Why Am I Gaining Weight? Sneaky Reasons Pounds Creep on and How to Finally Lose Them

“If you’ve ever stepped on the scale and wondered, ‘Why am I gaining weight so fast?”, know that you’re not alone,” assures Sean Bourke, MD, Founder and Chief Medical Officer of JumpstartMD. “Unexplained weight gain is more common than you might think, and the causes go way beyond eating too much or not moving enough.” 

And as it turns out, some of the sneakiest reasons for sudden weight gain are related to your hormones. Here, the top culprits and how to conquer them.

4 things that can make you gain weight quickly

While it’s true that the usual suspects—like leading a more sedentary lifestyle and eating too many processed foods—can contribute to weight gain, other factors are often at play. Here’s what might be making the numbers on the scale tick upward, plus expert-backed fixes to shed those extra pounds.

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Increased stress

“When we’re under chronic stress, cortisol, the body’s main stress hormone, rises,“ says Dr. Bourke. Elevated cortisol promotes fat storage, especially in the abdominal area. And as sports performance dietitian Destini Moody, RD, CSSN, notes, cortisol reduces levels of testosterone, which can decrease muscle mass. 

“More muscle mass means a faster resting metabolism,” she explains. But when metabolism slows due to loss of muscle mass, it takes less food consumption to lead to weight gain. In addition, cortisol stimulates the release of a hunger-revving hormone called ghrelin. 

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The fix: “Having some ‘me time’ and other isolation strategies in place to unplug from the source of your stress can do wonders for reducing the stress hormones that make weight management more difficult,” she assures. “These activities can come in the form of sitting in the yard with a new book, meditation or listening to a good playlist. You only need about 15 minutes a day.” (Check out our round-up of how to reduce cortisol here.)

Also smart: Exercising regularly. “Any form of exercise can relieve stress, but yoga and Pilates that place an emphasis on breathing and loosening up the body are by far the best,” Moody says. “Just 30 minutes of an exercise like yoga at least three times a week can be effective.” 

Not a fan of yoga or Pilates? Engaging in activities that you enjoy and can stick to also helps with stress-related weight gain. “Swimming, biking, martial arts, kickboxing or even using a stationary bike for 30-45 minutes, three to four times a week, is what I would recommend,” Moody says.

Hypothyroidism

“Your thyroid is the foundation of your metabolic function,” notes McCall McPherson, PA-C, Founder of Modern Thyroid Clinic and Modern Weight Loss. For those with hypothyroidism, “As your body slows the production and absorption of a key thyroid hormone called T3, you begin to store fat inappropriately.” And you can have elevations in blood sugar that may spur insulin resistance, which increases fat storage.

If your weight gain is accompanied by other hypothyroidism symptoms (fatigue, brain fog, hair loss, low libido and cold intolerance) ask your doctor for comprehensive thyroid tests. But even results that fall within “normal” ranges can fail to identify hypothyroidism accurately, so McPherson recommends working with a medical professional who’s familiar with interpreting the tests and takes your personal symptoms into account.

The fix: If a thyroid slowdown is making you gain weight, taking a medication known as levothyroxine may help. But McPherson cautions that the med contains a form of thyroid hormone that needs to be converted into active T3 by the body. 

“I find many—if not most—women are not able to take that medication, activate it and use it in their body, so their weight gain and other symptoms don’t go away,” she says. For those women, she advocates a more in-depth approach, which often involves taking meds such as Cytomel or Armour thyroid. (Learn more about the early signs of thyroid problems here.)

Perimenopause or menopause

Weight gain affects 60 to 70 percent of menopausal women, say researchers at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. And declining estrogen levels are a major reason why. The hormone plays an important role in balancing blood sugar, McPherson explains. 

“To a huge degree, once we lose that estrogen we become insulin resistant; therefore, fat becomes stored more inappropriately even when we’re eating well and exercising,” she says. “We also tend to shift into fat storage around our vital organs. That’s what we refer to as that ‘menopause belly.’” 

Adding to the problem: The decrease in testosterone that accompanies menopause can cause us to lose lean muscle mass, which lowers our metabolic rate. 

The fix: Your doctor can conduct blood tests that measure levels of estrogen, testosterone and progesterone. Based on the results, he or she can advise you on strategies such as hormone replacement therapy, nutritional counselling and weight loss medications such as GLP-1 antagonists like Ozempic. (Discover why postmenopausal women lose more weight when taking both HRT and GLP-1 here.)   

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Lack of sleep

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“Not getting enough sleep doesn’t just make you cranky—it actually disrupts your hunger and satiety hormones,” notes Dr. Bourke. And even a single night of sleep deprivation causes levels of the hunger hormone ghrelin levels to climb, found a study in the Journal of Sleep Research. Plus, it reduces levels of the satiety hormone leptin. “Combine that with less energy to move, and it’s a recipe for rapid weight gain,” he says.

The fix: “To get the sleep that you need, things like managing stress, establishing a night-time routine and emptying your bladder before you go to bed are essential,” says Brynna Connor, MD, Healthcare Ambassador at NorthwestPharmacy.com. “Also, remember that the bedroom is for sleep and sex only, no tech, no TV and no phones in the bedroom!” 

But if you’re not getting eight hours of sleep on a regular basis despite self-care strategies, she advises seeking professional help. Your doctor may recommend sleep medications or refer you to a specialist who can determine if you’re suffering from sleep apnea, a start-and-stop breathing pattern that undermines sleep quality.