As a culture, we believe that if you simply stop eating so much and just get more exercise, you can always lose weight. Personal trainers, nutritionists, and even well-intentioned healthcare practitioners relay this message to women every day. Yet there are still women out there who can’t lose weight. Are they lying about what they eat and about how much they exercise? I don’t think so — because I was one of these women.
When I was 19, I joined Weight Watchers and drove myself crazy weighing and measuring every morsel of food I put in my body. I never missed a workout, never cheated with food, and every time I got on the scale, I’d find I only lost a mere half-pound or even gained. I know that Weight Watchers works well for some people, but it didn’t work for me. And now I know it was because I had something called weight loss resistance.
I talk to women every day who spend hours at the gym, who starve themselves regularly, and just can’t figure out why they aren’t losing weight. Weight loss resistance is extremely frustrating, and often isolating. If this sounds like you, the first thing I want to say is I believe that you are not a closet eater and that you are doing everything you can. The reality is, there may be a metabolic imbalance blocking you from weight loss, and once you resolve it, the weight will melt away, stay away, and allow you to maintain a healthy weight.
What is weight loss resistance?
Weight loss resistance arises when a woman develops or has a preexisting metabolic imbalance that makes losing weight and maintaining healthy weight extremely challenging, despite her best efforts to eat less and
I’m not sure why our culture is always trying to put us in a box, one where the same solutions work for every person. Mother Nature proves to us again and again that we are all unique. What works for you may not work for your girlfriend or your sister. Our differences in shape, size, color, genetics, and personality are all worthy of embrace and celebration. You deserve to find out what’s lying at the core of your weight loss puzzle and we can help you get there.Here are the six core systemic imbalances that greatly contribute to weight loss resistance in women: exercise more.
Why weight loss doesn’t work: The setpoint
Weight loss doesn’t succeed long term because, whether we want to admit it or not (and most weight loss specialists don’t) – it seems that we each do have a set point or settling point.
The setpoint is our usual weight at this time in our lives when well nourished and reasonably active, and which the body defends. It's the weight that we have attained through a complex interplay of both genetic and environmental factors.(1)
Our bodies vigorously defend this weight and seem to make adjustments to restore it to the setpoint after either weight loss or gain.(2)
The human body is well designed to resist starvation – it’s a survival trait that was critically important until recent times. We store up fat and protect those fat stores. We defend them all the more vigorously when they seem threatened.(3)
When not dieting, most people maintain a stable weight, despite what can be wide day-to-day variations in
The setpoint is our usual weight at this time in our lives when well nourished and reasonably active, and which our body defends.
calorie intake. The body makes its own adjustments to match food intake.(4)
When we begin losing weight or fat – it’s not clear what triggers this – the alarm bells go off. All sorts of regulatory mechanisms kick in to protect calories and stored fat by shutting down the usual body processes: slowing metabolism, reducing temperature and decreasing heart rate. These are the processes – running our inner clock – that use most of the calories we consume (not physical activity, as some believe). So there are many subtle ways for calorie readjustment.
Since there is much flexibility in the system, that inner clock can slow down at many points. It reduces the calories used for generating heat, heartbeat, circulating blood, breathing, digestion, thermogenesis, cell repair, fighting infection, sexual function, growth of children and youth, and dozens of other processes related to physical, mental, emotional and social function – even reducing the capacity for intelligent thought, planning, social relationships and spiritual restoration. The fires are banked to conserve fuel.
This is why counting calories doesn’t work. Trying to predict weight loss from the old adage “calories in equal calories out” is meaningless in the face of such a vigorous, unpredictable and unmeasurable slow down of calorie burn. "Calories out" becomes unfathomable.(5)
At the same time the body closes down to defend against starvation, the drive to eat increases. It’s not a matter of willpower. It’s biology.(6)
The setpoint apparently is not normally lowered, even for people who keep themselves thin and undernourished for years. Instead, the alarm bells are continually going off. They feel constantly chilled, exhausted, hungry, self-absorbed, socially isolated and lonely.(7)
“Setpoint creep,” on the other hand, apparently occurs with relative ease, sometimes advancing a half-pound or more each year. There is evidence that chronic dieting may stimulate this with its cycle of weight loss, regain and ratcheting weight up higher.(8)Another path to setpoint creep may be sustained overeating with sedentary living and lack of activity over time.
Why weight loss doesn’t work: The setpoint
Weight loss doesn’t succeed long term because, whether we want to admit it or not (and most weight loss specialists don’t) – it seems that we each do have a set point or settling point.
The setpoint is our usual weight at this time in our lives when well nourished and reasonably active, and which the body defends. It's the weight that we have attained through a complex interplay of both genetic and environmental factors.(1)
Our bodies vigorously defend this weight and seem to make adjustments to restore it to the setpoint after either weight loss or gain.(2)
| The human body is well designed to resist starvation – it’s a survival trait that was critically important until recent times. We store up fat and protect those fat stores. We defend them all the more vigorously when they seem threatened.(3) When not dieting, most people maintain a stable weight, despite what can be wide day-to-day variations in | The setpoint is our usual weight at this time in our lives when well nourished and reasonably active, and which our body defends. |
calorie intake. The body makes its own adjustments to match food intake.(4)
When we begin losing weight or fat – it’s not clear what triggers this – the alarm bells go off. All sorts of regulatory mechanisms kick in to protect calories and stored fat by shutting down the usual body processes: slowing metabolism, reducing temperature and decreasing heart rate. These are the processes – running our inner clock – that use most of the calories we consume (not physical activity, as some believe). So there are many subtle ways for calorie readjustment.
Since there is much flexibility in the system, that inner clock can slow down at many points. It reduces the calories used for generating heat, heartbeat, circulating blood, breathing, digestion, thermogenesis, cell repair, fighting infection, sexual function, growth of children and youth, and dozens of other processes related to physical, mental, emotional and social function – even reducing the capacity for intelligent thought, planning, social relationships and spiritual restoration. The fires are banked to conserve fuel.
This is why counting calories doesn’t work. Trying to predict weight loss from the old adage “calories in equal calories out” is meaningless in the face of such a vigorous, unpredictable and unmeasurable slow down of calorie burn. "Calories out" becomes unfathomable.(5)
At the same time the body closes down to defend against starvation, the drive to eat increases. It’s not a matter of willpower. It’s biology.(6)
The setpoint apparently is not normally lowered, even for people who keep themselves thin and undernourished for years. Instead, the alarm bells are continually going off. They feel constantly chilled, exhausted, hungry, self-absorbed, socially isolated and lonely.(7)
“Setpoint creep,” on the other hand, apparently occurs with relative ease, sometimes advancing a half-pound or more each year. There is evidence that chronic dieting may stimulate this with its cycle of weight loss, regain and ratcheting weight up higher.(8)Another path to setpoint creep may be sustained overeating with sedentary living and lack of activity over time.
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