Do you have Sticky Sofa Syndrome?

I coined the phrase ‘sticky sofa syndrome’ because, being a low carb nutritional advisor, I try to avoid the term ‘couch potatoes’ (terrible joke, sorry, not sorry!)

All joking aside now, did you know that a lack of energy and motivation and feeling like you’re stuck to the sofa is a biological function linked to what you eat? That’s right, it’s not your fault, it’s the food.

Your body needs certain nutrients to be on board to even function properly at rest. If these nutrients are not consumed, then your body is instructed to conserve energy.

The overriding message is still to “Eat less, move more” and if it doesn’t work then you’re doing it wrong.

For too long the poor dietary advice has fallen back on this argument. The blame is aimed at people for not following low fat diet advice. But how about the people who followed it fine and the advice was, and still is, wrong?

It is not for you to have to overcome your biology. That is a losing battle. Have you ever tried ‘being good’ by cutting your calorie intake drastically and upping your exercise levels with initial motivation and gusto, only to find a couple of days/weeks later the motivation evaporates?

On the flip side of this, perhaps you are comfort eating and stuck in a cycle of eating junk food, processed ready meals causing cravings and low moods.

The process happening in both scenarios is self-preservation. Your body could be running on little or no fat eating products that the food industry designed by following advice to take out the fat and replacing it with sugar. Or are you relying on processed foods that the food industry has designed to make you crave the chemical concoctions with high fat and high taste masquerading as food. In both instances the foods are high in carbohydrate that don’t trigger your satiety switch (the hormone leptin). Therefore, you want to keep eating

If you’ve upped your energy levels with a diet this makes you hungrier and now, you’re having to apply will power to not eating and trying to overcome the tiredness, which is your body conserving energy to preserve your health. If you’re eating junk food there’s still not enough of the good stuff coming in and your body is yelling “Wait, there’s not enough of the essential building blocks coming in to keep this body going. Stay on the sofa, and while you’re at it shove this sugar into the fat stores!”

With a drastic cut in calories, it also makes your metabolic rate slow down. Then you might go back to the junk foods to comfort your failure and the weight will pile back on and fat will be stored quicker due to your altered metabolism.

I’ve been there, done that (repeatedly) and bought the oversized T-shirts. Almost a decade ago, I realised that our bodies require nutrient dense food (not made in a factory) to give us energy and there is an easier way. It caused my career change and ever since I’ve helped my friends’, family and clients to give in to their biology, no will power required.

The reality is that just by realising that eating the foods your body relies on to function at its best you can have energy coming out of your ears. The energy to enjoy life.

By simply avoiding all processed foods and bad government dietary advice and focussing on meat, fish, and the fats they contain, plus leafy green veg means that the sofa only gets the occasional visit nowadays.

Could you and your sofa use a break too?

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