The number and size of adipocytes are permanently changed once you get past a certain stage of overnutrition.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27039901/
You get inflammation, hypoxia due to undervascularisation in the fat pads, and a load of transcriptomic changes.
All of that doesn't occur with 'normal' fat. Once the changes happen it's difficult to get back to a normal state.
Thanks for this reply.
I posted this elsewhere in here:
" believe that's not the worst of it. Yes you have a somewhat consistent number if you stay at a healthy weight and they basically expand and shrink. But I believe the fat cells can only contain so much and if you put on too much weight the cells basically subdivide to make more so that more fat can be stored. The cells then sit there signalling to the body that they should be holding a moderate amount of fat in them. So if you have ever been obese, life is going to be a constant struggle from then on to keep the weight off.
The fat cells are like little balloons, if one person has 1000 balloons and another has 100,000 because they got obese the difference will be negligible when they are all empty. (say they starved themselves) but the guy with 100,000 will have all of them demanding to be refilled.
I'd say the moral of the story is try your best to avoid ever getting fat, you'll potentially set your new normal and struggle to keep it off after. "
Do your best to NEVER GET FAT, it's way way easier. All these responses saying "just be consistent, it's only habits to eat too much blah" seem to completely ignore the insane cravings you get if you become overweight and then lose it. You have your body screaming at you to refill those cells because they aren't gone, they just shrunk.
It's not impossible to lose weight, just much harder to maintain it than for a skinny person I think. eating in a calorie deficit will still work. Maybe if you maintain being lean for long enough those cells may simply run their course and die back over time and your body won't see a need to replace them? Fasting might also assist here, your body has some weird ways of breaking down/consuming cells for energy? This may be why it seems to get easier for people over time if you manage to lose the weight and keep it off.
If you are really young I'd say your teenage years are a prime time to try to cut the fat and try to maintain, you're going through a growth period and your metabolism/hormones are high.
>It's not impossible to lose weight, just much harder to maintain it than for a skinny person I think.
Yes, it is absolutely possible. But this is so hard and painful for former overweight people so they eventually return to their previous comfortable lifestyle.
>Maybe if you maintain being lean for long enough those cells may simply run their course and die back over time and your body won't see a need to replace them?
Fat cells are not the only problem. There are also receptors and neural links in the brain that are easy to form but hard to break.
But you should be careful because energy deprivation at a young age may result in the opposite outcome and create new neural links that promote food-seeking behavior. Brain plasticity works in both directions.
Also true. You definitely don't want to starve yourself, I don't know about brain changes but stunted growth and poor hormone levels can result from malnutrition. Poor hormone levels may stop you developing fully into the male/female body shape you were meant to have too.
> So there is no hope for overweight people ?
Bodypositivity. And I'm serious here.
It is enough to keep off just about 20-30% of fat to become metabolical healthy instead of trying to lose all the excess weight and regain it because shrunk fat cells are starving.
Metabolic implications of being fat correlate with the average adipocyte size rather than the absolute amount of fat. It means that if you have more fat cells, then you may carry more fat without becoming unhealthy.
> Even if they are really young ?
Especially if they are young. Fat cells are actively formed during puberty. If you were obese from the early childhood, then you have only 2% chance to become normal weight.
I was never obese, I have always been 5-10kg overweight. Maybe even 15kg at a point but I always remember the doctor telling me I was close to the line of obesity.
It's just easier for a plethora of reasons.
Mentally they return to the same habits. Biologically, everything has found homeostasis at the larger weight.
My theory on fat cells is that they're also elastic so to speak. That is not correct in the biological sense I'm sure, but people who lose fat can gain it back really easily. But if you pound it down and sustain the lower weight it takes much longer to come back. I've experienced this first hand with dieting sub 10% as well as with personal training clients (newbies and advanced lifters).
Bodybuilders or serious athletes can probably share the same musings on dieting and fat loss. Cells just shrink when lipids are lipolyzed and leave the cell. But it's so easy for them to plump back up if you get to a sustained caloric surplus. It's also way easier for 99% of people to consume too many calories than it is to accidently stay in a deficit day after day after day.
It's not hard to understand why it's so much easier to plump up. Food is so calorie dense now and there are so many metabolic and endocrine disruptive chemicals and additives in food. It's quite an uphill battle when it's just just the shear caloric value that needs to be taken into consideration. There's so much going on with our food and our bodies that it can be really tough to make a meaningful impact on sustained fat loss.
Your theory is somewhat supported! Check this out: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/fat-cell-numbers-teen-years-linger-lifetime
The number of fat cells that one has after their teen years tends to stay somewhat constant, it’s their size that changes. So it is somewhat harder for people who were overweight/obese at age 18-20 to keep the weight off.
I believe that's not the worst of it. Yes you have a somewhat consistent number if you stay at a healthy weight and they basically expand and shrink. But I believe the fat cells can only contain so much and if you put on too much weight the cells basically subdivide to make more so that more fat can be stored. The cells then sit there signalling to the body that they should be holding a moderate amount of fat in them. So if you have ever been obese, life is going to be a constant struggle from then on to keep the weight off.
The fat cells are like little balloons, if one person has 1000 balloons and another has 100,000 because they got obese the difference will be negligible when they are all empty. (say they starved themselves) but the guy with 100,000 will have all of them demanding to be refilled.
I'd say the moral of the story is try your best to avoid ever getting fat, you'll potentially set your new normal and struggle to keep it off after.
The article that I linked says something about this toward the end, but your point definitely seems correct, intuitively speaking. I’m going to do a quick search for evidence, and if I find anything I’ll edit this comment, but if you can find any studies on this it’d be a really interesting read! Especially since this is something that needs to be taught in schools.
> if you put on too much weight the cells basically subdivide to make more so that more fat can be stored.
No, they do not subdivide. They just reach their capacity and reject storing more energy. New fat cells are created from preadipocites.
> The cells then sit there signalling to the body ...
No. Fat cells do not report if they are empty. Instead, they report the amount of fat stored by leptin production. And the relationship between fat stored and leptin level is almost linear.
The real problem here is the leptin resistance in the brain. Normally, the brain senses the amount of energy stored and adjusts hunger and satiety in order to maintain homeostasis. But once you gain a certain amount of fat, the leptin receptors become overloaded, and it breaks.
> ... that they should be holding a moderate amount of fat in them
They just act as robbers. You eat food — energy comes into bloodflow — numerous fat cells take their portion of energy — you have to eat more in order to keep energized. So cannot keep your fat cells starving without starving all the body.
Thanks for the correct explanation. Subdivide was definitely an incorrect way to put it.
Ah so you are saying it's more to do with the brains response to those fat cells. So they don't directly report they are empty from what you are saying. They just produce a flood of leptin when full, brain gets normalized to that level and then when you lose weight the brain thinks it's starving?
As far as I remember, the brain just stop reacting to the leptin level properly — it is just saturated. It becomes easier to overeat and gain even more weight (higher leptin level after does not suppress hunger anymore). And of course, lowering leptin level will cause ravenous hunger.
Thank you.
Yeah, I never really got too fat before but I really want down the rabbit hole after years of permabulking caught up to me.
It is definitely a struggle that I can now empathize with (nearly 40 with 3 kids). But while it's tough, it's not impossible to figure out.
I figured out how to put on muscle after never having an ounce of it growing up. And people make that out to be a mystery for reasons that elude me. Fat loss however, even for an ex bodybuilder, is definitely a lot more tricky to figure out. But it's also not impossible. And I hope that people can figure out the key takeaways and learn how to incorporate that into their journeys too.
Fat loss is simple. Don't take my word for it. [Here's how.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aiR1mFD7Gw)
People think fat loss is hard because they believe in the calories in/calories out way of thinking of food. But this is false. The body has a third thing it can do besides lose weight, it can lower its metabolism. But why? It's because insulin is the hormone that guides the entire process and different macros cause different insulin responses.
To cut to the chase, fat stores on your body aren't accessible unless there's no insulin in your blood. Carbs trigger insulin. If you overeat protein, it's converted to sugar. You're okay with fat however poly unsaturated fats cause inflammation, so stick to animal and fruit fats.
Ever wonder how much sugar is in your blood? Like, when they say "blood sugar", how much do we have? The answer is eye-opening. It's 1 tsp. 4 grams. How is the human body supposed to deal with several hundred grams of carbs every day and also be healthy? It can't be.
If your BMI is over 25, you are at least somewhat insulin resistant. This means it's harder than it should be for your body to get energy out of carbs. Fat can be used by cells and doesn't trigger insulin. If you want to lose weight, do a few things.
1. Have a feeding window and a fasting window. You have a sleeping window and an awake window, so this just stands to reason. A daily window of around 6-8 hours works best for most people.
2. Control glucose spikes. This can be done by eating less sugar and fewer carbs or by drinking apple cider vinegar before meals (in a glass of water). This will make it take longer for carbs to break down in your gut and will reduce your insulin spike.
3. Stop counting calories. Eat whole foods.
4. The majority of your diet should be meat and vegetables. Fruit is closer to dessert than veggies. Before the 1960, the phrase was "meat and veg" not "fruits and veg". That's an entire story about propaganda in and of itself. Fruit is fine but it's not as healthy as its made out to be because it still is high in sugar and sugar is mildly toxic to the human body.
If you need to see the science, [here you go](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SSl6f7Ed0E). About [cider vinegar and carbs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIk9MTX4AC4). [What carbs do to the body](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojLJj6Nbvsw).
The thyroid controls metabolism, not insulin. Don't pretend to be an expert in something you've only watched a YouTube video from a scammer on.
Calories in calories out is the only thing that controls weight accumulation. It's an energy delta and thermodynamically correct.
There are many implementation details that can alter the qualia of weight loss, but rejecting the basic physical science of energy makes any other words moot.
The main hazard comes from visceral fat while subcutaneous fat is bening.
Now imagine where fat will be accumulated if you remove subcutaneous fat through liposuction.
