lower stress levels. Here are some more ways to lower stress in the body.

4. Drink loads and loads of water: Water is necessary to run every body function normally and also to lower inflammation because it helps in flushing out toxins from the body. Drink more than 8 glasses of water per day to lose weight as well.

Why Sugar is Fattening
What Would Happen if you Stop Eating Sugar For 15 Days

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