How Food Allergies Affect Weight Gain (All You Need to Know)

Are your food allergies causing you to get fat? If you cut out the foods that are causing allergies, could you improve your weight loss efforts? You may not even notice that you have food allergies or intolerances, experience pain, and discomfort daily without really understanding why.

Well, there are various symptoms of allergies that can affect your weight loss efforts. Even if you’re not actively trying to diet, you may find that you gain weight daily because of the symptoms of your food allergies.

It’s important to understand symptoms of allergies—it’s not all about rashes and swelling! There are various symptoms that you may have never have linked to allergies.

So, here’s a look at all you need to know about food allergies and how they affect weight gain and your dieting efforts. Use the knowledge to improve your overall health.

Your Allergies Are Stopping You from Losing Weight

Dietitians have one common belief: food allergies prevent people from losing weight. There are certain symptoms that make it extremely hard for the metabolism to work as it is meant to. Some symptoms can directly affect the metabolism by slowing it down when you want to speed it up. Instead of burning more calories, your metabolism is holding onto the calories for use later. Of course, with a slower metabolism, you’ll never actually use the calories, and you end up storing more and more.

In short, you’re making yourself fat. Well, your allergies are making you fat. Allergies have three main symptoms: inflammation, weight gain, and bacteria growth.

Let’s focus on the first symptom. Inflammation is a symptom that we commonly know about. However, we think of it in a different way. We often think of the swelling in the face, hands, and even neck. This type of inflammation is common in nut allergies and can be extremely dangerous.

The truth is some of the inflammation is just inside. Usually, you’ll get it within the digestive system, causing chronic pain and discomfort. If you suffer from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) or Crohn’s disease, you will have the pain because of the inflammation that occurs.

You will likely feel bloated because of the inflammation. It looks like you’re overweight because your stomach expands to deal with the inflammation inside. You’re also more likely to retain water, which causes the bloating and expanded stomach. You can end up going up a dress size because of this inflammation and bloating.

It’s impossible to lose the weight when you must deal with the inflammation. It constantly gets in the way and makes you feel much heavier and bigger than you really are.

On top of this, you deal with the bacteria growth in your gut. One of the symptoms of allergies is more bad bacteria in the gut—yes you can get good bacteria! This leads to far more irritation and inflammation.

If you add more good bacteria to your gut, you can reduce a number of bad bacteria growth. This will help to fight against some of the allergy symptoms, but we’ll move onto this soon.

And yes, your metabolism will slow down while your body deals with the allergies. Your metabolism just can’t work effectively, so you start needing fewer calories to get yourself through a day. Of course, you don’t know this at first, so you eat far more calories than you need. Your body must store the calories elsewhere.

Chances are you’re also causing stress hormones to increase. This leads to the body working against itself. Also, let’s not forget that your immune system is battling something that isn’t there—that it’s perceived as a threat. Your body is doing a lot without meaning to, and you’re left low in energy and feeling bad.

Instantly Improve Weight Loss by Removing the Symptoms

Let’s just look at the inflammation again. This is the one symptom that makes you feel like you’re heavier than you really are. The bloating and water retention will add to your overall rate.

All the scales can do is tell you your overall weight. They don’t know that your weight gain is linked to water retention and inflammation. The scales think that your weight gain is fat!

When you get rid of the water retention and bloating, you will instantly feel 5-10 pounds lighter. You instantly get rid of one of the reasons for your weight gain. While the scales will instantly drop, your body will also change its shape. You’ll find you fit into clothes that you have only dreamed of fitting into recently.

The inflammation levels are also improved through getting rid of some of the bad bacteria in your body. You cut out one of the major reasons for your inflammation and stop your body fighting against something in your digestive system.

Your body will find it easier to get rid of the clogs and cut down on constipation. You’ll lose more weight instantly by this happening.

Studies have also shown that inflammation and bad bacteria are linked to insulin resistance. Chances are your diet is higher in sugar when you suffer from the allergy symptoms, so you end up with more insulin and more resistance to it. You’re at a higher risk of Type II diabetes and at a higher risk of holding onto more calories.

Keeping the insulin release to a minimum, you’ll find your metabolism works more effectively. Your immune system working less will also work. You’ll be able to burn more calories that you eat easier, so you don’t hoard them and gain weight.

Your Mind Will Be in the Right Place

Inflammation and pain affect the mind. When the symptoms are causing bloating and weight gain, your stress hormones increase. You instantly feel bad about yourself and will look for anyway to improve your mood.

Of course, we usually reach for the bad stuff! And in many cases, you’ll reach for the food that is making your allergy symptoms worse! You are creating a vicious cycle that you understand little about.

