Are You Experiencing Inflammatory Weight Gain?

“Doc, I gained 5 pounds in one day but I barely ate anything!”

I hear this often and I know I’ve said it to myself more than a time or two. 

Last week it was on repeat in the virtual office!

Sit back for a second and think about this…

You can’t actually gain 5 lbs in a day unless you sat on your duff and consumed 17,500 calories as you have to eat 3,500 calories to gain a pound. 

I don’t know about you but that’s a lot of calories. 

So if it’s not weight, what is it?

Water weight from inflammation.

The issue isn’t your intake, it’s the reaction your body had to the specific item you consumed.

You retain water between your cells when you’re inflamed and your body is mounting an immune reaction.

The body is driven to increase circulation to the area of inflammation so with that comes fluid. 

Some people gain fluid in specific places, like the abdomen while others gain it all over. 

The difference?

Gut lining specific inflammation causes belly bloat and abdominal water retention.

Hands, feet, puffy eyes and ankles is a sign of systemic inflammation and a more severe case of leaky gut. 

Knowing where you “puff up” or inflame is key as that can help to target the area of inflammation to target. 

This quick to puff up reaction is also a quick to lose the inflammatory weight when you cut out the junk food, alcohol, sugars and whatever it is that’s inflaming you. 

It’s also why when someone gets on a diet that cuts out all sugar, fats and processed stuff they will drop weight fast at first then plateau. 

The initial weight loss is water weight. 

Now for those that are eating clean and not losing weight it’s likely due to decreased electrolytes aka ions and poor circulation of nutrients, hormones and release of toxins. 

Inflammatory water weight will stick in-between cells when electrolytes are out of balance because the body uses ions to move fluids. 

How do you counter this?

Supplement with ions, cell salts, minerals and iodine with circulation boosters like castor oil packs to get the inflammatory fluids to get moving. 

It’s also critical to figure out what is inflaming you!

This is why I have folks look back 72 hours from the onset of the weight gain or swelling and evaluate….

• What did you eat that is out of character for you?
• Did you have any alcohol?
• Did you have any exposures to toxins, mold, chemicals or pesticides?

Then once the information is noted, you would work to avoid that situation.

What do I recommend to get the weight off asap?

• take a natural diuretic like “Herbal Water Balance”
• eat celery, parsley or cranberries 1/4-1/2 cup a day
• drink celery juices
• sip on Celtic Sea Salt 1/2 tsp with Cream of tartar 1/4 tsp, 1 tsp of raw honey or maple syrup and 1/2 lime or 1/4 lemon to balance your electrolytes
• increase movement
• increase circulation in the abdomen – castor oil packs
• increase circulation in general by using an infrared sauna or regular sauna
• take circulation and lymphatic moving herbs like dong quai and Lymphactive by CellCore

If you can identify a provoking food, avoid it and work on healing up a leaky gut with tributyrin.

There are lots of options I’ve laid out here but your journaling and recall are key for helping identify your inflammatory triggers.

Keep in mind the nerves and circulation are the key players here.

Happy nerves are ones that are kept chill and moving.

Stay tuned for Friday where I’ll be talking all about how to train your nerves to be more resilient to life’s stress.

Here’s to your health,

Dr. J

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