Information technology'due south understandable when you gain a few pounds after holiday or if you lot break your ankle and spend six weeks propped on the sofa bingeing obscure British cooking shows (and the chocolate scones to become with them).

Only when yous can't zip your jeans for no freaking reason at all — you swear you're not eating any more or exercising any less — it tin can feel like there's some dark magic at play. Y'all may find yourself continuing on the bathroom calibration, screaming into the void:

"Why am I gaining weight?!"

Deep breath. You got this.

More From Practiced Housekeeping

preview for Featured Videos From Good Housekeeping US

Nigh likely, in that location'due south something in your life that's shifted but enough to make a divergence, merely not so much that you'd detect, says Alexandra Sowa, MD, an obesity specialist and clinical instructor of medicine at NYU Langone Wellness. "I see this all the time — you may not step on the scale for a while, and you experience like yous oasis't changed anything, and all of a sudden you go to the dr.'s role and notice you've gained ten or 20 pounds," she says.

But that doesn't mean it's your destiny to become upwardly another size every year. Here are some of the most likely reasons for unexplained weight gain, and how to end it in its tracks.

Your insulin levels may be out of whack.

If you lot've been battling weight issues for a while and none of your efforts are moving the needle, make an engagement with your main care dr. or a weight-direction physician, who can appraise you for insulin resistance or prediabetes. (Your doctor can also test you for hypothyroidism, in which your thyroid gland doesn't produce enough hormone, slowing down your metabolism and potentially leading to weight proceeds.)

"Insulin is the hormone that signals the body to pull glucose out of the bloodstream and store information technology in the muscles, liver, and fat," explains Tirissa Reid, Medico, an obesity medicine specialist at Columbia University Medical Center and Diplomate of the American Board of Obesity Medicine. "Just when you're overweight, the cells don't recognize the insulin as well, so the pancreas has to pump out more than and more — sometimes two or three times the normal corporeality — until the cells answer." (This is also common in women who have polycystic ovary syndrome — a condition in which the egg follicles in the ovaries bunch together to form cysts.)

These loftier insulin levels continue the trunk in storage mode and make weight loss more than difficult, says Dr. Reid. The beginning of this road is insulin resistance — when your pancreas is working overtime, simply claret sugar levels are all the same normal. All that actress work wears out the pancreas until it can barely do the job of keeping the blood sugar in normal range. Left unchecked, insulin resistance can lead to prediabetes, in which blood-sugar levels are slightly elevated; if that's non treated, you tin can develop full-blown blazon-two diabetes.

What you lot can do: The about effective way to reverse this trend is to consume a diet low in refined carbs and added sugars, and to become more physically active, since muscles respond better to insulin after exercise, says Dr. Reid.

She recommends either investing in a fitness tracker or simply using the one that comes with your telephone. "People hear y'all need 10,000 steps each twenty-four hour period, which sounds intimidating, but you can too use information technology just to meet where you lot're at and make achievable increases," Dr. Reid says. "If y'all're at 2,000 steps, endeavor to become upwardly to 2,500 a day side by side week and go along to increase." Swapping to foods with a lower glycemic index (GI) — which means they're digested more slowly, keeping blood-sugar levels steady — is also important for controlling your insulin levels. Dr. Sowa recommends these lower-GI food swaps: riced cauliflower instead of white rice; zucchini spirals or shirataki noodles (made from constitute fiber) instead of pasta; and pumpernickel or stone-ground whole wheat bread instead of white bread or bagels.

Stress and burnout are throwing you off.

If yous're up at night worrying nearly your aging parents, your hormonal teens, and the full general crappy state of the earth, this can bear upon your metabolism. "Stress and lack of slumber can cause a pour of hormonal changes that change your metabolism and touch on your sense of hunger and fullness," Dr. Sowa explains.

A Caucasian woman sleeping on her bed

Rawpixel // Getty Images

Stress pumps up the hormones ghrelin and cortisol, which increment your appetite and tin make you crave carbs; at the same time, it dials down the hormone leptin, which helps you feel full. Not surprisingly, a recent Swedish study of three,872 women over xx years plant that the more stressed you are by piece of work, the probable you are to gain weight. Stress also affects your ability to become a good dark's sleep, and we know that lack of sleep can also throw off your metabolism rates and hunger cues.

What you tin can do: It's easy — just ready the world and make anybody around you kinder and more than sane.