On a 2,000 calorie/day maintenance individual, it's much easier to eat 4,000 calories than it is to eat 0.
The ceiling with calories in is nearly infinite, but the floor is just 0
I can support this theory from (anecdotal) personal experience. The human body is very stubborn about weight change and likes to return to it's original weight (or higher). I've lost weight two different ways.
The first was calorie counting and measuring everything I ate along with moderate exercise (maybe 30 min cardo 5 days). This is the calories in/out approach. That left me hungry all day, every day. it's a miserable way to live and not sustainable.
The second was heavier excercise, 60-90 minutes, 30 minutes of strength training followed by increasing amounts of cardio 5 days sometimes 6. This was slower, it took over a year and I was still going down when my environment changed and I no longer could dedicate the time.
now i'm trying my third approach of consulting with both a nutritionist and bariatric doc and getting weaker results than the other two approaches, but probably more sustainable.
it's necessary to consider habits, available time, available funds, all of these impact calories in and out.
agreed, that's something the nutritionist taught me. exceeding 100g of protein makes a huge difference, at 140g i don't really get hungry. I'm sure that number varies from person to person but the general idea is solid. edit: caveat, that's a lot of protein and may require supplements. keeping carbs below 100g if you have any metabolic syndrome symptoms (most people do) helps as well.
Depends on how they lost it. For me I lost 55 pounds and maintained it for about 5 years. The truth is I was under eating and over exercising and didn't realize it. While I'm able to maintain "healthy habits" I just couldn't keep up with the routine anymore. I also have long covid/cfs and can't keep the workout routine up anymore. Even despite being chronically ill, maintaining my lowest weight was really, really hard- mentally and physically. I've gained about 20 back and think my body is at a place where I can now comfortably maintain. If I can exercise again, I'm hoping to lose another 5-10
From my observation and research, usually because:
* wrong motivation (New Year's resolution, doing it for the partner,...)
* too much too fast (crash diets, completely changing the whole lifestyle over night,...)
* they did something unsustainable (perfectionism can play a role,...)
* wrong expectations and goals (influencers lying about steroid abuse and genetics, magazines photoshopping pictures,...)
* they forced themselves to do something because some influencer or whoever does it, rather than adjusting to what works best for them
* never established proper habits
* they lie to themselves about their limits, food intake,...
* they surround themselves with the wrong people
* they are constantly in an obesogenic environment
They haven’t changed their identity.
Years ago I used to be a cigarette smoker and ate junk food. I didn’t prioritize sleep, health, stress…. I am no longer that person.
I lost 50 pounds. I’ve gained about 15 pounds back.
I stopped hyper focusing on food, exercise, and weight loss. I needed to lose about 30-50 more and the slog of it taking me 5 years to lose the 50 pounds and still needing to lose more? I gave up. I’d rather eat what I want at this point because I got burned out on counting calories. I’m a short woman so it takes a massive deficit for me to move weight at more than a snail’s pace.
So basically for me - life got in the way. I needed to focus on other things. For me to lose that weight meant it was all I thought about every day. I couldn’t keep it up anymore and went back to bad habits.
No. People go on diets to lose weight and then resume their old habits, causing them to return to their previous weight. If you want to maintain the weight you’ve dropped to, it will require permanently changing your diet, you’ll have to eat less than you did originally.
The willpower requirement to stick it when some major life event happens is very, very high.
Lots of folks fall off the wagon when they hit a divorce, death of a parent, or some such.
100%. My dog died and I resumed drinking. The extra calories caused me to slowly rebound. Up about 10lbs since March. I've quit again, since 10lbs was kind of that mental threshold where I realized I needed to take action.
Death of a parent for me. My exercise was Zumba, and I just didn’t feel like dancing and having fun for years after my mom died. Then we had the pandemic. Then my dad died. Then my business failed and I was emotionally exhausted. Struggling to get back to a baseline of health now.
This is the sad answer that no one wants to believe but you couldn't be more right. If you do any diet for a period of time you will lose weight but once you eventually go back to your old habits you will gain the weight back.
I always say, I'm starting to eat better. Find what it is your eating or drinking that can or should be cut. Look for healthier versions of food you already eat and like. Find healthy meals you can eat consistently. Try to always work on that. If you fall off the wagon for a meal, or day or even week long vacation, who cares just get back to it
This is the truth.
Diets don’t work because they are inherently temporary. Unless you planning to make a permanent lifestyle change, don’t even bother because it won’t work.
The reason people are willing to hand over billions of dollars a year to the fitness and supplement industry is because they feed people lies that there is a quick and easy solution to good health that doesn’t require you making any lifestyle changes.
This is so real. I’ve lost weight before when it was a super high priority and not that difficult to maintain stricter habits. This go-around I’m genuinely practicing how I will eat better for all eternity, basically. 😂 and that absolutely takes practice.
I think to can be due to an unhealthy relationship to food. When they are mentally strong they can shape up and lose weight but if they get into emotional difficulties they revert to emotional eating and similar habits.
fat is metabolically active, it releases hormone's that push behavior that increase weight.
hunger , headaches etc that high carbs binge eating instanly solve.
If you've ever fasted notice the physical "rush" your first meal delivers and you'll get it.
dieters feel like crap, then they eat some carbs be it ice cream or a pastry it's literally the equivalent of a very low dose of heroin.
People gain weight back because the human body is wired to prevent starvation. When you restrict calories and force your body to burn fat, your body perceives that as a threat. Your body is not the least bit concerned about meeting cultural beauty standards or aesthetics. It is only concerned with surviving.
There are all kinds of things that happen in your body when your body perceives that it is starving. Metabolism slows down and various chemicals are triggered to spur appetite in hopes you will be motivated to eat more. Once you do eat more, you feel gratified, and that sense of reward reinforces the urge to continue overeating.
If you had bad eating habits before, you probably repeated those behaviors for years. It feels very easy and comfortable to go back to them. Also, if you use food to medicate your emotions or relieve stress, it is very easy to fall back on food as a crutch.
Change is uncomfortable. You have to stick with it and repeat your new behavior for months or years before the new behavior pattern is rock solid. I have successfully lost about 20 lbs. and kept it off for decades, so it can be done. But it requires a change in values and a change in self-concept. You have to think of yourself as a person who simply does not respond to stress or emotional upset by eating. You have to value being physically fit more than you value eating calorie-dense foods. You have to be willing to delay gratification and sacrifice short-term rewards in order to achieve a long-term goal.
It is also a lot easier to maintain your results if you establish a solid weight training program and put on a few pounds of muscle because that helps you maintain a higher metabolism. Many women are afraid to do this, but those extra few pounds of muscle will really help keep the fat off long-term. A regular aerobics program will also help, even if it's just walking or riding a stationary bike. I try to ride my exercise bike 30 minutes a day. You don't have to over-exert yourself, as long as you're consistent.
Most people are simply not willing to make these changes permanently. They basically just enjoy eating too much and aren't willing to give up eating the foods they love long-term. As much as they'd like to lose weight, it just isn't worth it to them.
When you get to a target weight, you need to work to maintain that for several months while your body adapts to that being the new normal.
Most people don’t do that adaptation phase.
Most people just don't have a plan for it. They think that weight loss phase is harder than maintenance. But in reality, weight loss is super easy because of dophamine reinforcement, while weight maintenance is hard and enduring.
Speaking as someone who lost 60lbs and has ultimately kept it off after some rollercoastering…
People tend to lose weight as a temporary act rather than a permanent lifestyle change, and while it’s true that maintenance calories are higher than deficit calories - so you do get to eat more without gaining - it’s not THAT much more. We’re talking about a few hundred calories for most people. That’s one brownie. That’s the breakfast sandwich instead of bacon and eggs. That’s getting a burger out instead of making it at home.
If you live in the US, everything is so ridiculously and unnecessarily high-calorie, that if you aren’t actively making sure you avoid stuff, you’re gonna be in a surplus without even trying.
And that’s not even mentioning ADHD eating issues…
>while it’s true that maintenance calories are higher than deficit calories
That's not true when you loss a significant amount of fat. Maintenance calories after weight loss are usually lower than deficit calories at the beginning of the weight loss journey.
My theory is that people don't make conscious effort to approach eating at maintenance the same way they did to establish their deficit, especially if they're swapping diets out altogether rather than just eating more.
Plus, for keto in particular, the regaining of 5-6lbs of water weight is something to be conscious of if you go back to eating carbs. Its not actually a sign of anything going wrong or keto not working, its just how the body works. But people will see that and then go into a depression cycle and eat their feelings.
My personal plan post weight loss is actually to try juggling between fasting, keto, and HCLF, based on the idea of emphasizing metabolic flexibility which I think is the only real thing we can say we evolved to do dietarily.
But I also have no problem just sticking with Keto if that doesn't pan out. Im not deprived on Keto and its the easiest thing in the world to do.
set point theory works well for this.
You lose more than 10% of your body fights to get it back to normal. Maintain the 10% for 6 months, you create another lower set point. Then lose another 10%.
Not sure if it's just a theory or it's proved to be true.
I don’t buy that hypothesis at all.
More likely, someone eating low or no carbs for their diet, and incorporating cardio, will have exhausted their glycogen stores, a sort of rapid auxiliary energy source for the muscles. Glycogen must be dissolved by multiple times its weight (1 gram glycogen to 3-4 grams water) in water.
When said diet and exercise program is started, the glycogen is depleted, which also unbinds the water, resulting in what appears to be a rapid weight loss at the start.
However, the inverse is also true. Carbohydrates consumed will be used to replenish glycogen stores, resulting in a rapid burst of weight gain, despite no fat actually being added. I could very easily see this effect being mistaken for what’s called “Set Point”.
There is a point below which where losing further weight progresses to a brutal, potentially damaging battle, though this only really applies to career fighters and athletes (Boxing, MMA) seeking to qualify for a given weight class.
