Welcome to the final week of the 30-Day Fat Loss Challenge!

During this challenge we’ve had our ups and downs as cravings came and went and hormones began to balance.

But by Week Four things have evened out or soon will.

Energy levels rise, mood may become more even, sleep becomes more restful, digestion improves, and overall health rises.

And, of course, we’ve lost a significant amount of body fat.

There is a reason this is the Fat Loss Challenge, not the Weight Loss Challenge.

Usually when someone wants to be thinner, trimmer, fitter-looking, they say: “I need to lose weight.”

And that’s the first error, because weight loss is not necessarily the same as fat loss.

Any time we go on a diet, cutting out sugar or cutting down on food, we go through one phase before anything else. Cravings. This can be for sugar or junk food or processed food or just food. But your body wants and it makes you feel that want.

If you ever felt alone in your struggle to lose fat and keep it off — you’re not.

There's a reason fat loss programs in America are a $72 billion per year industry. In the past forty-plus years, the percentage of obese Americans have increased from slightly less than 10% to more than 40%, according to the CDC.

But this isn’t due to laziness or lack of discipline on our part. No. We have modern foods to blame for this.

If you’ve ever had trouble with diets, losing weight, or simply keeping the weight off, let’s start by saying… It’s not you.

Let me say that one more time in case you didn't get it. It’s. Not. You. Period.

Every year, over a hundred million Americans make New Year’s Resolutions. And, there’s one resolution made more often than any of the others: the goal to lose weight. It’s also the one that’s given up on the fastest.

Why is that the case?

There are several things that control cravings or make it hard to get off sugar, as covered in this article here: What Causes Cravings For Sugar & Junk Food?

Causes mentioned in that article include hormones, messenger chemicals in the body that tell the cells what to do or not do, how to use energy or not, whether to build muscle or break it down, or add fat or burn it. 

When our sleep is below normal, when it’s broken up or thrown off, it affects us more both physically and mentally than we realize. Sleep is when most fat burning and muscle building occurs, as well as when most cellular repair happens. Our cortisol levels lower when we get good sleep and we become less stressed or anxious and more able to relax. This helps balance out hormones and neurotransmitters.

“How do I get off sugar and junk food? It's so hard!” In case you feel alone in this struggle — please know that you're not. In fact, the majority of people don't succeed from mainstream diets, even when they go all out on them. Why is that? Is it because the diet or lifestyle habits to succeed are not practical? Or you might be thinking you are not determined enough or simply lazy. Though some of the factors we’ll cover will make you feel low in energy to the point you may feel it’s laziness, but no it’s not. 

There are about 500 different species of bacteria. And between them, they ether produce or help to produce neurotransmitters in our body, such as Serotonin and GABA, which calm and relax us, de-stress us, allow us to fall asleep, and help to keep our hormones in balance so we can lose weight and add muscle.

Some of these bacteria eat the foods coming in such as amino acids, vitamins and other nutrients, and some actually produce amino acids, or vitamins, or other nutrients that the body can use or that other bacteria feed off of.

There is something called “Leaky Gut”, and this is not just a funny name. It’s probably one of the most accurate labels there are, actually.

When food comes into your small intestine from your stomach it’s already mostly broken down. Here, more enzymes (bodily chemicals) are released to break it down further into truly microscopic pieces.

The digestive tract is arguably the most important pathway in the body for overall health, fat loss, muscle-building, hormones, energy, and immune system function.

Now we’re going to dive more into one aspect of it affecting a majority of the people in the US right now whether they know it or not: SIBO or Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth.

There is an idea that GERD, Heartburn, and Acid Reflux are caused by too much stomach acid, and idea pushed heavily by pharmaceutical companies who make quite a bit of money from antacids and acid blockers.

But while these give a temporary solution, in the long term they actually make the problem worse.

This is because it’s not high levels of stomach acid that cause acid reflux and GERD, but the exact opposite — too little stomach acid. In fact, there is no research at all showing high stomach acid to be a cause.