In your effort to lose weight, you may find yourself grappling with headaches.
Weight loss can be a pain in the head. According to the National Headache Foundation, weight loss and diet-related issues are responsible for 30% of migraines.
The point is that you are taking in lesser calories than your body is burning. This leads to fatigue that breeds calorie deficit headache.
How can you now combat this?
Never Skip An Entire Meal, Eat In Bits.
The severe headache is caused by hunger, caffeine withdrawal, exhaustion, and hangovers. If you are trying to lose weight, you should understand how your body reacts to starvation and intermittent fasting.
Rather than skip a whole meal, you should eat small meals, including breakfast. Of course, it makes sense to what to skip breakfast or lunch while on a diet, but you need to be aware of what it does to your head.
Be aware of the fact that skipping meals is not migraine friendly. Rather, you should slowly reduce your food intake over time.
Be Fully Hydrated, More of Water but Less of Food.
Dehydration triggers headaches when on a diet. No one can explain how and why, but it happens. The guess is that being dehydrated narrows the blood vessel in the brain and thereby reducing the supply of blood and energy to the brain. That explanation truly makes sense.
What you don’t know is that dehydration not only causes headache but also limit your weight loss efforts. The human brain may confuse thirst for hunger, forcing you to eat more than regular.
While on a weight loss diet, take in a lot of liquids, especially water. Don’t deprive yourself of water when your body yearns for it.
Do Away With Artificial Sweeteners.
If you are sensitive to aspartame, you will have headache bouts while on a diet. Check your diet drinks and foods; there’s usually a high concentration of aspartame.
You will need to study your body reaction before deciding that aspartame is the cause of the headache. Rather than rely on artificial sweeteners, go with honey in your tea and coffee.
Of course, honey evens helps in releasing fat, and it’s far better than sweeteners.
Our advice; stay away from aspartame while on a weight loss diet. Else, you’ll find yourself grabbing your head all day.
Slow But Steady Reduction of Caffeine.
If ditching soda and coffee is part of your weight loss routine, you will experience caffeine withdrawal, which will trigger migraines. Experts noted that not less than half of people cutting back on caffeine suffers from headache and other unpleasant symptoms.
Yes, you have to do way with caffeine, but it should not be a sudden cut. Not like caffeine is a weight adding an ingredient, but when loaded in sodas and coffee, it does a lot of damage.
Make it a slow reduction in intake; else, you’ll battle with headaches till you’re free from the withdrawal symptoms.
Relax and Avoid Stressful Activities.
Stress will bring about headaches and cause binge eating, making it extremely difficult to stick to your weight loss diet.
When under stress, your body tends to prepare you to fight back with the release of adrenalin and cortisol. This brings about a headache due to the contracting of the blood vessels in your brain.
Take a break from stressful activities when on a diet. Do things that make your body relax.
and lastly, Don’t Push Yourself Too Much During Exercise.
Especially if you are new to workouts as a medium to weight loss, you will find yourself having an exercise headache.
If you are working out in a team, don’t be too motivated to move at the same pace as others. Try to do some light warm-up such as quick walking before getting into the exercise proper.
Most importantly, know when to relax when exercising.
Final Thoughts.
The reality is that your body will go through a lot of changes while you are on a weight loss diet and exercise. It will trigger pain in your body, but when the pain is becoming incessant, it might be due to any of the above.
Follow all of these six tips, and you’ll find it enjoyable, losing weight.
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