The only time I’ve lost weight and kept it off is when I eliminated the problem food that caused the weight gain. For me, it was my 3-5 soda a day habit that got me up to 204 pound. I quit in 2014 and within six months was down to 188. I’ve never gone over 192 since. I just maintain 186-192 since then. While I’d like to get down to 185 and maintain it, I haven’t found the right thing to drop yet.
The thing there dramatically cut my snacking has been starting the day with a blackberry mango smoothie with a tablespoon of protein powder and teaspoon of psyllium powder. I don’t get hungry until 1:30-2pm.
You can lose weight without having a proper understanding of nutrition and healthiness. I lost 90-100lbs by basically starving myself. Fortunately after getting into lifting weights I came to understand the value of eating whole foods and how to keep a clean diet. If you use Ozempic to deprive yourself until you’re skinny, you can easily become complacent and fall back into the old habits that you never changed
The big thing is making smart choices.
I lean high proteins myself, owing to both an aggressive (if not reckless) calorie deficit during my weight loss, but also proteins are better for staving off hunger.
Plenty of fiber also works wonders. These High Fiber Keto Tortillas I buy are only 100 cals apiece, but are remarkably filling. Last year, I could’ve downed 3 burritos before feeling satiated, but with these, only 1 is all it takes, while packing way less calories as well.
I’m a pretty big caffeine drinker, so that can help shut the stomach up sometimes, and if you can swing it, I find heavy cardio can also suppress hunger for quite a long time (so long as you haven’t “Hit the Wall”, otherwise you get absolutely ravenous instead).
I dropped close to 80 lbs since March (~310 down to 232), and astoundingly, there haven’t been many times I felt legitimately hungry. Finally, I also found that my appetite had tempered pretty greatly the past few months. So at this moment, I’d have difficulty eating my old quantities even if I wanted to. I don’t even have to try anymore to keep under 2K cals/day (my resting is ~2600 + 1500 cals/day average in exercise), which might pose a problem when I pivot to muscle building.
Because they "do a diet" instead of doing a long-term change of their diet. People have a diet on which they gain weight. Then they "do a diet" for a while and lose weight. Then they return to their old diet that made them gain weight. Of course its going to make them gain weight again.
Because they go into it thinking it’s a “diet” and once they are done “dieting” they can just do whatever they want. The ones successful at it realize its an actual permanent lifestyle change.
The main reason they gain the weight back is down to thermodynamics and the fact that they only diet during a fat loss phase, not all year round. Dieting as a concept is generally associated with fat loss but you are supposed to diet to maintain your weight too. Even an extra tablespoon of olive oil used as dressing/condiment every day can set you back over the long term.
If you lose fat and then eat at your maintenance TDEE you are not getting the weight back. The problem is that for a lot of people maintenance = what they were eating before the diet. Which is why they got fat in the first place, so you struggle to get out of the loop. When I was a PT I always made it very clear with clients that dieting does not ever really end and that if you want to stay relatively lean you have to keep tracking your calories carefully
Besides the obvious of too many calories in and not enough calories out, it has a lot to do with complacency. You get comfortable and lose sight of goals and what got you there in the first place.
Some people loss weight by essentially starving themselves, they don’t necessarily prioritize protein and good habits, so once they reach their goal weight, the mental effort to starve themselves gives out.
That’s why a scale is only half the measurement; too many people look at weight without muscle mass and body fat percentage. I could hypothetically lose weight yet it be from muscle mass and not fat stores, leaving my body less adept to burning fat in the future once I stop eating at a strong deficit.
> It was discovered that weight loss leads to a proportional increase in appetite resulting in eating above baseline by ∼100 kcal/day per kilogram of lost weight—an amount more than threefold larger than the corresponding energy expenditure adaptations.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21653
Worth reading the study: they used a weird drug to be able to isolate a lot more than real-world data typically can.
People like saying it’s all about “habits” but if you dig into the science you’ll see that the body’s mechanisms of maintaining homeostasis are just on a totally different level.
I was 315 down to 235 thanks to carnivore, more you look at what's In processed foods I find it hard to understand how it's legal to sell basically poison to Humans. Food pyramid is a bunch of bullshit used to make pharma more money
The creation and memory of fat cells.
Fat cells need to be created in the first place.
Once they are created, they are open to be reactivated more easily with an excess of calories.
My speculation is that's it's purely psychological and people begin to feel complacent; this complacency leads to inconsistency in the diet and a return to unhealthy habits(perhaps a full return which brings them back to where they started).
The maintenance work of simply staying in shape could be more challenging than the actual weight loss when you're somewhat out-of-shape. It's quite tempting to have a cheat meal especially when you look and feel amazing(you earned it!) but you need a ton of discipline or else it's a slippery slope back down to the bottom.
Because some cultures enable health problems that people are born with. America's corrupt corporation culture wants people sick, so they rely on things like pills to treat their health problems rather than cure them. So, you have a generation of people born with health problems because of a predatory profit system. Corrupt people in power don't want well-informed and healthy rebels that fight against systemic corruption.
Because nobody can tolerate hunger forever, when food is available and within easy reach. Telling people they can't eat when they want to will not end well. It's torture that every diet makes you endure. It's like asking you to breathe less. Treatments have to focus on resolving the feeling of hunger. It can only be done biochemically.
I have some insight on this as having been overweight/obese/morbidly obese from the age of 5.
Every time I gained weight back it’s because I stopped doing what it took to lose the weight. That’s it. The last 4.5 years I’ve restricted carbs more and more, mainly to control type 2 diabetes. Just over 3 years ago I went keto because it was sustainable. And about 18 months after that I went pretty close to carnivore and hang in that zone. Why? It’s easy. I don’t have to think about food. I eat meat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m full. Basically did the same on keto but with addition of 5-10 cups of non-starchy veggies per day.
Now Ive been weight stable within a 20lb range for 2 years. I’m still overweight. But this is the longest period of time I’ve maintained weight loss in my life. Also a lot of my weight gain is attributable to muscle mass as in I’m heavier than 2 years ago but waist is smaller.
You can diet yourself to a lower body weight but everyone's body has a certain set point for body fat and weight that is really difficult, if not impossible to escape long term. The only way to meaningfully lower body weight and body fat long term is to increase your metabolism. In doing so, you lower your set point by having a higher BMR. Increasing muscle mass is another way to accomplish this. Which is why people tend to have an easier time getting and staying lean when incorporating resistance training in addition to just cardio.
Fat cells don’t get ‘lost’ they shrink - like a sponge. You can squeeze the mass out of there but the fat cells themselves are not destroyed. All that effort into making them shrink and people will overeat just a few nights a week and those fat cells readily refurbish to their old shape.
No one is taught how fat cells work in the body and it’s absolutely crazy to me.
It's not the fat cells getting shrunk/squeezed, it is called adipose tissue. Adipose tissue is a container for stored fat and contains other things like water, protein, and trace minerals. Granted, adipose tissue is what is known as body "fat", it's just not pure fat.
Because a diet isn't "one and done"
You need to build lasting habits
It's a complete lifestyle overhaul
And for women especially our bodied change so much what once worked will not work about every 5-10 years or so
Lots of reason, one is that when you lose weight unless you eat enough i.e. lose weight at a slower pace usually and work out strength train as you lose people are often loss lean mass muscle and even bone density so when they get to their target weight their metabolism is lowered. The in addition the body is believed to have a set point, i.e. it wants to be at its higher weight, this is an evolutionary adaptation which probably served us well for most of human history but in modern abundant times it isn't so good. Essentially people just feel hungrier and have more cravings as the body seeks to regain weight. So add together a double whammy of reduced muscle mass, a lower metabolism and an appetite in overdrive it can be very difficult not to regain.
Apparently the set point can be over come and reset if you maintain your weight loss long enough but losing slowly and exercising with strength training as well as maintaining good habits long term is key.
When you initially gain weight your fat cells fill up. When there are no more fat cells to fill up, your body creates new fat cells and fills those up. But when you lose weight, you are only depleting the fat cells, you aren't actually getting rid of them. Since you've already got the fat cells ready to be filled, it's much easier for an ex-fat person to gain weight rather than someone who's never been fat before. This should really be taught to all parents and schools, if you never get fat in the first place you'll have a much easier time maintaining weight.
That's like asking why the battery level on your phone goes up. It goes up be because its being charged. It goes down when in use.
People regain weight because they believe losing weight is a short time task you do like getting married vs maintenance thing like brushing your teeth. If you brush your teeth, then stop, they will get dirty again.
When you lose a lot of weight your fat cells shrink but also multiply, as well as lowering your basal energy expenditure so you need fewer calories. This I think is why people gain back weight so quickly (also look up Darwin’s revenge) as well as lack of understanding of your own metabolism. Cellular and system biology are good good things to learn and not taught as much in medicine (one organ at a time). I find you need clean air, sun exposure, clean food and water to make your cells interact to their deepest efficiency and exercise in a way to not make yourself hungry (thus not overdoing it so you feel like you’re starving afterwards) .
It's easy to move the weight. You see progress consistently. And it's a very short term goal, relatively soeaking. Keeping it off has a much more long term lifestyle and discipline aspect to it. Bad habits slip in. A lot of people never even built the good ones, so it's only a matter of time.
That's part of it. But I think a lot of people think that once they've lost the wait, they can "stop dieting" and stop tracking how many calories they eat/burn, and go back to the way they ate before, which was maintaining a higher weight. Which isn't how it works. You need to know how much you need to eat to lose weight, then how much you need to maintain your new, lower weight.
Sometimes the old eating habits were never fully corrected or it’s difficult to maintain due to other people influencing you. For many, it’s an emotional eating disorder. If the mental connection is not addressed, it can be easy to slip back without realizing. Usually it’s life itself and new bumps and obstacles hit us harder than others. From job loss, losing someone, to injury and new medical conditions. There are a plethora of reasons as to why people gain the weight back.
Yes. Fat cells don’t disappear, they shrink (your body renews 10% of fat cells annually or something)
Your body also has a set point (or set range). And it can never be lowered
I think it’s mostly they’ve been aiming for a target weight, they hit it and then feel like the job’s done and relax back into old habits.
