Weight Loss Plateaus? Here’s What’s Really Holding You Back
Have you ever felt like no matter what you do in your weight loss journey, the scale just won’t budge? You’ve tried all the diets, cut calories, and increased your workouts—and yet the results don’t reflect your hard work. You’re not alone, and it’s not your fault.
This is what I like to call the surface-level approach. No matter how many people tell you that it’s
calories in vs calories out, they are missing the multiple layers that got you here in the first
place.
Starting at the first layer, have any of these been a major stressor in the last five years:
- Your emotional environment (family, friends, connections, relationships)
- Your physical environment (where you live, noise exposure, work environment)
- Your safety and security environment (roof over your head, bullied, close friends, isolation)
If you answered yes, whether that be a loss of connection, trauma, stress, or insecurity, then that could have deeply impacted your weight. Why? These emotional responses trigger an inflammation cascade throughout the body, further impeding health. The fact is, your life story gets written in your biology. These major events in your life literally regulate your genes, your cell health, your gut flora, your immune system, and hormone balance, which can make it more difficult to manage weight.
Understanding these deeper connections is key to breaking through weight loss resistance. It’s not only about what you eat and how much you exercise— It’s also about addressing the root causes. Chronic stress, for instance, doesn’t just affect your mind; it also dysregulates hormones like cortisol, disrupts gut health, and promotes inflammation— all of which create a cascade of challenges for weight management.
Beyond Calories: What’s Really Blocking Your Weight Loss
Progress
Weight loss resistance isn’t about a lack of effort– it’s about addressing the complex interplay between your genes, environment, diet, and lifestyle. Let’s explore these factors that might keep you from achieving your goals.
Diet
Often a diet high in refined carbohydrates (bread, crackers, sweet treats), added sugar, and saturated fats can significantly impact blood sugar, making it harder for your body to burn fat. And to make matters worse, overconsumption of processed foods triggers dopamine pathways making it difficult to resist cravings. These foods provide no nutritional value and inhibit SIRT-1 and AMPK, critical energy metabolism and fat-burning pathways regulators, further hindering your weight loss efforts.
Gut Health
Your gut health significantly affects weight regulation. Imbalances in the gut microbiome, known as dysbiosis, can contribute to metabolic syndrome by increasing inflammation, disrupting hormone signaling, and altering your appetite. Specific bacteria that alter your food cravings include yeast which craves sugar, bacteroidetes which craves fat, prevotella which craves carbs, and bifidobacterium which craves fiber.
Genetics
Your genes play a role in how your body stores and uses energy, though they’re only part of the picture. For instance, the ADRB2 gene may reduce your body’s ability to burn fat during exercise, making workouts feel less effective. Other genes, like PPARG and ISR1, impact how your body stores fat and responds to insulin. While you can’t change your genes, functional nutrition can help you work with them to optimize your results.
Hormones
Hormones play a critical role in regulating hunger, satiety, and fat storage. When these signals are disrupted, it can feel impossible to lose weight. For example, leptin and ghrelin—the hormones that tell your body when you’re full or hungry—can become dysregulated by stress, poor sleep, and a diet high in processed foods. GLP-1, insulin, and glucagon, which regulate blood sugar and energy use, are also impacted, especially with elevated insulin levels or insulin resistance.
Inflammation and stress further complicate the picture by increasing cortisol, which promotes fat storage and disrupts the balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Hormonal changes, such as low thyroid function, estrogen dominance, or low estrogen levels during menopause, can slow metabolism and make weight loss more challenging. By addressing these imbalances through tailored strategies, you can restore your body’s natural rhythm and make progress toward your goals.
Sleep
Sleep quality is directly tied to weight regulation, yet it’s often overlooked. Individuals who are overweight or obese commonly report increased sleep disturbances and higher stress levels. Short sleep duration disrupts key appetite-regulating hormones like leptin and ghrelin, with reduced leptin levels (which signal fullness) and elevated ghrelin levels (which trigger hunger). This hormonal imbalance can lead to increased appetite and contribute to a higher BMI.
By understanding how these genetic and environmental factors influence your body, you can take a personalized approach to tackle weight loss resistance. Targeting root causes like hormone imbalances, inflammation, and genetic expression can unlock your body’s potential for sustainable, long-term weight loss.
Next Steps With Functional Nutrition
As a functional dietitian at Alive Integrative, my goal is to help you uncover what’s truly holding you back and empower you with the tools to succeed. Together, we’ll begin with investigation and discovery, diving deep into your health history, daily habits, and unique challenges. We’ll evaluate key factors like your caloric intake, macronutrient balance, and the thermic effect of food—how efficiently your body processes energy. Beyond that, we’ll look at deeper root causes like sleep quality, hormonal imbalances, stress, and genetics to create a clear, personalized roadmap.
From there, we’ll move into the rebalance and restore phase, where I guide you in resetting and supporting your body’s systems. This means implementing practical strategies to increase non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT), such as small, manageable lifestyle changes to get you moving more throughout the day. We’ll also focus on boosting your energy by enhancing mitochondrial function and balancing your hormones. This phase is about helping you feel more energized, focused, and in control of your body.
Finally, we’ll transition to the optimize and expand phase, where we fine-tune your progress and set you up for long-term success. Together, we’ll integrate advanced techniques like cold exposure or sauna therapy and build a sustainable exercise plan tailored to your lifestyle. This phase also emphasizes maintaining balance in areas like gut health and stress management so that the results you’ve worked hard for are here to stay.
At every step, my focus is on making this journey work for you—your body, your goals, and your life. This isn’t about quick fixes; it’s about creating lasting change in a way that feels achievable and empowering. Let’s take this next step together. Your transformation is waiting!
Key Takeaways—Next Steps With Functional Nutrition
● If you have experienced weight loss resistance, it’s time to look deeper. Sleep quality, hormonal imbalances, stress, gut health, and genetics all play a significant role in our weight and metabolic health. Addressing these factors is essential for sustainable progress.
● Personalized solutions work: Bronte Grooms, a functional dietitian at Alive Integrative, creates tailored strategies to align your body’s systems—like balancing hormones, improving gut health, and optimizing mitochondrial function—for long-term, sustainable results.
● Testing provides clarity: Functional testing helps uncover the root causes of weight loss resistance, from hormonal imbalances to inflammation and gut health issues, so you can stop guessing and start working with your body.
● Break free from the cycle: If you feel stuck on the weight gain/loss “hamster wheel” and nothing seems to work, reach out to Bronte Grooms at Alive Integrative. Together, we’ll uncover the root causes, provide guidance, and support you in achieving lasting results
Written by Brontë Grooms, RDN, FMNS
Introducing Brontë, Alive Integrative’s dedicated dietitian and wellness advocate.
Having personally overcome burnout, gut issues, and hormonal imbalances, she brings a
genuine understanding of the challenges many clients face when trying to reclaim their health.
Bronte creates individualized plans that target everything from stubborn weight concerns to
persistent digestive discomfort by blending a root-cause, science-based approach with practical
nutrition and lifestyle strategies. She’s committed to guiding you with empathy and expertise, so
you can take confident steps toward sustainable vitality. If you’re ready to feel your best, we
invite you to learn more about how Bronte can support you on your unique wellness journey.
