Reset your Set Point
Does this sound familiar?
You start off weighing 200 pounds. You manage to lose 25 pounds, but over the next few weeks or months, your weight bounces back, maybe settling in around 185 or 190. Your weight stays there for a while, and eventually you’re able to drop more weight and the cycle repeats itself.
What’s going on? In short, you’re falling victim to your body’s set point. The set point is, to put it simply, the weight your body “wants” to be. That will be about a 10 percent range (plus or minus) from your current weight. So, if you weigh 200 right now, your body isn’t going to want to drop below 180. Doing so will trigger reductions in your metabolism and changes in appetite that will encourage you to gain weight.
Doesn’t seem fair does it?
You gain weight, your set point readjusts UPWARD, and it’s even tougher to take the weight off? What’s the solution? According to this article, Ideal Weight or Happy Weight? the answer is gradual weight loss.
Let’s look at the above scenario. Instead of losing 25 pounds, let’s say you lost 15 instead. You’re closer to your set point range, so it should be easier to keep that weight off. You’ll quit trying to lose weight and focus instead on maintaining the weight you’ve lost. When you’ve done that a few months, your set point will reset, and you’ll be ready to try to lose another 10 percent of your weight.
I know what you’re thinking (because I thought it too). That’s going to take a long time to get the weight off. You’d be able to lose 20-30 percent of your body weight in a year, max. When you have a lot to lose, that’s a long time to wait.
If you’re like me, you struggle more with keeping the weight off than with losing it in the first place. I’ve lost hundreds of pounds and kept off only a fraction of them. So, isn’t it quicker to do it this way than to stay on the roller-coaster of losing and gaining weight?
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