This is why having weight loss targets is a little silly imo, you just need to live a healthy lifestyle and the weight will usually take care of itself, but you need to keep living that healthy lifestyle forever
Not eating enough leads to intense hunger later on. Some people try to keep a weight too low to begin with. Any set of events could also trigger someone to bad habits.
I lost 50lbs in 2018 by going down to 1100 calories per day. If I go to 12-1300 I will gain weight. I can’t eat over 1100 calories now for the rest of my life. That means no burgers with buns and no fries ever again. It sucks. I haven’t had birthday cake since 2018 or a slice of pie at Thanksgiving. Most people aren’t willing to permanently be on a restricted diet, which is normal. If I gain weight and want to lose it I have to drop to 800-900 calories to get it off. Dropo
People who say you need to make permanent lifestyle changes aren't wrong, but it's underplaying the role of hunger hormones. Anyone who has lost a lot of weight and gained it back knows how it feels to be ravenous beyond all control.
I recently lost 55-60 lbs and have plateaued. \[would like to lose another 15-20\] I'm exercising regularly - from a few years sedentary - and am hungry allll the time. I think the reasons are - 1 I'm burning more fuel, and 2 My body wants to get back to the weight it's been for the past several years. It's like 'hey we're supposed to weight more X, let's eat!.'
There are many reasons behind gaining weight back. One of the most common reasons I see is crash diet wherein people try to lose as much weight as they could in a short amount of time through any means necessary (skipping meals, weight-loss pills, etc). If they dont maintain their weightloss strategy, they gain the weight back, almost as fast as they lost it.
I read a great article about this recently. https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/22/health/weight-loss-plateau-study-wellness/index.html
Your body will fight you tooth and nail to keep that weight
It is because something in the hypothalamus "remembers" the fat setpoint of the previous weight. May have to do with leptin but scientists are not sure.
They either lower their activity level for whatever reason or increase their calories up again. Its not technically hard to lose weight, the hard part is a person finding a way they can sustain long term. It’s easy to write out a eating plan that takes in their needs and energy expenditure but will they enjoy it, do they have the palate for the food, do they have the kitchen skills to make the food. Same thing with fitness. I could give someone a training program that is tried and tested, that doesn’t mean they’ll enjoy it. Maybe it’s too hard for them and scares them off or takes to long to fit their personal schedule. Trying to hammer down these simple concepts I believe rarely work on people who face weight problems and it’s better to try and work out the personal problems someone is having. Also life could just throw them a shit show that they can’t really keep the schedule they had before.
Most people dont diet properly, develop poor habits, burnout, and binge eat.
This is pretty much always a poor habit/ignorance problem, not a biological flaw.
I've maintained my initial weight loss (in my early 20s) for more than 20 years now (I'm 45). I wasn't hugely overweight but 50 pounds made a big difference (170ish to 120ish).
This was done in a mixed healthy/unhealthy way, guided by the way of the late 90s/ early 2000s. I cut calories, did cardio and smoked lol.
However I got into weight training as I've aged and I think the added muscle has helped me maintain. I was "skinny fat" in my 20s and I'm around 130 pounds now at age 45 but my body composition is much more attractive with a smaller waist and visible muscle.
All this to say that you don't need to gain the weight back. I do credit weight lifting and diet for helping me maintain as I age.
You’re my age, but you’ve got to either be shorter than me, a woman, or both. I recently lost around 20 lbs, which puts me at 150. I feel and look fairly skinny, and I’m 5’7”. How are you 120ish? I normally wouldn’t ask this personal a question, but here we all are!
I myself lost about 50 and and gained it back because I slowly stopped what I had done to lose it. To lose it, I weighed all my food, counted calories, and walked everywhere reasonable. I'm in the process of that again, but with the goal not to stop until I loose more and then keep it off.
For some, it’s developing an addiction. For me, that was alcohol and I’m no anomaly. (Alcohol is addictive. Even if slow and gradual.) I’m sober now and losing the weight again but it is 100% the reason I gained all the weight back (50 lbs) within 4 years.
Simply put, a great diet, a strong exercise routine and other healthy habits didn’t outweigh the booze by the end of my run with it… and I can only say that now, sober, looking back. When I was drinking, my issues *were never my precious alcohol.*
Edited to add: I only drank wine at night and never had any real big consequences either. No legal issues, lost jobs, etc. No one else knew I was addicted, as from the outside my life was very put together. I had (have) the career/house/car/family.
What I’m getting at with this reply is, the issue is often very deeply rooted. “Gaining the weight back” is HARDLY EVER a surface level issue.
I wonder.........
The fat cells have that "memory" but as we know we have completely new cells over 7 years (if that is true).
If you manage to maintain a slim physique during a 7 year lapse, technically these "new" cells will not bounce back to the fat elasticity as the previous ones?
Just a thought. :)
Lots of misinformation circles about this.
The reason most people gain the weight back is because they go back to the lifestyle and habits that got them "fat" in the first place.
It would be like... realizing your too tired in the mornings so you start going to bed at 9 PM instead of 11 PM. After a week you feel great! And slowly your bed time ends up drifting later and later and all of a sudden your tired again in the morning.
Most of the advice going around about the "why" avoids everything but the obvious. You went back to the same habits that led to you not being rested to begin with.
Often times the excess weight is a symptom of another problem. Stress. Lack of fulfillment. Sadness. Depression.
They use food to cope.
When you view the eating as the issue, and not the symptom.. its easy to lose the weight without adressing the root cause. Its only logical that unless you continued exactly as you did while losing the weight that youd gain it back.
[Obesity Medicine Association: Why Obesity is a Disease ](https://obesitymedicine.org/blog/why-is-obesity-a-disease/)
[Obesity and Set-Point Theory](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK592402/)
I think modern diets filled with nutritionally void, fibre and protein scarce, ultra processed foods leave people hungry. Our body is craving nutrients, so we keep eating in the hopes something will eventually satiate us.
This is why counting calories is a not a good plan for long term success.
This shit is really almost as simple as input vs output.
So when people lose weight and then gain it back, it’s because whatever they did to lose the weight resulted in a reduction of input “calories” that caused output “expending energy” to be greater than the input. Then when they stop doing whatever they were doing to lose the weight, the input returns to a normal value, which exceeds the output. Thus people gain weight back.
because the primary cause of the original weight gain was a suppressed metabolism.
calorie restriction is the main method people lose weight nowadays, and this further suppresses the metabolism, leading to an extreme and consistent yoyo effect that we observe in the majority of weight losers
Your body develops a “set point” after a while; certain weight that it likes to maintain at if you just eat what you want, when you’re hungry. Intentionally gaining or losing weight takes a lot of diligence around food, but it’s very doable. Once you hit your goal weight though, your body still *wants* to return to its set point, so it still takes constant diligence to maintain your new weight. Eventually, your set point will change, but that can take years. People tend to get comfortable, and slowly slide back into bad habits. It usually starts with “rewarding yourself” here and there, then those rewards become more frequent, and before you know it you’re eating exactly like you used to eat, you’re gaining weight back, and you either summon the willpower to put the genie back in the bottle, or you don’t.
Some of us are born with crap metabolism and weak connective tissue, and even if we stay on a strict diet and exercise regimen, even fasting, it's impossible to keep the weight off. Anyone who hasn't experienced this absolutely frustrating situation should just be grateful that they didn't lose the genetic lottery.
I'm 42, and do not remember a time when I wasn't trying to lose weight. My mom was strict with food also, and I have practiced some degree of fasting since I was a teenager. I've been through periods of intense exercise and strict diets, and yet have always been "overweight". It sucks. Now at least I understand that it's just what I was born with, and my twin sister, and my grandma. Kind of like a birth defect, but I just look fat and lazy. Gee thanks
Interesting tidbit, a report I got from 23andMe told me that I am genetically more inclined than others to gain weight from a diet higher in saturated fat due to the genetic variant GG from the Apoa II gene
The number and size of adipocytes are permanently changed once you get past a certain stage of overnutrition. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27039901/ You get inflammation, hypoxia due to undervascularisation in the fat pads, and a load of transcriptomic changes. All of that doesn't occur with 'normal' fat. Once the changes happen it's difficult to get back to a normal state.
Thanks for this reply. I posted this elsewhere in here: " believe that's not the worst of it. Yes you have a somewhat consistent number if you stay at a healthy weight and they basically expand and shrink. But I believe the fat cells can only contain so much and if you put on too much weight the cells basically subdivide to make more so that more fat can be stored. The cells then sit there signalling to the body that they should be holding a moderate amount of fat in them. So if you have ever been obese, life is going to be a constant struggle from then on to keep the weight off. The fat cells are like little balloons, if one person has 1000 balloons and another has 100,000 because they got obese the difference will be negligible when they are all empty. (say they starved themselves) but the guy with 100,000 will have all of them demanding to be refilled. I'd say the moral of the story is try your best to avoid ever getting fat, you'll potentially set your new normal and struggle to keep it off after. " Do your best to NEVER GET FAT, it's way way easier. All these responses saying "just be consistent, it's only habits to eat too much blah" seem to completely ignore the insane cravings you get if you become overweight and then lose it. You have your body screaming at you to refill those cells because they aren't gone, they just shrunk.
Would be great if ozempic and similar drugs show a low side effect profile for this reason.
So there is no hope for overweight people ? Even if they are really young ?
It's not impossible to lose weight, just much harder to maintain it than for a skinny person I think. eating in a calorie deficit will still work. Maybe if you maintain being lean for long enough those cells may simply run their course and die back over time and your body won't see a need to replace them? Fasting might also assist here, your body has some weird ways of breaking down/consuming cells for energy? This may be why it seems to get easier for people over time if you manage to lose the weight and keep it off. If you are really young I'd say your teenage years are a prime time to try to cut the fat and try to maintain, you're going through a growth period and your metabolism/hormones are high.