We tend to base our eating decisions on the mood that we’re in. If we’re stressed or upset, we look for the food that we think is going to better. We want the sugar rush, or we give into the cravings that we have. We’ll reach for chocolates and empty-calorie snacks that do nothing for our bodies. They offer absolutely no nutrients but are high in calories, so we end up eating far more calories than our bodies need.

By cutting out the food your allergy to, you will reduce the bloating. You feel better about yourself and will want to focus more on a healthy, balanced, and weight loss friendly diet. You’ll reach for the fruit instead of for the cakes.

We also eat foods that are lower in calories. We support our weight loss efforts to start creating a calorie deficit.

We’ll find it easier to stick to these diets. Feeling good about ourselves makes us want to stick to this way of feeling. Not only do we eat food that supports out gut, but we’ll in the right mood to cut out the food that causes some of the allergy symptoms.

Getting More Energy for Exercise Routines

Weight loss isn’t just about the diet. We need to do the exercise to build and tone the muscles. The exercise will help to boost our metabolic rate and increase a number of calories we burn. It also boosts the happy hormones in the body, making us want to do more and eat food that is good for us.

Well, food allergies stop us from doing exercise. Honestly, tell me that when you’re in pain, you want to do exercise. I bet you can’t!

All we want to do is curl up in a ball and wish the pain would go away. In some cases, the pain is so bad that we can barely walk, let alone do any other exercise. No number of painkillers helps us get off the couch and get through a regular day.

Even if you weren’t in pain, your mood would slump. The inflammation causes a drop-in energy levels, and you just don’t feel like you can get out and exercise. It’s the last thing on your mind!

Not doing exercise is doing you no favors when it comes to weight loss. You don’t burn any extra calories, and you don’t help to boost some calories your muscles need because you don’t build them up!

When you exercise, you also eliminate some of the snacking. After all, you can’t do both, can you? The chances are that when you do exercise, you don’t want to ruin the hard work with snacking. It makes you want to stick to that healthy diet, and you’ll find it easier to create balance.

You’ll also find that your digestive system is supported. Your immune system and the good bacteria growth are promoted. You’ll get rid of the pain daily, as your mind releases the right hormones, and inflammation reduces.

Getting Rid of Leaky Gut Syndrome

Bad bacteria in the gut isn’t just bad for inflammation. You get leaky gut syndrome, which means toxins pass around your body and you end up with more health issues. These are separate from your allergy symptoms but are caused by some of the allergy symptoms.

The toxins latch onto the immune system response. You end up with more inflammation around your body, reducing your energy levels and making you feel more in pain and depressed about your weight.

These toxins go as far as blocking your metabolism from being able to work. You end up with a far higher insulin resistance, putting you further at risk of developing Type II diabetes.

All these issues link to obesity. You’re at a higher risk of gaining weight, whether hoarding calories or retaining water.

Only getting rid of the food you’re allergic to will help to reduce the bad bacteria in the gut. Then you can work on reversing leaky gut syndrome to keep the release of toxins to a minimum. That way you can reduce all the side effects that come from this.

Healthy Bodies Produce More Leptin

If your body is healthy and without allergic symptoms, you’ll find that you have more leptin. This is a chemical that your body needs. It helps to maintain weight, so avoids you gaining too much even if you don’t have the healthiest of diets! You may even overeat but the right amount of leptin will help to boost the metabolism naturally and improve the weight maintenance. Yes, this is the case for those annoying people who seem to be at a healthy weight no matter what they eat!

Inflammation inhabits the production of leptin. The more foods that you eat that you’re allergic to, the more inflammation you will experience. Your body then must produce more anti-inflammatory elements, which then directly affect the leptin in the body.

Without the leptin, your body can tackle the weight gain. It can maintain the healthy weight, and you start gaining without even doing anything necessarily bad. You can have a good diet and create a calorie deficit, but your body struggles because you’re eating the wrong types of foods.

It’s Time to Cut Out Food Allergies

You need to take steps to find out which foods you’re allergic to. You may be allergic or intolerant to more foods than you initially realize. By cutting the out, you’ll find that inflammation cuts down to a minimum, so you produce more leptin and reduce the water retention.

Not only do you help your body physically lose weight, but you’ll be in a good place mentally. You’ll be happier with yourself and in less pain, which means you want to stick to the positive diet. Your energy levels will get a boost, so you do more, and you don’t want to counteract the exercise, do you?

It’s time to find out which foods you’re allergic to and cut them out. Your food allergies are causing your weight gain.