Hi sub-red,
Hope all well today. I’m really curious about this idea that the body has a preferred weight where it is comfortable, and that it will largely revert to that weight even after periods of weight gain or weight loss.
Anecdotally, I’m sure we can all think of people we know who eat intuitively and basically maintain exactly the same bodyweight for years on end. Conversely, there are some people who go to huge efforts to diet to gain or lose weight and then end up going back to where they started.
Some people also report signficant increases in hunger and appetite when in even a slight calorie deficit, and a strong fullness response when overeating.
But I’ve never seen any real scientific evidence about this. What are your thoughts?
Thanks!
No, but people tend to have a particular comfortable lifestyle that they revert to. After weight loss it’s common to put the scale away, portions begin creeping back up, gym days get cancelled/shortened, more date nights and drinks again…
That’s why people say it needs to be a full lifestyle change to stick.
No. This sounds a lot like “set point theory” which is this idea that your body apparently fights to be at a certain weight.
It’s not true. Your weight is the average of what you eat against what you burn. Whatever your comfort zone is, is usually what brings you to your weight. Sometimes we lose weight and fall back into old habits, and instead of acknowledging this, it’s easy for us to say “it’s just my body trying to go to its old weight again…”
As for people who spend a great deal of effort and end up at square one, the reason this happens isn’t because their bodies “wanted” to be at some set point. It’s because it is very very hard to make permanent changes to maintain that loss, or gain in some cases.
Whatever you do to lose weight, you have to keep doing to maintain it. A crash diet may seem attractive because you know you’ll lose weight on it, but if you can’t do it forever, it won’t work long term.
Eating 1200 calories a day will make you lose weight. But can you do that for the rest of your life? Probably not. If your TDEE is 1900-2000 a day, you would be better off eating 1600 calories a day (just as an example) since it’s a lot easier to continue eating close to that long term
But no, your body doesn’t have a “preferred” weight. It’s nonsense
If bodies revert to a “preferred” weight, 2/3rds of the US and Europe wouldnt be overweight, and a third wouldnt be obese.
Obesity isnt natural at all. It is a product of hyper-available bulk food (not to mention a ton of garbage) paired with a sedentary lifestyle unprecedented in the human evolutionary timeline.
The people have become fat, a lot of their pets have become fat. It takes literal willpower for many to not get fat because an instinctual drive to at while you can gnaws away at their stomachs.
In my very humble non expert opinion, this is absolut bogus. Keeping a healthy weight in today’s society with so much food being advertised and available will ALWAYS be a struggle (or at least requires some discipline) and not something that naturally settles. What you can do for yourself is finding other options of comfort and try to maintain a healthy gut microbiome. We all indulge sometimes but you need to put your foot down at a certain amount and look out for your body.
I mean look at animals… they only maintain their weight because the food availability is naturally balanced. If they had the options to eat the trash we often eat all day and too much, they would….
This is known as set point theory and it has been a subject of debate for decades. The short answer is it has never been proven to be true, but it continues to be discussed and researched because proving anything in nutrition is really hard if not impossible in this case.
The easiest evidence against it is looking at the population level rise in obesity over the last few decades. A theory where our body’s natural set point is the dominant factor controlling our weight struggles to explain that trend. The modern version of the theory (dual intervention) theorizes that our body allows some fluctuation between some set of bounds without much fuss, but it will fight back if our energy balance gets too out of whack for too long. It’s also theorized that our body fights back harder when we’re losing weight than when we’re gaining weight for hopefully obvious reasons.
Again, this hasn’t been proven in trials and the specific biological mechanisms are not well understood.
The easiest evidence that there might be some truth to it is to take the strict calories-in calories-out model to its logical extreme. Under this theory, a mere 20 calorie per day surplus would make anybody obese over the course of their lives. Nobody can track their eating with that much precision, so clearly our body is doing something to regulate our weight beyond what we can control consciously. This makes sense because ancient humans had much more sporadic food intake than we do and it would be advantageous for our body to be able to maintain a roughly stable weight despite varying food intake.
The broad strokes of set point theory are widely seen by scientists as likely true, so I don’t know why so many people in this thread are trying to tell you that it’s bunk.
Here are some articles if you want to start a deeper dive into the science:
https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3000629
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6039924/
Nah. I lost 60 lbs and haven’t reverted back - that was several years ago. Just took a lifestyle change via cleaner eating and being a bit more active. I don’t count calories or anything, just eat what and when I feel like. My lower weight maintains itself because I naturally eat healthier now. Set point weight is a cop out for people lacking in discipline to actually make changes stick.
Set point theory states that body’s have a preferred weight, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your body will revert back to that weight… Just that it would be more difficult to maintain a weight other than the set point. Ie. If you were below your set point, energy levels would decrease and hunger would increase in order to alter metabolic rate to reach the set point.