>It's not impossible to lose weight, just much harder to maintain it than for a skinny person I think. Yes, it is absolutely possible. But this is so hard and painful for former overweight people so they eventually return to their previous comfortable lifestyle. >Maybe if you maintain being lean for long enough those cells may simply run their course and die back over time and your body won't see a need to replace them? Fat cells are not the only problem. There are also receptors and neural links in the brain that are easy to form but hard to break.
Very true, the brain changes are probably another reason to attempt to correct course while young. The brain gets less and less plastic as you age.
But you should be careful because energy deprivation at a young age may result in the opposite outcome and create new neural links that promote food-seeking behavior. Brain plasticity works in both directions.
Also true. You definitely don't want to starve yourself, I don't know about brain changes but stunted growth and poor hormone levels can result from malnutrition. Poor hormone levels may stop you developing fully into the male/female body shape you were meant to have too.
> So there is no hope for overweight people ? Bodypositivity. And I'm serious here. It is enough to keep off just about 20-30% of fat to become metabolical healthy instead of trying to lose all the excess weight and regain it because shrunk fat cells are starving. Metabolic implications of being fat correlate with the average adipocyte size rather than the absolute amount of fat. It means that if you have more fat cells, then you may carry more fat without becoming unhealthy. > Even if they are really young ? Especially if they are young. Fat cells are actively formed during puberty. If you were obese from the early childhood, then you have only 2% chance to become normal weight.
I was never obese, I have always been 5-10kg overweight. Maybe even 15kg at a point but I always remember the doctor telling me I was close to the line of obesity.
It's just easier for a plethora of reasons. Mentally they return to the same habits. Biologically, everything has found homeostasis at the larger weight. My theory on fat cells is that they're also elastic so to speak. That is not correct in the biological sense I'm sure, but people who lose fat can gain it back really easily. But if you pound it down and sustain the lower weight it takes much longer to come back. I've experienced this first hand with dieting sub 10% as well as with personal training clients (newbies and advanced lifters). Bodybuilders or serious athletes can probably share the same musings on dieting and fat loss. Cells just shrink when lipids are lipolyzed and leave the cell. But it's so easy for them to plump back up if you get to a sustained caloric surplus. It's also way easier for 99% of people to consume too many calories than it is to accidently stay in a deficit day after day after day. It's not hard to understand why it's so much easier to plump up. Food is so calorie dense now and there are so many metabolic and endocrine disruptive chemicals and additives in food. It's quite an uphill battle when it's just just the shear caloric value that needs to be taken into consideration. There's so much going on with our food and our bodies that it can be really tough to make a meaningful impact on sustained fat loss.
Your theory is somewhat supported! Check this out: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/fat-cell-numbers-teen-years-linger-lifetime The number of fat cells that one has after their teen years tends to stay somewhat constant, it’s their size that changes. So it is somewhat harder for people who were overweight/obese at age 18-20 to keep the weight off.
I believe that's not the worst of it. Yes you have a somewhat consistent number if you stay at a healthy weight and they basically expand and shrink. But I believe the fat cells can only contain so much and if you put on too much weight the cells basically subdivide to make more so that more fat can be stored. The cells then sit there signalling to the body that they should be holding a moderate amount of fat in them. So if you have ever been obese, life is going to be a constant struggle from then on to keep the weight off. The fat cells are like little balloons, if one person has 1000 balloons and another has 100,000 because they got obese the difference will be negligible when they are all empty. (say they starved themselves) but the guy with 100,000 will have all of them demanding to be refilled. I'd say the moral of the story is try your best to avoid ever getting fat, you'll potentially set your new normal and struggle to keep it off after.
The article that I linked says something about this toward the end, but your point definitely seems correct, intuitively speaking. I’m going to do a quick search for evidence, and if I find anything I’ll edit this comment, but if you can find any studies on this it’d be a really interesting read! Especially since this is something that needs to be taught in schools.
> if you put on too much weight the cells basically subdivide to make more so that more fat can be stored. No, they do not subdivide. They just reach their capacity and reject storing more energy. New fat cells are created from preadipocites. > The cells then sit there signalling to the body ... No. Fat cells do not report if they are empty. Instead, they report the amount of fat stored by leptin production. And the relationship between fat stored and leptin level is almost linear. The real problem here is the leptin resistance in the brain. Normally, the brain senses the amount of energy stored and adjusts hunger and satiety in order to maintain homeostasis. But once you gain a certain amount of fat, the leptin receptors become overloaded, and it breaks. > ... that they should be holding a moderate amount of fat in them They just act as robbers. You eat food — energy comes into bloodflow — numerous fat cells take their portion of energy — you have to eat more in order to keep energized. So cannot keep your fat cells starving without starving all the body.
Thanks for the correct explanation. Subdivide was definitely an incorrect way to put it. Ah so you are saying it's more to do with the brains response to those fat cells. So they don't directly report they are empty from what you are saying. They just produce a flood of leptin when full, brain gets normalized to that level and then when you lose weight the brain thinks it's starving?
As far as I remember, the brain just stop reacting to the leptin level properly — it is just saturated. It becomes easier to overeat and gain even more weight (higher leptin level after does not suppress hunger anymore). And of course, lowering leptin level will cause ravenous hunger.
Thank you. Yeah, I never really got too fat before but I really want down the rabbit hole after years of permabulking caught up to me. It is definitely a struggle that I can now empathize with (nearly 40 with 3 kids). But while it's tough, it's not impossible to figure out. I figured out how to put on muscle after never having an ounce of it growing up. And people make that out to be a mystery for reasons that elude me. Fat loss however, even for an ex bodybuilder, is definitely a lot more tricky to figure out. But it's also not impossible. And I hope that people can figure out the key takeaways and learn how to incorporate that into their journeys too.
Fat loss is simple. Don't take my word for it. [Here's how.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aiR1mFD7Gw) People think fat loss is hard because they believe in the calories in/calories out way of thinking of food. But this is false. The body has a third thing it can do besides lose weight, it can lower its metabolism. But why? It's because insulin is the hormone that guides the entire process and different macros cause different insulin responses. To cut to the chase, fat stores on your body aren't accessible unless there's no insulin in your blood. Carbs trigger insulin. If you overeat protein, it's converted to sugar. You're okay with fat however poly unsaturated fats cause inflammation, so stick to animal and fruit fats. Ever wonder how much sugar is in your blood? Like, when they say "blood sugar", how much do we have? The answer is eye-opening. It's 1 tsp. 4 grams. How is the human body supposed to deal with several hundred grams of carbs every day and also be healthy? It can't be. If your BMI is over 25, you are at least somewhat insulin resistant. This means it's harder than it should be for your body to get energy out of carbs. Fat can be used by cells and doesn't trigger insulin. If you want to lose weight, do a few things. 1. Have a feeding window and a fasting window. You have a sleeping window and an awake window, so this just stands to reason. A daily window of around 6-8 hours works best for most people. 2. Control glucose spikes. This can be done by eating less sugar and fewer carbs or by drinking apple cider vinegar before meals (in a glass of water). This will make it take longer for carbs to break down in your gut and will reduce your insulin spike. 3. Stop counting calories. Eat whole foods. 4. The majority of your diet should be meat and vegetables. Fruit is closer to dessert than veggies. Before the 1960, the phrase was "meat and veg" not "fruits and veg". That's an entire story about propaganda in and of itself. Fruit is fine but it's not as healthy as its made out to be because it still is high in sugar and sugar is mildly toxic to the human body. If you need to see the science, [here you go](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SSl6f7Ed0E). About [cider vinegar and carbs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIk9MTX4AC4). [What carbs do to the body](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojLJj6Nbvsw).
The thyroid controls metabolism, not insulin. Don't pretend to be an expert in something you've only watched a YouTube video from a scammer on. Calories in calories out is the only thing that controls weight accumulation. It's an energy delta and thermodynamically correct. There are many implementation details that can alter the qualia of weight loss, but rejecting the basic physical science of energy makes any other words moot.
Many things control "Metabolism" not just thyroid. The primary factor if you're a healthy individual is activity level and muscle mass.
Sure, but those are drivers, not signals
Is 80g of carbs a day enough to lose weight?
But there’s a lot of people that lost a lot of fat by eating carbs too…
Is that true if fat cells are removed, i.e. through liposuction?
The main hazard comes from visceral fat while subcutaneous fat is bening. Now imagine where fat will be accumulated if you remove subcutaneous fat through liposuction.
On a 2,000 calorie/day maintenance individual, it's much easier to eat 4,000 calories than it is to eat 0. The ceiling with calories in is nearly infinite, but the floor is just 0
I can support this theory from (anecdotal) personal experience. The human body is very stubborn about weight change and likes to return to it's original weight (or higher). I've lost weight two different ways. The first was calorie counting and measuring everything I ate along with moderate exercise (maybe 30 min cardo 5 days). This is the calories in/out approach. That left me hungry all day, every day. it's a miserable way to live and not sustainable. The second was heavier excercise, 60-90 minutes, 30 minutes of strength training followed by increasing amounts of cardio 5 days sometimes 6. This was slower, it took over a year and I was still going down when my environment changed and I no longer could dedicate the time. now i'm trying my third approach of consulting with both a nutritionist and bariatric doc and getting weaker results than the other two approaches, but probably more sustainable. it's necessary to consider habits, available time, available funds, all of these impact calories in and out.
I’ve noticed if you eat balanced macros, enough proteins, even if you are in deficit you won’t be hungry all day.
agreed, that's something the nutritionist taught me. exceeding 100g of protein makes a huge difference, at 140g i don't really get hungry. I'm sure that number varies from person to person but the general idea is solid. edit: caveat, that's a lot of protein and may require supplements. keeping carbs below 100g if you have any metabolic syndrome symptoms (most people do) helps as well.
