Your Genetic Roadmap: Navigating Weight Loss with DNA Insight

Genetics plays a vital role in weight management, affecting appetite, metabolism, fat storage, and response to exercise. By understanding how your unique genetic profile influences these factors, you can adopt a personalized approach to weight loss, one that's informed by science rather than guesswork.

Key Genetic Pathways for Weight Loss

Pathway 1 : Appetite, Satiety, and Food Intake

Your appetite and how full you feel after eating are primarily influenced by specific gene variations, including CLOCK, DRD2, MC4R, and FTO, which regulate key hormones like ghrelin and leptin. The differences between these gene variations that you receive from your parents can provide clues into how to utilize your biochemistry to reduce your appetite and increase your feeling of fullness.

Ghrelin: Known as the "hunger hormone," ghrelin levels can increase your appetite. Variants in genes like CLOCK, FTO & APOA2 can raise ghrelin levels, making it harder to feel satisfied after meals.

Leptin: This hormone signals fullness. MC4R and LEPR gene variants can impair leptin production or signaling, leading to reduced feelings of fullness and potentially higher calorie intake.

If you received some of these gene variations that alter your hunger and ability to feel full, there are things you can do!

If you received some of these gene variations that alter your hunger and ability to feel full, there are things you can do:

1) Sleep and Circadian Health: Maintaining a regular sleep schedule supports healthy ghrelin levels.

2) Regular exercise: Exercise can not only decrease ghrelin levels, it is a way of supporting dopamine production and can bring about the reward feeling.

3) Food Choices: Include fiber and protein-rich foods to improve your feeling of fullness. Apples, almonds, and avocados can all improve leptin levels which can increase that feeling of fullness.

4) Cold Exposure: Cold tubs or showers or cryotherapy have been shown to increase leptinreceptors, therefore increasing your feeling of fullness as well as convert white adipose (fat) tissue which is inflammatory to brown adipose (fat) tissue which increased energy expenditure and burns calories.

How full you feel or your satiety level after you eat is also controlled by your genes. LEPR, APOA2, SLCA2 and FAAH all contribute to your feeling of fullness and the varying combinations of your genes play a significant role. Depending on what combination of genes you received it can influence your preference for fatty foods or sweet cravings, both of which can lead to weight gain.

What can you do if you have variations in your genes that

qffect your appetite, satiety and/or food intake?

1) Support your leptin system: cold exposure, high intensity interval training & reducing inflammation can all increase your leptin levels.

2) Avoid saturated fats and replace them with unsaturated fats.

3) Reduce sweet cravings: In some people, fasting for too long can lead to binge eating. Especially if you have certain variations of the FAAH gene. Eating smaller meals at regular intervals, can decrease sweet cravings in these individuals. Gymnema Sylvestre herb may reduce sweet cravings along with herbal teas, & berries.

What can you naturally do if you need to increase your GLP-1 production and/or sensitivity?

1) Increase bitter foods like bitter melon, greens, black tea, radicchio, cacao, hops

2) Increase soluble fiber (flax seed, chia seeds, legumes) and protein foods (animal products are complete proteins)

3) Increase mono-unsaturated fats (olive oils, olives). .

4) Increase berries, pomegranate, ginger, grapefruit, lemon

5) Try berberine, ECGC, curcumin, genistein, quercetin, resveratrol , akkermansia (probiotic) and Calocurb (work with a dietitian or nutritional professional on the proper product safety and dosage of these supplements)

Pathway 2: Fat Storage

Your body’s tendency to store fat, release fat & your fat cell size are influenced by genes like ADRB2, ADRB3, FABP2 ,MMP2, PLIN, PPARGC1A and PPARG. Variants here can lower your body's ability to break down fat, push your body to store fat and increase fat cell size, which can make weight loss challenging.

What can you do if you have variations of these genes that can increase fat storage?

1) Support detoxification.

2) Manage cortisol & stress levels.

3) Slightly reduce calorie levels (work with a dietitian or nutiriton professional to evaluate this aspect.)

4) Limit intake of refined carbohydrates.

5) Increase intake of anti-inflammatory foods.

6) Decrease intake of inflammatory foods. Learn more about decreasing inflammatory foods

7) Cold exposure or cryotherapy

8) Try intermittent fasting (work with a dietitian or nutrition professional on this approach)

9) Massage, dry brushing, & rebounding

10) Try adding Omega 3, Sulforaphane, &/or green coffee bean supplements

Pro-Inflammatory Fat

The likelihood of developing “pro-inflammatory” fat cells or causing your body to be stuck in an inflammatory state is influenced by genes ADIPOQ, CRP, IL-1, IL-6, IL-6R, TNFA. Certain variations of these genes can increase inflammation through the inflammatory effects of your fat cells which can lead to difficulty in burning fat and therefore losing weight.

1) Add inflammation reducing foods like omega 3 fatty acids to tamper inflammation & support adiponectin production. (Adiponectin is a hormone that plays a strong role in reducing inflammation in a manner that affects the bodies metabolic system and how the body releases fat, so increasing this hormone can help in the role of fat loss in the body)

2) Support gut health to prevent inflammation by eating foods rich in soluble fiber that promote short-chain fatty acid production. This can potentially promote weight loss by influencing appetite regulation, increasing fullness signals, and promoting fat burning by stimulating the release of hormones like GLP-1 and PYY, which signal fullness, and leptin, which helps regulate energy balance, ultimately leading to reduced food intake and potentially contributing to weight loss.

3) Cold exposure & time restricted eating can decrease inflammation in the body

4) Get that sun exposure to increase vitamin D to promote it’s anti-inflammatory effect.

5) Try adding omega 3, curcumin, vitamin A & Vitamin D supplements to tamper inflammation.

Energy Expenditure

Genes like ADRB2, ADRB3, CLOCK, FTO, LEPR, MC4R, PPARGC1A, UCP1, UCP2, and UCP3 influence how much energy you burn at rest or what we often think of when we think of your metabolism. Some variants in these genes can reduce your energy expenditure, making weight loss harder. This is the “thrifty gene” response which causes your body to hold on to fat, burn less overall calories & require less food for energy.

What should you do if you have a combo of these genes that makes it harder to tap into burning fat when you exercise?

1) Boost mitochondira (energy producing portion of your cell) with cold exposure, fasting, & adequate sleep.

2) Continue regular exercise for your heart, movement & stress reduction purposes. Be sure to include resistance or weight training to promote muscle growth which naturally increases your metabolism.

3) Eat foods that increase energy expenditure like curcumin, berries, chili peppers, and green tea.

4) Eat an adequate amount of B Vitamins & magnesium to support energy production.

Weight Gain & Weight Loss Resistance

Combinations of certain variations of the genes mentioned below can affect your overall ability to lose weight and could be triggering your body for weight gain. Working with a professional who knows how these genes interact with your biochemistry is like giving yourself the gift of your own personal “Owner’s Manual” or “Maintenance Plans” to reach the goals you have been chasing for years. It is like a blueprint that can guide you on nutrition & lifestyle factors that will benefit your overall health and wellness. This is the definition of “Personalized Health”.

Grab "Your Genetic Roadmap: Navigating Weight Management with DNA Insight" here. This is an eBook resource full of links to additional resources to assist you in reaching your true potential and finally get to that health, wellness and weight managment you have been working so hard for!

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