The weight set-point theory
Have you heard of the weight set-point theory? According to this theory, there is a weight range your body is comfortable at and it hovers around give or take a few pounds. This range is determined by your genetics and your environment/habits.
But the thing is, we can shift this setpoint. If we eat excessively and live a sedentary lifestyle (due to stress, anxiety, busy lifestyle, emotional eating, depression, hormonal imbalance, or any other reason) for a relatively long time, we gain weight and override our body´s natural tendency of staying at the original set point. The new, higher weight becomes our set point.
The body likes to keep things the same, it´s called homeostasis. This also applies to our weight. Whatever weight we had for months becomes our new set point.
A part of the brain called the hypothalamus helps maintain this set-point. It does this by controlling hunger, appetite, and metabolism.
What happens if you try to lose weight?
If you try to lose weight quickly using a fad diet and you reduce your weight too far below your set-point too quickly, your brain will fight back. It will increase the ghrelin hormone level to increase your appetite and slows down your metabolism to burn fewer calories. That´s why you gain back the weight you lost after a diet.
But don´t get discouraged.
As we can shift our set point to a higher value we can also move it to a lower value, but we have to be strategic about it.
An article published by the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center suggests that slow, gradual weight loss is the key to altering your set point.
So what to do?
Lose weight slowly, no more than 10% of your body weight every 6 months. This means that if your current weight is for example 160 pounds or 73 kg, you shouldn´t lose more than 16 pounds or 7.3 kg in six months. Many clinical studies confirmed that this is the amount of weight you can lose before your body starts to fight back.
After maintaining your new set point for 6 months, you can lose again 10% of your body weight and stay at that weight for 6 months. Then you can repeat the cycle as many times as you need to reach your goal weight.
You can achieve this slow, gradual weight loss effectively and healthily by adopting small, healthy habits and learning to stick to them. This is exactly what I teach in my Healthy Habits for Permanent Weight Loss course. This way you will be able to keep your happy set-point for the rest of your life. This approach is crucial to outsmart the body´s natural tendency to regain weight.
The fact that you can´t lose the weight quickly and keep it off as well is rather hard to swallow, I know. (As I said in a previous post, you can lose weight quickly for an event, but the rebound is inevitable, and now you know why).
We all want to lose weight “yesterday”.
But the knowledge that slow weight loss will be more effective in the long term and helps you get off the yo-yo dieting merry-go-round can be actually freeing. It can teach you to accept your body at its current shape and nourish and love it instead of punishing it because it didn´t get to the desired goal weight or shape quick enough or it gained the weight back after a diet.
Studies show that a gentle weight loss approach based on self-compassion and self-acceptance and healthy habits that make you feel good are much more effective in the long term than the ones relying on being harsh with yourself and pushing you to your limits.
Learn to love yourself as you are to lose weight
There are lessons in the Healthy Habits for Permanent Weight Loss course teaching you how to accept and love your body and improve your body image too. It requires some inner work to be able to do this and not fall for a quick-fix diet.
I know it´s tempting to go on a fad diet now as your summer holiday is around the corner. I´ve done it many times too. But what if this summer you could lose weight gradually and you could look good after your summer holiday and at Christmas too, instead of losing weight for summer and going back to your set-point weight already during or straight after your holiday due to uncontrollable hunger and cravings.
Where do you want to be this time next year? Still trying to lose weight by hopping from one diet to the next losing and gaining back the same pounds or having reached your goal weight, maintaining it easily, and looking forward to your holiday?
Join the Healthy Habits for Permanent Weight Loss course if you want to lose weight permanently without having to give up your favorite foods.
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