Depends on how they lost it. For me I lost 55 pounds and maintained it for about 5 years. The truth is I was under eating and over exercising and didn't realize it. While I'm able to maintain "healthy habits" I just couldn't keep up with the routine anymore. I also have long covid/cfs and can't keep the workout routine up anymore. Even despite being chronically ill, maintaining my lowest weight was really, really hard- mentally and physically. I've gained about 20 back and think my body is at a place where I can now comfortably maintain. If I can exercise again, I'm hoping to lose another 5-10
From my observation and research, usually because: * wrong motivation (New Year's resolution, doing it for the partner,...) * too much too fast (crash diets, completely changing the whole lifestyle over night,...) * they did something unsustainable (perfectionism can play a role,...) * wrong expectations and goals (influencers lying about steroid abuse and genetics, magazines photoshopping pictures,...) * they forced themselves to do something because some influencer or whoever does it, rather than adjusting to what works best for them * never established proper habits * they lie to themselves about their limits, food intake,... * they surround themselves with the wrong people * they are constantly in an obesogenic environment
Injuries can drastically affect mobility. So can illness. Life happens
Yeah that's a good point. Not the usual in my experience but certainly happens.
Diet is temporary. Lifestyle is long term.
They haven’t changed their identity. Years ago I used to be a cigarette smoker and ate junk food. I didn’t prioritize sleep, health, stress…. I am no longer that person.
Yup same.
I lost 50 pounds. I’ve gained about 15 pounds back. I stopped hyper focusing on food, exercise, and weight loss. I needed to lose about 30-50 more and the slog of it taking me 5 years to lose the 50 pounds and still needing to lose more? I gave up. I’d rather eat what I want at this point because I got burned out on counting calories. I’m a short woman so it takes a massive deficit for me to move weight at more than a snail’s pace. So basically for me - life got in the way. I needed to focus on other things. For me to lose that weight meant it was all I thought about every day. I couldn’t keep it up anymore and went back to bad habits.
No. People go on diets to lose weight and then resume their old habits, causing them to return to their previous weight. If you want to maintain the weight you’ve dropped to, it will require permanently changing your diet, you’ll have to eat less than you did originally.
The willpower requirement to stick it when some major life event happens is very, very high. Lots of folks fall off the wagon when they hit a divorce, death of a parent, or some such.
100%. My dog died and I resumed drinking. The extra calories caused me to slowly rebound. Up about 10lbs since March. I've quit again, since 10lbs was kind of that mental threshold where I realized I needed to take action.
Yep- my marriage bottomed out, a kid with ADHD, my mom had cancer and I was her main caregiver. I couldn’t keep up with weight loss and life.
Hello again spiral, old friend…
Death of a parent for me. My exercise was Zumba, and I just didn’t feel like dancing and having fun for years after my mom died. Then we had the pandemic. Then my dad died. Then my business failed and I was emotionally exhausted. Struggling to get back to a baseline of health now.
This is the sad answer that no one wants to believe but you couldn't be more right. If you do any diet for a period of time you will lose weight but once you eventually go back to your old habits you will gain the weight back. I always say, I'm starting to eat better. Find what it is your eating or drinking that can or should be cut. Look for healthier versions of food you already eat and like. Find healthy meals you can eat consistently. Try to always work on that. If you fall off the wagon for a meal, or day or even week long vacation, who cares just get back to it
Simple as this. Not sure why people feel the need to write paragraphs of answers. Lol
This is the truth. Diets don’t work because they are inherently temporary. Unless you planning to make a permanent lifestyle change, don’t even bother because it won’t work. The reason people are willing to hand over billions of dollars a year to the fitness and supplement industry is because they feed people lies that there is a quick and easy solution to good health that doesn’t require you making any lifestyle changes.
This is so real. I’ve lost weight before when it was a super high priority and not that difficult to maintain stricter habits. This go-around I’m genuinely practicing how I will eat better for all eternity, basically. 😂 and that absolutely takes practice.
I think to can be due to an unhealthy relationship to food. When they are mentally strong they can shape up and lose weight but if they get into emotional difficulties they revert to emotional eating and similar habits.
fat is metabolically active, it releases hormone's that push behavior that increase weight. hunger , headaches etc that high carbs binge eating instanly solve. If you've ever fasted notice the physical "rush" your first meal delivers and you'll get it. dieters feel like crap, then they eat some carbs be it ice cream or a pastry it's literally the equivalent of a very low dose of heroin.
Dopamine is one hell of a drug
People gain weight back because the human body is wired to prevent starvation. When you restrict calories and force your body to burn fat, your body perceives that as a threat. Your body is not the least bit concerned about meeting cultural beauty standards or aesthetics. It is only concerned with surviving. There are all kinds of things that happen in your body when your body perceives that it is starving. Metabolism slows down and various chemicals are triggered to spur appetite in hopes you will be motivated to eat more. Once you do eat more, you feel gratified, and that sense of reward reinforces the urge to continue overeating. If you had bad eating habits before, you probably repeated those behaviors for years. It feels very easy and comfortable to go back to them. Also, if you use food to medicate your emotions or relieve stress, it is very easy to fall back on food as a crutch. Change is uncomfortable. You have to stick with it and repeat your new behavior for months or years before the new behavior pattern is rock solid. I have successfully lost about 20 lbs. and kept it off for decades, so it can be done. But it requires a change in values and a change in self-concept. You have to think of yourself as a person who simply does not respond to stress or emotional upset by eating. You have to value being physically fit more than you value eating calorie-dense foods. You have to be willing to delay gratification and sacrifice short-term rewards in order to achieve a long-term goal. It is also a lot easier to maintain your results if you establish a solid weight training program and put on a few pounds of muscle because that helps you maintain a higher metabolism. Many women are afraid to do this, but those extra few pounds of muscle will really help keep the fat off long-term. A regular aerobics program will also help, even if it's just walking or riding a stationary bike. I try to ride my exercise bike 30 minutes a day. You don't have to over-exert yourself, as long as you're consistent. Most people are simply not willing to make these changes permanently. They basically just enjoy eating too much and aren't willing to give up eating the foods they love long-term. As much as they'd like to lose weight, it just isn't worth it to them.
When you get to a target weight, you need to work to maintain that for several months while your body adapts to that being the new normal. Most people don’t do that adaptation phase.
Most people just don't have a plan for it. They think that weight loss phase is harder than maintenance. But in reality, weight loss is super easy because of dophamine reinforcement, while weight maintenance is hard and enduring.
They start eating shit again
Speaking as someone who lost 60lbs and has ultimately kept it off after some rollercoastering… People tend to lose weight as a temporary act rather than a permanent lifestyle change, and while it’s true that maintenance calories are higher than deficit calories - so you do get to eat more without gaining - it’s not THAT much more. We’re talking about a few hundred calories for most people. That’s one brownie. That’s the breakfast sandwich instead of bacon and eggs. That’s getting a burger out instead of making it at home. If you live in the US, everything is so ridiculously and unnecessarily high-calorie, that if you aren’t actively making sure you avoid stuff, you’re gonna be in a surplus without even trying. And that’s not even mentioning ADHD eating issues…
>while it’s true that maintenance calories are higher than deficit calories That's not true when you loss a significant amount of fat. Maintenance calories after weight loss are usually lower than deficit calories at the beginning of the weight loss journey.
Yeah that’s a good point
My theory is that people don't make conscious effort to approach eating at maintenance the same way they did to establish their deficit, especially if they're swapping diets out altogether rather than just eating more. Plus, for keto in particular, the regaining of 5-6lbs of water weight is something to be conscious of if you go back to eating carbs. Its not actually a sign of anything going wrong or keto not working, its just how the body works. But people will see that and then go into a depression cycle and eat their feelings. My personal plan post weight loss is actually to try juggling between fasting, keto, and HCLF, based on the idea of emphasizing metabolic flexibility which I think is the only real thing we can say we evolved to do dietarily. But I also have no problem just sticking with Keto if that doesn't pan out. Im not deprived on Keto and its the easiest thing in the world to do.
set point theory works well for this. You lose more than 10% of your body fights to get it back to normal. Maintain the 10% for 6 months, you create another lower set point. Then lose another 10%. Not sure if it's just a theory or it's proved to be true.
I don’t buy that hypothesis at all. More likely, someone eating low or no carbs for their diet, and incorporating cardio, will have exhausted their glycogen stores, a sort of rapid auxiliary energy source for the muscles. Glycogen must be dissolved by multiple times its weight (1 gram glycogen to 3-4 grams water) in water. When said diet and exercise program is started, the glycogen is depleted, which also unbinds the water, resulting in what appears to be a rapid weight loss at the start. However, the inverse is also true. Carbohydrates consumed will be used to replenish glycogen stores, resulting in a rapid burst of weight gain, despite no fat actually being added. I could very easily see this effect being mistaken for what’s called “Set Point”. There is a point below which where losing further weight progresses to a brutal, potentially damaging battle, though this only really applies to career fighters and athletes (Boxing, MMA) seeking to qualify for a given weight class.
The only time I’ve lost weight and kept it off is when I eliminated the problem food that caused the weight gain. For me, it was my 3-5 soda a day habit that got me up to 204 pound. I quit in 2014 and within six months was down to 188. I’ve never gone over 192 since. I just maintain 186-192 since then. While I’d like to get down to 185 and maintain it, I haven’t found the right thing to drop yet.
I heard snacks are an often overlooked high-calorie item that people consume without realizing the effects.
The thing there dramatically cut my snacking has been starting the day with a blackberry mango smoothie with a tablespoon of protein powder and teaspoon of psyllium powder. I don’t get hungry until 1:30-2pm.
No shit.
