Challenging hormones may prove counterproductive
Here’s the really annoying thing: this hormonal starvation signal doesn’t stop when you stop dieting. That makes sense for leptin, since it’s based on the amount of fat you have. But other hormones which generally respond to food intake can stay on that slower production cycle even when you return to normal eating. And these hormones can stay altered for years. So even when you’ve stopped restricting calories, your body continues to act like it’s being starved — which is a big part of why people who lose weight often gain it back.
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To make matters worse, even regaining the weight doesn’t shift your body out of energy-efficient mode. In general, the smaller you are, the less energy you need to fuel everything. But it’s not a simple, linear relationship. How much energy you use per kilo at any given body weight varies depending on whether you’ve ever been heavier or skinnier. And this effect could be clearly seen in a 2016 study which followed contestants from a televised weight loss competition for six years. In particular, the researchers looked at the participants’ resting metabolic rates: the calories their bodies burned at rest. It’s basically a measure of the minimum amount of energy needed to keep a person’s cells running. After the 30 week contest, the 14 participants lost an average of about 58 kilograms, and their resting metabolic rates dropped by about 610 calories per day. In the years that followed, though, they gained back an average of 41 kilos, and their metabolic rates didn’t go back up accordingly. They ended up burning 500 calories a day less than they should have at their final weights. Which means to lose weight in the future, they’d have to restrict themselves even more than they did the first time around.
Once disturbed, it’s hard to make peace with them
Lots of other studies have come to similar conclusions. After people lose weight, even if they gain it back, their bodies simply use fewer calories per kilogram than similarly sized people whose weight hasn’t changed. And that means they have to eat less to stay at that weight than people who were never heavier, and they gain weight faster if they do overeat.
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It’s not yet clear just how long all these anti-weight-loss changes last — or if they ever completely go away. But not everyone experiences the same degree of resistance from their bodies. Scientists are still trying to figure out how our person’s genetics, the foods they eat, and other factors affect how a person responds to dieting. But given how fiercely the body can fight slimming down, it’s no wonder so many people struggle with it.
Luckily! Your Brain is Capable of doing the Unthinkable
Human brain is the most complex thing in the known universe. This mysterious mass of protein and fat can do wonders. One specific potential of the brain I want to talk about here is the brain’s sheer power of manipulating things and it’s flexibility towards taming.
Have you ever come across such a situation_and I am sure you did, where your brain warns you of consequences of unmeasurable magnitude while you already know there is nothing dangerous ahead? That’s the manipulative behavior of your brain in action.
And why this has anything to do with weight loss!! Well, recall all the hormonal signals we talked about above. Your brain positively reacts to those signals because it trusts their legitimacy. When you tell your brain that losing weight is good and storing all those fats is bad, while at the same time it hears the foul cries of your hungry hormones_your brain fulfills their demands straight away.
For your brain to turn down those unnecessary hormonal requests, you have to increase your brain’s confidence and trust level on you. And this can only be done with consistency. Starting and giving up weight loss regimens every now and then would, in fact, make your brain lose confidence. And the cycle will go on.. so, do the following 3 things and a healthy weight loss is guaranteed:
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- Choose a weight loss regime that’s best suited for you. (consult an expert in necessary)
- Stick to it and don’t do frequent changes.
- Every morning when you wake up and before you go to bed at night, remind your brain that a fitter body is better.
Enjoy A healthy living!