Have you ever noticed that no matter how much weight you lose, if you don’t stay vigilant after you reach your goal, you seem to creep back to your original weight?
Or…
Have you ever noticed that you gain weight “in spurts” and then seem to hang out or stabilize at some random weight for a long period of time?
What if I told you there is a good reason why this happens and that you can actually fix this issue if you follow just TWO important rules on a consistent basis… would that be cool?
Well the reality is that there is this thing called the “adiposity set point” or body weight set point, and it essentially means that your body can stabilize at a certain weight and fights to keep it there any time that your weight dips too far below this point. Why?
It seems that your brain sends off a “starvation signal” any time you go too far TOO FAST below this weight.
Research shows that people have low set points in their 20’s and 30’s, but beginning in their 40’s and beyond, a person’s weight set point can change and increase over time. And as long as your body weight set point remains high, keeping weight off is going to be a struggle.
But the idea of your body and brain working together to defend a certain weight is an important discovery that you can use to your benefit… if you know how.
Take These 2 Steps To Lower Your Set Point
Without getting into all the “sciency stuff” about why this works (my realm), it’s probably best if you if you just point the remote and go…
Lower Your Set Point: Step #1
Exercise if you don’t and make sure you do meaningful resistance training 2-3 times a week.
If you’re using exercise merely as a “calorie burn”activity, you’re missing the whole point of doing any type of exercise when it comes to weight loss.
If you do that math, you’ll quickly see that to burn enough calories from exercise to make weight loss significant, you’d have to devote 3-4 hours per day at least 6 days per week. In other words, it would be like getting a part-time job just to lose weight. That’s the hard way.
But meaningful resistance-based exercise (like we recommend in some of our other posts here) is designed to re-adjust your body’s hormone levels including thyroid function so that it’s easier for you to “release” body fat from storage and burn it like an IV drip for up to 72 hours afterward. Smarter and easier… I like easier!
Further, this style of resistance-based exercise quickly works behind the scenes at lowering your set point and once a momentum is achieved by getting regular doses of this ultra-specific training, your body eventually drops to a new LOWER weight set point AND defends that new lower set point by reducing our hunger and increasing our thyroid hormone output.
Lower Your Set Point: Step #2
Lower your food reward.
One of the complaints we often receive from weight loss clients in our coaching program is that they get tired of eating the same thing week in and week out. But there is a BIG REASON we help you design your weekly meals with BORING in mind.
Studies show that low food reward can lower your body weight set point. in fact, “bland food” has been shown to be an important key to losing weight and keeping it off.
Boring food is the key to your “Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams.”
Micheal Cabanac, a researcher at Laval University in Canada, set up a study which supports lowering body weight set point with bland food.
This is all detailed in the book The Hungry Brain.
Group 1 – ate an unrestricted BLAND liquid diet for three weeks, which caused them to lose just under 7 pounds on average.
Group 2 – used PORTION CONTROL on a diet made up of “normal foods” and was set up to lose the same amount of weight (7 pounds) over the same period of time.
Results: The portion control group “had to continually fight off hunger and would spend the night dreaming of food”. The bland diet group never felt hungry and “were always in good spirits”. On the bland diet, the starvation response never kicked in and the subjects lost weight more easily and effectively.
Societies with less food variety and novelty, have less obesity (most of the time). It’s probably why the U.S. has such high obesity rates. Highly rewarding food = high body weight set points.
The Takeaway…
First, don’t just exercise to burn calories, but “train” to reach what we call THRESHOLD on each of your resistance exercises so you can experience that IV drip of fat burn AFTERWARDS.
Secondly, keep your diet boring so that you don’t activate your “starvation response” to eating less, which will only result in frustration and eventual weight re-gain with a higher set point. Boring is a small price to pay to end up looking better in your skin.
Remember… Nothing tastes as good as looking leaner feels! Good luck!
Rich Farina, M.S. is a Metabolic Health and Conditioning Specialist with over 30 years of experience helping thousands of individuals lose weight, rebuild their metabolisms, and improve their health in his Metabolic Testing & Weight Loss Centers.
He holds both Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Exercise Physiology and Public Health respectively and is a passionate advocate of using proven, scientific principles in his approach to exercise and nutrition.
He is a contributing author, professional speaker, and advisor on topics that include weight loss, human performance, and medical fitness.
He continues his deep-seated passion to help people improve their health and longevity through his own line of premium, all-natural nutritional supplements called Truthentics™. The Truthentics™ brand of nutritional supplements is specifically designed to help people compensate for nutritional deficiencies and bring their bodies back into balance.