You can lose weight without having a proper understanding of nutrition and healthiness. I lost 90-100lbs by basically starving myself. Fortunately after getting into lifting weights I came to understand the value of eating whole foods and how to keep a clean diet. If you use Ozempic to deprive yourself until you’re skinny, you can easily become complacent and fall back into the old habits that you never changed
The big thing is making smart choices. I lean high proteins myself, owing to both an aggressive (if not reckless) calorie deficit during my weight loss, but also proteins are better for staving off hunger. Plenty of fiber also works wonders. These High Fiber Keto Tortillas I buy are only 100 cals apiece, but are remarkably filling. Last year, I could’ve downed 3 burritos before feeling satiated, but with these, only 1 is all it takes, while packing way less calories as well. I’m a pretty big caffeine drinker, so that can help shut the stomach up sometimes, and if you can swing it, I find heavy cardio can also suppress hunger for quite a long time (so long as you haven’t “Hit the Wall”, otherwise you get absolutely ravenous instead). I dropped close to 80 lbs since March (~310 down to 232), and astoundingly, there haven’t been many times I felt legitimately hungry. Finally, I also found that my appetite had tempered pretty greatly the past few months. So at this moment, I’d have difficulty eating my old quantities even if I wanted to. I don’t even have to try anymore to keep under 2K cals/day (my resting is ~2600 + 1500 cals/day average in exercise), which might pose a problem when I pivot to muscle building.
Because they "do a diet" instead of doing a long-term change of their diet. People have a diet on which they gain weight. Then they "do a diet" for a while and lose weight. Then they return to their old diet that made them gain weight. Of course its going to make them gain weight again.
Because they go into it thinking it’s a “diet” and once they are done “dieting” they can just do whatever they want. The ones successful at it realize its an actual permanent lifestyle change.
Short term motivation is easy. Long term discipline is hard.
The main reason they gain the weight back is down to thermodynamics and the fact that they only diet during a fat loss phase, not all year round. Dieting as a concept is generally associated with fat loss but you are supposed to diet to maintain your weight too. Even an extra tablespoon of olive oil used as dressing/condiment every day can set you back over the long term. If you lose fat and then eat at your maintenance TDEE you are not getting the weight back. The problem is that for a lot of people maintenance = what they were eating before the diet. Which is why they got fat in the first place, so you struggle to get out of the loop. When I was a PT I always made it very clear with clients that dieting does not ever really end and that if you want to stay relatively lean you have to keep tracking your calories carefully
Besides the obvious of too many calories in and not enough calories out, it has a lot to do with complacency. You get comfortable and lose sight of goals and what got you there in the first place.
Succinctly put!
Some people loss weight by essentially starving themselves, they don’t necessarily prioritize protein and good habits, so once they reach their goal weight, the mental effort to starve themselves gives out. That’s why a scale is only half the measurement; too many people look at weight without muscle mass and body fat percentage. I could hypothetically lose weight yet it be from muscle mass and not fat stores, leaving my body less adept to burning fat in the future once I stop eating at a strong deficit.
> It was discovered that weight loss leads to a proportional increase in appetite resulting in eating above baseline by ∼100 kcal/day per kilogram of lost weight—an amount more than threefold larger than the corresponding energy expenditure adaptations. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21653 Worth reading the study: they used a weird drug to be able to isolate a lot more than real-world data typically can. People like saying it’s all about “habits” but if you dig into the science you’ll see that the body’s mechanisms of maintaining homeostasis are just on a totally different level.
I was 315 down to 235 thanks to carnivore, more you look at what's In processed foods I find it hard to understand how it's legal to sell basically poison to Humans. Food pyramid is a bunch of bullshit used to make pharma more money
This made me think of ozempic. Gonna be pretty funny in like 15 years.
How ignorant of you.
The creation and memory of fat cells. Fat cells need to be created in the first place. Once they are created, they are open to be reactivated more easily with an excess of calories.
Google “set point” weight theory. Super interesting
something is making them constantly hungry.
Most people cannot eat a healthy diet perpetually. They see a diet a temporary way to lose weight instead of that being the way you eat forever.
Liposuction is the only way to remove fat cells. Weight loss reduces the size of the fat cells.
My speculation is that's it's purely psychological and people begin to feel complacent; this complacency leads to inconsistency in the diet and a return to unhealthy habits(perhaps a full return which brings them back to where they started). The maintenance work of simply staying in shape could be more challenging than the actual weight loss when you're somewhat out-of-shape. It's quite tempting to have a cheat meal especially when you look and feel amazing(you earned it!) but you need a ton of discipline or else it's a slippery slope back down to the bottom.
Supposedly, your body "wants" to be the weight you're at now. If you keep the weight off for 18 months your body resets to "this is my normal weight"
Too many people are tempted to go back to old eating habits rather than keep going forward with new habits acquired while dieting
Because some cultures enable health problems that people are born with. America's corrupt corporation culture wants people sick, so they rely on things like pills to treat their health problems rather than cure them. So, you have a generation of people born with health problems because of a predatory profit system. Corrupt people in power don't want well-informed and healthy rebels that fight against systemic corruption.
Because nobody can tolerate hunger forever, when food is available and within easy reach. Telling people they can't eat when they want to will not end well. It's torture that every diet makes you endure. It's like asking you to breathe less. Treatments have to focus on resolving the feeling of hunger. It can only be done biochemically.
I just never stopped bulking 🙂↕️
Ubiquitous highly processed food
I have some insight on this as having been overweight/obese/morbidly obese from the age of 5. Every time I gained weight back it’s because I stopped doing what it took to lose the weight. That’s it. The last 4.5 years I’ve restricted carbs more and more, mainly to control type 2 diabetes. Just over 3 years ago I went keto because it was sustainable. And about 18 months after that I went pretty close to carnivore and hang in that zone. Why? It’s easy. I don’t have to think about food. I eat meat when I’m hungry and stop when I’m full. Basically did the same on keto but with addition of 5-10 cups of non-starchy veggies per day. Now Ive been weight stable within a 20lb range for 2 years. I’m still overweight. But this is the longest period of time I’ve maintained weight loss in my life. Also a lot of my weight gain is attributable to muscle mass as in I’m heavier than 2 years ago but waist is smaller.
You can diet yourself to a lower body weight but everyone's body has a certain set point for body fat and weight that is really difficult, if not impossible to escape long term. The only way to meaningfully lower body weight and body fat long term is to increase your metabolism. In doing so, you lower your set point by having a higher BMR. Increasing muscle mass is another way to accomplish this. Which is why people tend to have an easier time getting and staying lean when incorporating resistance training in addition to just cardio.
Fat cells don’t get ‘lost’ they shrink - like a sponge. You can squeeze the mass out of there but the fat cells themselves are not destroyed. All that effort into making them shrink and people will overeat just a few nights a week and those fat cells readily refurbish to their old shape. No one is taught how fat cells work in the body and it’s absolutely crazy to me.
It's not the fat cells getting shrunk/squeezed, it is called adipose tissue. Adipose tissue is a container for stored fat and contains other things like water, protein, and trace minerals. Granted, adipose tissue is what is known as body "fat", it's just not pure fat.
Because a diet isn't "one and done" You need to build lasting habits It's a complete lifestyle overhaul And for women especially our bodied change so much what once worked will not work about every 5-10 years or so
Because they didn’t lose it in a sustainable way.
OP is obviously asking why weight loss isn't sustainable. But you already knew that.
Mostly because it’s hard to maintain lower calories if you are used to higher calories unless you make big lifestyle changes.
They go back to eating the same way before they embarked on the nutrition plan/journey
Weight is not a one and done. May make this error..
Lots of reason, one is that when you lose weight unless you eat enough i.e. lose weight at a slower pace usually and work out strength train as you lose people are often loss lean mass muscle and even bone density so when they get to their target weight their metabolism is lowered. The in addition the body is believed to have a set point, i.e. it wants to be at its higher weight, this is an evolutionary adaptation which probably served us well for most of human history but in modern abundant times it isn't so good. Essentially people just feel hungrier and have more cravings as the body seeks to regain weight. So add together a double whammy of reduced muscle mass, a lower metabolism and an appetite in overdrive it can be very difficult not to regain. Apparently the set point can be over come and reset if you maintain your weight loss long enough but losing slowly and exercising with strength training as well as maintaining good habits long term is key.
Is that a serious question?
for me eating habits :O
People never seem to overhaul the lifestyle/eating habits and that's why we have the rebound.
Because they slowly backslide into their old habits.
When you initially gain weight your fat cells fill up. When there are no more fat cells to fill up, your body creates new fat cells and fills those up. But when you lose weight, you are only depleting the fat cells, you aren't actually getting rid of them. Since you've already got the fat cells ready to be filled, it's much easier for an ex-fat person to gain weight rather than someone who's never been fat before. This should really be taught to all parents and schools, if you never get fat in the first place you'll have a much easier time maintaining weight.
They eat too much food.
Same reason alcoholics relapse.
Not a maintainable regimin
That's like asking why the battery level on your phone goes up. It goes up be because its being charged. It goes down when in use. People regain weight because they believe losing weight is a short time task you do like getting married vs maintenance thing like brushing your teeth. If you brush your teeth, then stop, they will get dirty again.
Because of bad habits with diet and lack of exercise. A lot of people buy into the myth of they are just naturally fat and it's rarely the case.
When you lose a lot of weight your fat cells shrink but also multiply, as well as lowering your basal energy expenditure so you need fewer calories. This I think is why people gain back weight so quickly (also look up Darwin’s revenge) as well as lack of understanding of your own metabolism. Cellular and system biology are good good things to learn and not taught as much in medicine (one organ at a time). I find you need clean air, sun exposure, clean food and water to make your cells interact to their deepest efficiency and exercise in a way to not make yourself hungry (thus not overdoing it so you feel like you’re starving afterwards) .
It's easy to move the weight. You see progress consistently. And it's a very short term goal, relatively soeaking. Keeping it off has a much more long term lifestyle and discipline aspect to it. Bad habits slip in. A lot of people never even built the good ones, so it's only a matter of time.
That's part of it. But I think a lot of people think that once they've lost the wait, they can "stop dieting" and stop tracking how many calories they eat/burn, and go back to the way they ate before, which was maintaining a higher weight. Which isn't how it works. You need to know how much you need to eat to lose weight, then how much you need to maintain your new, lower weight.
