Weight loss can be really tough to achieve — it requires willpower and sustained lifestyle changes, and in a culture where our social lives often revolve around food, neither are easy. Despite that, many people take the plunge every year. They commit to doing what it takes to melt the pounds they don't want, whether they're obese, overweight, or at the upper end of the healthy weight scale when they start.
After an initial adjustment, the process of losing weight can feel incredibly motivating, not just because you're fueled by the physical changes your body's going through, but because the healthy eating and exercise you're doing makes you feel great, too.
Once you get to your goal weight, or near it, new challenges await, however.
One doomful 1959 study found that a mere two percent of folks who'd lost over 20 pounds managed to maintain their new weights two years on, and other research points to this study as one of the reasons we often believe, today, that weight loss is nearly impossible to maintain and most "losers" are destined to gain most, if not all, or their lost pounds back.
Other research is more hopeful, indicating that around 20 percent of overweight people who lose at least 10 percent of their starting body weight are able to maintain the weight loss for at least a year — but let's face it, even that is pretty demotivating, right? You didn't go through all that trouble just to go back to where you started.
So, why do so many people who lose weight have trouble keeping it off? And is there anything you can do to fight the very real risk of regaining your lost pounds?
Why is maintaining lost weight so tricky?
Lots of factors converge to explain why keeping lost weight off is, actually, really very hard — despite the fact that people who've lost significant amounts of weight were obviously successful once, so know what kinds of things can be done to lose weight successfully, as well as having the tools to implement those changes.
One of these factors is simply a tendency to loosen up after achieving significant weight loss. Maintaining a strict diet regime, counting calories, and exercising regularly is quite hard. When you're actively working to lose weight, the fact that you have a goal in mind is motivating. When you're at or near your goal weight, it's all too easy to bask in that success and tell yourself you no longer need to count calories or weight yourself that often, and it's OK to splurge on tasty and more calorific meals.
Lost willpower and motivation are far from the only things that contribute to weight regain, mind you. At a lower weight, your body runs on fewer calories — it takes less energy to carry out basic functions like breathing, making your heart beat, and digesting food, and the same amount of exercise now burns fewer calories, too. In addition, the process of weight loss makes your metabolism work more efficiently, even after you take these factors into account. So yes, weight loss slows your metabolism down, and that means keeping the weight off is harder.
What's more, your hormonal cocktail changes after you lose weight — with levels of the hormone that helps you feel full (leptin) dropping, while levels of the "hunger hormone" ghrelin increase. People who've been restricting calories can become more focused on food, in other words, for reasons that have more to do with physiology than willpower. This may be because, historically, losing weight was a threat to health, and your body's basically fighting to hold on to weight. That certainly explains why the metabolic and hormonal effects of a calorie-restricted diet last well beyond the active weight loss period, and even for years.
That doesn't mean you're doomed to regain your lost weight: Here's how to fight back
You should know that:
- People who manage to maintain their weight loss for two years have greatly reduced their odds of gaining it back later. Keeping that weight off for two years slashes your risk of weight regain in half!
- People who continue keeping a close eye on their calorie intake, committing to a certain diet all week long without eating more on weekends and holidays, are more successful at keeping their weight off.
- People who stick to low-fat diets seem to be more successful at maintaining their weight loss.
- People who continue exercising regularly are more likely to keep the weight off than those who start slacking.
- People who face distressing events in their lives have a higher risk of regaining weight.
- People who embarked on weight loss for medical reasons are more likely to maintain the weight loss than those who did so for other reasons.
- People who continue to step on the scale regularly, catching small gains in time, are more successful in the long run.
- Finally, people who eat breakfast every day are less likely to gain their lost weight back.
Your thoughts on this