Hm, maybe non. But you tin manage your stress past downloading a free app such as Pacifica, (now Sanvello) which tin help y'all piece of work toward personal goals such as thinking positively and decreasing anxiety past sending yous meditations and visualizations to do throughout the day. To sleep more soundly, you lot already know you should put downwardly your phone, computer, and iPad an hour earlier bedtime, but new enquiry shows that shutting out all light — including that sliver of moon through your window — can aid with both sleep and metabolism. A written report at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine plant that after subjects spent just one night of sleeping in a room with dim lite, insulin levels the next morning were significantly higher than those who slept in complete darkness, potentially affecting metabolism rates. So consider investing in some good blackout curtains.

Your allergy pills are to blame.

"We're not 100% sure why, but information technology'south believed that histamines, chemicals produced by your immune organization to fight allergens, have a role in ambition control," says Dr. Reid. That ways that "antihistamines may cause you to consume more," she says. A large study from Yale University confirmed that at that place is a correlation between regular prescription antihistamine utilise and obesity. Dr. Reid points out that some antihistamines such as Benadryl also crusade drowsiness, which could brand you less apt to exercise.

What you can do: If you endure from seasonal allergies and are constantly taking antihistamines, talk to your allergist most alternative treatments such every bit nasal steroid sprays, nasal antihistamines (which take less absorption into the bloodstream, and therefore less issue on hunger), leukotriene inhibitors such equally Singulair, or allergy shots, suggests Jeffrey Demain, Md, founder of the Allergy Asthma and Immunology Center of Alaska. He also says that managing your environment — using a HEPA filter, washing your sheets frequently in hot water, keeping pets out of your chamber — can help reduce the need for allergy meds. While you're at it, do an inventory of any prescription medications you're taking that are known to cause weight gain (including certain antidepressants, beta blockers, corticosteroids, and the birth control shot) and talk over with your doctor if in that location are as constructive alternatives that don't affect weight, says Dr. Reid.

Your portions are probably bigger than you think.

Anyone who's ever sat in a vinyl booth staring down a bowl of pasta big enough for a toddler to swim knows that portion sizes in America are ginormous. But research
from the Academy of Liverpool published last yr found that later on being served large-size meals outside the habitation, people tend to serve themselves larger portions up to a calendar week later, meaning supersizing appears to be normalized, says Lisa R. Young, PhD, writer of Finally Full, Finally Slim.

large and tiny food portions

tifonimages // Getty Images

Fifty-fifty if your home-cooked portions have crept up only five% over the final few years, that tin can be an extra 100 calories a day, which adds up to more 11 pounds a twelvemonth, says Lawrence Cheskin, MD, chair of nutrition and food studies at George Mason University. And the official measure of what's a "serving" isn't helping. "The FDA standards for how many 'servings' are in a packet of food are based on how much food people actually swallow, not how much you should swallow," Young explains. For example, to reverberate the growing appetites of the American people, a serving of ice foam was increased last year from 1/ii cup to 2/3 loving cup. More realistic, perhaps, but still more calories than many of u.s. demand.

Here'due south what to practice: First, Young suggests y'all spend a few days getting a reality check on how much food you lot're actually eating at each repast. "When you pour the cereal in the bowl in the morning, pour it back into a measuring loving cup. What you thought was 1 cup might actually be 3 cups, especially if you're using a large bowl," she says.

Also, instead of relying on a government agency (or the chef at your favorite eating place) at to tell you how much to eat, learn to listen to your ain body, says Young. "Serve yourself just one modest portion on a pocket-sized plate, and when yous're done, wait 20 minutes," she says. Information technology takes that long for the hormones in your abdomen to reach your brain and tell it you're total. If you get to 20 minutes and your stomach is grumbling, have a few more than bites.

You're eating the right thing, just at the wrong time.

Let's say you switched jobs recently, and dinner is now at 9 p.m. instead of 6:30. Or your new habit of streaming Neflix until the wee hours also involves snacking well past midnight. Even if you're not eating more than, per se, this change might account for the actress poundage.

There'south a delicate dance between your circadian rhythm (the way your body and brain respond to the daily cues of daylight and darkness) and your calorie intake that can mean that same sandwich or basin of fro-yo that you consume at lunchtime may actually cause more than of a weight proceeds when eaten at night. A 2017 study at Brigham & Women's Hospital found that when college students ate food closer to their bedtime — and therefore closer to when the sleep-inducing hormone melatonin was released — they had higher percentages of torso fat and a higher body-mass index. The researchers theorize that this is because the amount of energy your body uses to digest and metabolize nutrient drops every bit your inner clock tells it to get prepare to snooze.