The theory also states that yoyo dieting increases your set point, so that each consecutive weight loss becomes more difficult to maintain.
Granted, it’s a theory and not a hard fact, but this would explain why some people have a harder time maintaining a specific weight than others. Why some people feel they have to starve in order to be a weight that comes naturally to others.
However, there are many other variables as well. For instance, there’s evidence to suggest that leptin and ghrelin (appetite suppressant and hunger hormones, respectively) are altered in obese patients, causing increased appetite and subsequent weight gain. Then lifestyle factors, overall diet… Etc etc.
Source: I study nutrition.
I have a theory. It is not scientifically proven.
But I feel that my body fights to get back to my ‘teenage stage’ when I was 20 kilos overweight. It was during my early twenties I lost all that weight.
I always feel that someone athletic with good muscle mass during their pubescent years tends to have a better physique when they get older. Even when they’re not working out as often, the body tends to retain its general shape.
Weight equilibrium is based on how much you eat. How much you eat is typically based on your internal hunger regulation. Your internal hunger regulation is more sticky than your weight. This means that if you lose weight your hunger regulation will not drop proportionally and you’re likely going to have to fight through feeling a bit hungry for a while after you reach your goal weight in order to maintain it. If you begin eating whatever you feel like eating right after you reach your weight, chances are good that you’ll be eating closer to what you used to eat, and therefore you will gain weight again until you reach close to the weight you used to be at. The key is always diet, but it’s good to be aware of what it takes to really lose weight. Being hungry, even a while after you reach your goal weight, is part of the process unfortunately. If you don’t already have the best diet, you can help deal with the hunger by switching to foods that are more satiating per calorie. This will allow you to feel more full on fewer calories.
The set point theory 100% has some truth to it, especially the closer you are to a healthy body fat%. I’ve been 6’2 172-178 lbs for the past 5 years ever since I stopped growing in high school. My activity level and caloric intake has varied DRASTICALLY throughout those 5 years and yet I’ve remained the same weight. It doesn’t even matter what I eat whether it be fast-food or home-cooked meals. I instinctively eat whenever I’m hungry and stop whenever I’m full.
I’m not totally sure about the weight set point theory. I don’t know of much evidence for it though.
One thing that apparently can happen after dieting (caloric restriction) is a decrease in the metabolic rate as a compensation. This can make further weight loss difficult
There’s a really interesting documentry called “Why are thin people not fat”.
Found a link to it here. The topic certainly seems to be a lot more nuanced than a lot of people commenting here seem to think.
It’s true to a certain degree. At least for me. If you were to cut out refined carbs and sugar, and eat more vegetables and whole foods, your body will maintain its weight.
I find that not eating enough protein or not drinking enough water tends to increase the hunger pangs.
I had an eating disorder in highschool, but I’m largely over that. I’ve maintained the same weight (I mean give or take 5 to 10lbs [also it’s an average weight for my height, 5’3 and I weigh anywhere between 115 to 125]) for about 15 years now, through 2 pregnancies. I don’t weigh myself (don’t own a scale lol), only at Drs appointments, lol. So maybe 3-4 times a year.
I do eat intuitively, and rather than dieting or anything, I just eat what I know is good for me.
Sometimes when I having some minor health problems, or when I went through long covid, I will macro manage my nutrients, but not calories.
I’ve never been big on sweets, I do like dark chocolate (80% or higher). I also don’t really like carbonated beverages, so I hardly drink soda or beer. Aside from a few second shift jobs, I maintain a fairly tight sleeping schedule (I’m in bed by 9pm and up by 5am), so not awake to snack. Idk. I love cooking, it’s a passion of mine and tbh, fast food really doesn’t taste good to me. However, for a period of 6 years while working a stressful 2nd shift job, I ate fast food probably 4 times a week after work (3am), and I guess my body just adjusted? I didn’t really gain any weight.
I don’t have an exercise plan, but I do yoga when I feel like I need it, I walk regularly and live on a farm with two kids plus I usually work manual labor jobs on top of farm life.
Have you heard of body fat set point theory?
How do you think most of the population keeps a relatively stable weight without tracking calories?
When in a calorie deficit, your body is going to try to compensate for that slightly by decreasing NEAT. In a surplus, the opposite will happen.
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The thing is for most people, these changes in NEAT and TEF are not near enough to offset the drastic changes in eating behaviour. In our current food climate it’s really easy to get hyper palatable, cheap high calorie foods. Most changes in weight come down to habits. If your habit is to eat these foods often, your body will likely not be able to compensate enough to keep your weight stable. Obesity is a result of this.