9 Things You're Doing That Can Make You Gain Fat

Ever wonder if some of the things you do on a daily basis could be making you gain fat? Some things you may already know but some of them may take you completely by surprise.

 

1. Eating then sleeping MAY make you gain fat

Your body doesn't require as many calories during sleep and calories that are eaten right before sleep have a FAR greater chance of being stored as fat.

But here's the strange thing...studies have been done on eating then sleeping and show no increased risk for obesity. They maintain it's overall calorie load during the day that leads to weight gain. So if you eat a full days worth of calories during the day, THEN eat late at night before sleeping, your body doesn't need those calories and will store them as fat.

[EDITORS NOTE: eating specific foods such as protein shakes that are taken for the purposes of muscle building and recovery do not fall into this category. When taken properly and in reasonable quantities, they will not add significant fat to the body.]

 

2. Skipping meals or not eating for long periods of time will make you gain fat

The reason for this is not because your metabolism will slow down (unless you go for more than a full day without eating, of course). The reason is that most people tend to get really hungry when they don't eat for long periods. And this hunger often leads to poor food choices...junk, basically.

It's the JUNK that makes you get fat...not necessarily the long period without eating. Intermittent fasting is actually a good, legitimate eating pattern, when done properly.

 

3. Drinking soft drinks (even diet drinks) with fatty foods will make you gain fat

A sugary soft drink will result in a high insulin response. Insulin is a storage hormone - it helps the body store carbohydrates, proteins and fats.

There is also evidence to suggest that the artificial sweeteners commonly found in diet drinks can cause an insulin reaction in the body. It's a simple reaction to the sweetness, not carbs as there are no carbs in diet drinks. The body simply associates the taste of sweetness with the presence of carbs and assumes that carbs are present, increasing insulin levels in response.

What do you get when you have fatty foods in the presence of increased insulin levels? Simple. You get fat.

My advice is this: if you're going to eat fatty foods (we all do it at some point or other), drink water, not soft drinks or even diet soft drinks. Save the diet drinks for times when you're not eating fatty foods.

 

4. Constant snacking on energy foods will make you gain fat

I'm all for frequent eating to boost the metabolism and snacking on healthy foods is definitely not a bad thing. That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about giving your body a constant supply of food energy.

Consider this: if you give your body a constant supply of energy, it will not have a reason to dip into stored bodyfat for energy. You'll never dip into the battery on your laptop computer if you leave it plugged in. The body is no different.

A constant supply of outside energy means it won't have to use its own stored energy supplies. The result: you put on fat because the body doesn't need to burn any of it for energy.

 

5. Stress without physical exertion will make you gain fat

The jury is NOT out on evolution. The human body evolved to deal with stress in certain ways. Before we became "civilized," stress was all about fight-or-flight. Stress was that you were about to be eaten by a lion so you'd better run!

In response, the body needed a mechanism for quick energy to be available and a system to help deal with shock and injury. It was all about survival.

The result? In stressful conditions, the body secretes cortisol - a hormone that immediately starts breaking down muscle tissue for fast energy (it also acts as an anti-inflammatory in case of injury; cortisone is a relative of cortisol).

These days, we very rarely have to worry about being eaten by pretty much anything. But the basic responses of the body can't distinguish between that stress and the stress of, say, your boss taking away your treasured red stapler that you love so much and moving your desk to the basement.

In the past, stress would be immediately followed by physical exertion. You'd run as fast as you could from the lion or you'd fight off what was attacking you. Now, there is rarely physical exertion following stress so the cortisol is not dissipated. It continues to break down muscle and promote fat storage.

This is why constant stress without regular exercise will make you gain fat.

 

6. Toxic substances in your food will make you gain fat

Your body's reaction to a toxic substance is simple: protection. There are two primary ways the body does this. First, it tries to flush the toxins out. If that fails, it will try to lock the toxins away.

Think about it this way - what do nuclear power plants do with radioactive waste? They seal it in concrete and bury it. This is essentially the same thing your body does with toxins that you ingest. If it can't get rid of them, it seals them up in fat cells and locks them away.

Have you ever experienced headaches or other general ill feelings when you've gone on a diet? This is typical and is a result of previously stored toxins being released into the body again as you burn or release fat. You are, in essence, unsealing the toxins and flushing them out. This is one of the primary reasons it's critical to drink plenty of water when you're losing fat.

Minimize foods that contain toxins such as preservatives, pesticides (wash your fruit and vegetables thoroughly), antibiotics, and heavy metals (such as the mercury increasingly found in some species of fish). Your body will protect itself by holding onto fat to lock the toxins away.

 

7. Losing muscle mass will make you gain fat

The engine of your metabolism is your muscle mass. This is where the majority of calories are burned in the body. If you go on a diet and you lose a lot of muscle, it is pretty much a guarantee you'll gain the weight back (and often more!) and make it harder to lose fat again.

If you don't protect your muscle mass, the more you diet, the fatter you'll get, so be sure to focus on resistance training for fat loss, not cardio.

 

8. Overconsumption of fructose will make you gain fat

Even though fructose is a sugar found in fruit and fruit juice, please, please, PLEASE don't take this point to mean that simply eating fruit is going to make you fat. It's not. Here's what I mean:

Your body stores carbohydrates in the form of glycogen in the muscles and in the liver. When your body needs energy, it breaks the glycogen down into sugar (glucose) for use in various bodily processes.

When your glycogen stores are full, extra carbohydrates will have a tendency to be stored as fat unless burned by activity. Fructose is more efficiently converted into fat (more specifically, it's converted into the chemical backbone of triglycerides, which are fat molecules) than are other carbohydrates such as glucose. This makes it that much easier for excess fructose to be converted into fat.

While high fructose corn syrup is by far the main culprit when it comes to fructose and fat gain, even the fructose found in fruits and fruit juices can have this effect.

Because fructose has "nicer" associations with it (being a fruit sugar) than other sugars such as sucrose (table sugar), a person may think they can drink all the juice they want and not run into the same trouble as if they drank the same amount of a sugary drink containing sucrose.

Fruit juices are essentially a concentrated source of fruit sugar and calories - as much as 150 calories or more per glass! Certainly, juice has more nutritional qualities to it than a soft drink but it is nevertheless important to realize that juice actually has a lot of calories and that the sugar it contains can easily be converted into fat.

What can you do about it?

Eating your fruit and drinking your fruit juice earlier in the day will greatly minimize any chance of spillover into fat stores. Also, take steps to minimize consumption of high fructose corn syrup, which is found in foods and drinks such as soft drinks and fruit beverages, cookies, gum, jams, jellies and baked goods. As always, read the labels.

 

9. Drinking alcohol frequently will make you gain fat

Alcohol can make you fat in so many ways. Consider these points:

All these points are not to say a moderate amount of alcohol consumption is bad for you. The key truly is moderation. Here's a good resource if you don't want to completely give up drinking while you're dieting and still want to get results.

When you look at these points all together, imagine how quickly you'll gain fat if you drink a lot of alcohol late at night, eat fast food then go directly to sleep. There are few better ways to gain fat this quickly.

 

Conclusion:

Keeping an eye on the above factors can help you keep your weight under control. Add exercise into the mix and that extra fat will be a thing of the past.