What you tin do: At that place are a few life hacks to keep the late-night snacking to a minimum. Dr. Sowa suggests y'all commit to writing down every bite you swallow after dinner: "Whether information technology'south on a mucilaginous pad or on an app, keeping runway of what yous're eating, how much you're eating, and how y'all're feeling when you eat it will concur you accountable for the calories, and it will also help you figure out if you're truly hungry or just bored," she says. She also suggests capping off your evening repast with a brain-and-centre-healthy tablespoon of Fish Oil. "It's a healthy fat that coats your stomach and makes yous feel less hungry afterwards," she says.

Your "salubrious" nutrient is packed with calories.

You could exist eating the cleanest, most organic, dietitian-approved variety of plant-based, or ethically farmed food, just that doesn't mean the calories evaporate into pixie dust when they get in your mouth.

broccoli chickpea cilantro almond white and red rice

nata_vkusidey // Getty Images

And in fact, research has shown that when you're eating something healthy — avocados, salad, yogurt, whole grains — part of your attending to fullness tends to plough off. "Even when you're eating good for you foods, y'all actually have to pay attention to your hunger and satiety signals," says Véronique Provencher, PhD, professor of nutrition at Université Laval in Quebec City, Canada. "In several studies we take found that when nosotros perceive a food as healthy information technology creates a bias in our own judgment, and we think (consciously or non) that we can eat more than of information technology, no problem. Nosotros recall a salad is healthy, so nosotros feel we can consume equally much every bit we desire with equally many dressings or toppings as we desire."

What you can do Kickoff of all, treat eating similar going to the theater, and turn your phone off — and turn away from the computer or TV screen. "Nosotros have found when you are eating and working on your computer or watching TV or on a screen y'all are disconnected from hunger and satiety clues," says Provencher. Something else that may help, other experts say, is to become more aware of portion sizes and what'due south in your food. Endeavor the Weight Watchers app, which helps y'all sort out questions like which "healthy" yogurts are full of sugar and calories, and how much avocado y'all should spread on your toast.

Westward eight loss, health and body image are circuitous subjects — earlier deciding to proceed a diet, nosotros invite you gain a broader perspective by reading our exploration into the hazards of diet culture.

Your age might be a cistron.

Each altogether you lot celebrate brings on one undeniable change: your basal resting metabolism (the rate at which your trunk at rest burns the free energy you take in from food) slows downward. "It'due south not a dramatic drop," says Dr. Cheskin. "But as you lot age, you're probably also getting less agile and more tired, and your trunk tends to lose muscle mass, which burns calories more efficiently than fat." And so even if you're eating the verbal same amount of food equally y'all did when you were younger, your body is only not burning it off every bit effectively as it did during the glory days of your 20s.

Here's what to do: You can only budge your BMR a little, but at that place are a few things you can do to make the math work in your favor. The first is to build up your calorie-called-for muscle, says fitness expert Michele Olson, PhD, a professor of sports scientific discipline and physical education at Huntingdon Higher. "Proceed up cardio iii times a calendar week for thirty minutes, but add together challenging weight grooming on top of that," she says.

Olson recommends these exercises that can exist done at home. Outset with what yous can do and build upwards to 2 sets of 12 of each, every other twenty-four hours.

  • Chair squats: Sit of the edge of a chair with arms crossed; stand up and sit back downwardly for 1 rep.
  • Triceps dips: Sit on the edge of a chair, supporting yourself with your arms, slide off, walking your anxiety out in front of y'all a few steps; with knees aptitude and torso below the seat, bend elbows; press upwardly until artillery are straight. (Use a chair without wheels!)
  • Push button-ups, from your knees, or full button-ups, if you can.

Another metabolism-boosting strategy: Replace some of the carbohydrates in your diet with proteins, which take more energy to assimilate, therefore called-for off more than calories through diet-induced thermogenesis, equally well as making you feel fuller for longer. Dr. Sowa suggests you eat nigh 100 grams of poly peptide over the course of the mean solar day, filling your plate with lean chicken, fish, shrimp, or plant-based proteins such as garbanzo beans, tempeh, and edamame, to give your meals more metabolism bang for your buck. This may only add up to a weight loss of a few pounds a twelvemonth, but combined with exercise, the cumulative result tin exist significant, says Dr. Sowa.