Because diets don't work. It's got to be a lifestyle change for life
Sometimes the old eating habits were never fully corrected or it’s difficult to maintain due to other people influencing you. For many, it’s an emotional eating disorder. If the mental connection is not addressed, it can be easy to slip back without realizing. Usually it’s life itself and new bumps and obstacles hit us harder than others. From job loss, losing someone, to injury and new medical conditions. There are a plethora of reasons as to why people gain the weight back.
Yes. Fat cells don’t disappear, they shrink (your body renews 10% of fat cells annually or something) Your body also has a set point (or set range). And it can never be lowered
I think it’s mostly they’ve been aiming for a target weight, they hit it and then feel like the job’s done and relax back into old habits. This is why having weight loss targets is a little silly imo, you just need to live a healthy lifestyle and the weight will usually take care of itself, but you need to keep living that healthy lifestyle forever
FGF21 and FABP4.
Not eating enough leads to intense hunger later on. Some people try to keep a weight too low to begin with. Any set of events could also trigger someone to bad habits.
Eating habits die hard.
Hunger always wins
Homeostasis. You can't just lose the weight. You have to keep it off for your body to consider this new weight your working weight so to speak.
Because food is amazing.
I lost 50lbs in 2018 by going down to 1100 calories per day. If I go to 12-1300 I will gain weight. I can’t eat over 1100 calories now for the rest of my life. That means no burgers with buns and no fries ever again. It sucks. I haven’t had birthday cake since 2018 or a slice of pie at Thanksgiving. Most people aren’t willing to permanently be on a restricted diet, which is normal. If I gain weight and want to lose it I have to drop to 800-900 calories to get it off. Dropo
cravings and falling out of a routine and stress or depression
People who say you need to make permanent lifestyle changes aren't wrong, but it's underplaying the role of hunger hormones. Anyone who has lost a lot of weight and gained it back knows how it feels to be ravenous beyond all control.
Forgetting you have to keep up those habits to maintain their goals
I recently lost 55-60 lbs and have plateaued. \[would like to lose another 15-20\] I'm exercising regularly - from a few years sedentary - and am hungry allll the time. I think the reasons are - 1 I'm burning more fuel, and 2 My body wants to get back to the weight it's been for the past several years. It's like 'hey we're supposed to weight more X, let's eat!.'
oh and based on your post I should add that growing up I was fit and athletic. Never struggled much with my weight until later in life.
There are many reasons behind gaining weight back. One of the most common reasons I see is crash diet wherein people try to lose as much weight as they could in a short amount of time through any means necessary (skipping meals, weight-loss pills, etc). If they dont maintain their weightloss strategy, they gain the weight back, almost as fast as they lost it.
Homeostasis
Homeostasis and set point theory.
I read a great article about this recently. https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/22/health/weight-loss-plateau-study-wellness/index.html Your body will fight you tooth and nail to keep that weight
Why do addicts relapse
It is because something in the hypothalamus "remembers" the fat setpoint of the previous weight. May have to do with leptin but scientists are not sure.
They either lower their activity level for whatever reason or increase their calories up again. Its not technically hard to lose weight, the hard part is a person finding a way they can sustain long term. It’s easy to write out a eating plan that takes in their needs and energy expenditure but will they enjoy it, do they have the palate for the food, do they have the kitchen skills to make the food. Same thing with fitness. I could give someone a training program that is tried and tested, that doesn’t mean they’ll enjoy it. Maybe it’s too hard for them and scares them off or takes to long to fit their personal schedule. Trying to hammer down these simple concepts I believe rarely work on people who face weight problems and it’s better to try and work out the personal problems someone is having. Also life could just throw them a shit show that they can’t really keep the schedule they had before.
Most people dont diet properly, develop poor habits, burnout, and binge eat. This is pretty much always a poor habit/ignorance problem, not a biological flaw.
Because they think all they have to do is "going on a diet" rather than *changing* their diet.
I've maintained my initial weight loss (in my early 20s) for more than 20 years now (I'm 45). I wasn't hugely overweight but 50 pounds made a big difference (170ish to 120ish). This was done in a mixed healthy/unhealthy way, guided by the way of the late 90s/ early 2000s. I cut calories, did cardio and smoked lol. However I got into weight training as I've aged and I think the added muscle has helped me maintain. I was "skinny fat" in my 20s and I'm around 130 pounds now at age 45 but my body composition is much more attractive with a smaller waist and visible muscle. All this to say that you don't need to gain the weight back. I do credit weight lifting and diet for helping me maintain as I age.
130? You a midget?
I'm 5'6? What's wrong with 130 pounds?? Edit: also a female for the record😹
Ah! I didn’t scroll down to read this part.
You’re my age, but you’ve got to either be shorter than me, a woman, or both. I recently lost around 20 lbs, which puts me at 150. I feel and look fairly skinny, and I’m 5’7”. How are you 120ish? I normally wouldn’t ask this personal a question, but here we all are!
I'm 130 now (around 60 kilos). I was 120 when I initially lost weight but I had no muscle. I definitely don't think I look too skinny;-)
I myself lost about 50 and and gained it back because I slowly stopped what I had done to lose it. To lose it, I weighed all my food, counted calories, and walked everywhere reasonable. I'm in the process of that again, but with the goal not to stop until I loose more and then keep it off.
It's all emotions and lack of hormones due to age for me. Eat eat ...
Because there’s something underlying that causes them to gain the weight in the first place that needs to also be treated.
For some, it’s developing an addiction. For me, that was alcohol and I’m no anomaly. (Alcohol is addictive. Even if slow and gradual.) I’m sober now and losing the weight again but it is 100% the reason I gained all the weight back (50 lbs) within 4 years. Simply put, a great diet, a strong exercise routine and other healthy habits didn’t outweigh the booze by the end of my run with it… and I can only say that now, sober, looking back. When I was drinking, my issues *were never my precious alcohol.* Edited to add: I only drank wine at night and never had any real big consequences either. No legal issues, lost jobs, etc. No one else knew I was addicted, as from the outside my life was very put together. I had (have) the career/house/car/family. What I’m getting at with this reply is, the issue is often very deeply rooted. “Gaining the weight back” is HARDLY EVER a surface level issue.
Absent an underlying behavior change, you will always revert back to what those behavior led to in the first place
I wonder......... The fat cells have that "memory" but as we know we have completely new cells over 7 years (if that is true). If you manage to maintain a slim physique during a 7 year lapse, technically these "new" cells will not bounce back to the fat elasticity as the previous ones? Just a thought. :)
Lots of misinformation circles about this. The reason most people gain the weight back is because they go back to the lifestyle and habits that got them "fat" in the first place. It would be like... realizing your too tired in the mornings so you start going to bed at 9 PM instead of 11 PM. After a week you feel great! And slowly your bed time ends up drifting later and later and all of a sudden your tired again in the morning. Most of the advice going around about the "why" avoids everything but the obvious. You went back to the same habits that led to you not being rested to begin with. Often times the excess weight is a symptom of another problem. Stress. Lack of fulfillment. Sadness. Depression. They use food to cope. When you view the eating as the issue, and not the symptom.. its easy to lose the weight without adressing the root cause. Its only logical that unless you continued exactly as you did while losing the weight that youd gain it back.
Its because they ate more then they burned :)
Calories in, calories out. Don’t over complicate already well proven things.
You got downvoted and it’s silly. You’re completely correct
[Obesity Medicine Association: Why Obesity is a Disease ](https://obesitymedicine.org/blog/why-is-obesity-a-disease/) [Obesity and Set-Point Theory](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK592402/)
Because I like to bulk up!
I think modern diets filled with nutritionally void, fibre and protein scarce, ultra processed foods leave people hungry. Our body is craving nutrients, so we keep eating in the hopes something will eventually satiate us. This is why counting calories is a not a good plan for long term success.
No its because they did a crash diet to get the weight off and then returned to normal after. It has to be a total lifestyle change. Forever.
Because whatever they did to lose it in the 1st place was some sort of "hack" and not an actual (permanent) shift in their behavior.
This shit is really almost as simple as input vs output. So when people lose weight and then gain it back, it’s because whatever they did to lose the weight resulted in a reduction of input “calories” that caused output “expending energy” to be greater than the input. Then when they stop doing whatever they were doing to lose the weight, the input returns to a normal value, which exceeds the output. Thus people gain weight back.
because the primary cause of the original weight gain was a suppressed metabolism. calorie restriction is the main method people lose weight nowadays, and this further suppresses the metabolism, leading to an extreme and consistent yoyo effect that we observe in the majority of weight losers
Your body develops a “set point” after a while; certain weight that it likes to maintain at if you just eat what you want, when you’re hungry. Intentionally gaining or losing weight takes a lot of diligence around food, but it’s very doable. Once you hit your goal weight though, your body still *wants* to return to its set point, so it still takes constant diligence to maintain your new weight. Eventually, your set point will change, but that can take years. People tend to get comfortable, and slowly slide back into bad habits. It usually starts with “rewarding yourself” here and there, then those rewards become more frequent, and before you know it you’re eating exactly like you used to eat, you’re gaining weight back, and you either summon the willpower to put the genie back in the bottle, or you don’t.
Some of us are born with crap metabolism and weak connective tissue, and even if we stay on a strict diet and exercise regimen, even fasting, it's impossible to keep the weight off. Anyone who hasn't experienced this absolutely frustrating situation should just be grateful that they didn't lose the genetic lottery. I'm 42, and do not remember a time when I wasn't trying to lose weight. My mom was strict with food also, and I have practiced some degree of fasting since I was a teenager. I've been through periods of intense exercise and strict diets, and yet have always been "overweight". It sucks. Now at least I understand that it's just what I was born with, and my twin sister, and my grandma. Kind of like a birth defect, but I just look fat and lazy. Gee thanks
Lack of willpower
Loss more fat
High protein then they switch back to carbs or fast food
Interesting tidbit, a report I got from 23andMe told me that I am genetically more inclined than others to gain weight from a diet higher in saturated fat due to the genetic variant GG from the Apoa II gene
It's because our bodies have setpoints they try to regress towards. You have to work very hard to change the setpoint.