Diets, fads, weight loss, it’s all a part of the mainstream culture. And so deeply rooted into many of our lives. But do you ever wonder why it’s so difficult to lose weight, let alone keep it off? That’s what we’re talking about today and how our weight set point determines how we lose, if we lose and how we’ll keep it off.
I’m continually fascinated by the human body and reminded at just how powerful and intricate it can be. And body fat the dreaded thing we fear is no different. In fact, many experts now distinguish body fat as it’s own organ system.
I’m half tempted to believe that body fat is so intricate we still are in the infancy stage of what we know about it. But what we do know is that losing weight is more complicated than just a generic equation dealing with calories.
We know that it can’t possibly be a simple equation, because if it were, wouldn’t we be a nation of thin, healthy people? If there were a simple solution, we’d all be thin.
But the question becomes, are we able to lose weight and keep it off? To beat the disturbing statistics that 97% of people who lose weight will gain it back an more. What? Why?
I wanted to know it all and bring the answer to you.
Today on the podcast we answer the questions:
- Can you lose weight and keep it off?
- What does this mean for your hormones and biology?
- And more.
We dive into the broad subject of weight, body mass composition and give you answers on how to change it.
SPOILER ALERT: It’s not what most diets teach.
Tune in to find out.
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weight set point
This run-down is the very quick spark-notes version of the podcast. But to get to the answers, on how to lower your weight set point, you must know what your set point is. So let’s define that.
Your body’s weight set point is the homeostatic number that your body prefers to stay at. It’s the place it has called “normal” or “safe” for your body to maintain the energy it needs to live your lifestyle.
You can think of the weight set point like a thermostat.
Your set point is the number you’ve programmed into your system, like a number you set on your thermostat. Just like your thermostat, it will either increase or decrease the temperature based on the environment you live in to maintain the homeostatic normal.
So even if you leave a door open in the blistering cold of winter, your internal heater is working hard to conserve and pump up that temperature. Just like your body does when you lose 20 pounds. It works to gain that back by reducing your metabolism, increase your hunger and craving signals and to absorb and store more calories from the food you consume.
Your set point is your homeostatic normal.
how to change it
The big questions is, if this number is my normal, can I change it?
This is a great question, considering over half of Americans says they’d like to lose a few pounds. But the big thing to remember when it comes to your weight set point – just restricting calories or cutting out a macronutrient won’t work long-term.
To lower your set point you have to learn to work with your body and not against it. To provide trust that you’re well fed and healthy giving it room to burn rather than conserve. And this is a process.
It’s not an overnight fix.
It’s not a quick diet or fad.
Lowering your set point is a process of learning, trying, transitioning and experimenting.
But one that is so worth it. Inside the podcast, I give you ten ways to lower your set point so check that out to get all of them. But here are five ways you can start today to transition your body into a space of health and healing naturally lowering your weight set point to make weight loss happen and keeping you there without the added work.
1. Diet Cycling
Doing the same thing day in and day out isn’t doing anyone any favors. This is allowing our body to compensate for the changes. Take for instance calorie restricting. It may work short-term, but throughout weeks and months, your body begins to compensate for this reduction in calories by reducing your metabolism, increasing hunger and cravings as well as absorption of energy.
To prevent this compensation, change up what you do. I like to do this seasonally – by rotating my lifestyle and diet to fall in suit with the season {click here to learn more about season syncing}.
Be flexible, change, diet cycling, season syncing is all part of the process of reducing your set point.
2. Sleep + Drink + Exercise
The basics of nutrition, sleep more, hydrate right and exercise. But don’t just do it to the stands of eight hours a night, eight- eight-ounce glasses a day and 60 minutes of cardio. Gone are those days.
Just like diet cycling try exercise cycling. Doing a combination of cardio and strength, rotating through high-intensity interval training and working based on how you feel.
Same goes for hydration, listen first to how you feel, drink when you’re thirsty and hydrate with thirst-quenching beverages, not just straight H2O {learn more here}.
And sleep – deep, restorative, healing sleep. It’s the foundational component of health.
3. Reduce the reward
The reward factor is an interesting one because we often think of weight loss strictly by calories and energy burning. But what we know is weight is controlled by the brain, and the brain interacts not only with the homeostatic measures of the body {like set point, temperature, heart rate, etc} but also through our reward-centers of the brain.
What they know is that highly palatable foods often have a high-reward value and this causes us to eat more and feel less satisfied. Of course, this used to be a good thing, before the food industry spent billions of dollars learning about this. Now they use it to their full advantage getting us addicted to all of their foods.
Why? Because this creates an emotion, a genuine desire and drive to eat and when these foods fire the reward-mechanisms of our brain we also know that metabolism and satiety decrease allowing these foods to be stored as fat.
But that doesn’t mean to eat only bland foods but rather skip out on the foods with the high reward value – which tend to be mostly processed foods. HBut here is a short list of highly-palatable rewarding foods.
- Fast Food
- Think McDonalds’ French Fries
- Chicken Nuggets
- Pizza
- Hamburgers
- Processed Food
- Chips
- Crackers
- Pringles {They even say once you pop you just can’t stop – I mean that’s studied}
- Granola Bars
- Sugar
- Candy
- Pop
- High-Sweetened Lattees and drinks
- Cake
- Pie
- Pastries
I’m sure you’re starting to get the pictures. Maybe even more so when you know, the contrast of meats and vegetables or a salad isn’t quite as palatable. How do you know, because the non-rewarded foods are never foods that we’d see you binging on, think broccoli.
The reward value of the food changes the way we metabolize, how satisfied we are and what we crave.
4. Change Your Mindset
Your mindset changes everything. Without the right mindset, you’ll never reach your weight loss goals, and it’s certainly not because you don’t have enough willpower. None of us do. But it’s more about how satisfied we are with life which translates over into how pleased we are with health.
How we think, whether positive or negative is changing our neurotransmitter, changing our hormones and changing our cells. Our thoughts matter, be careful what you think.
5. Balance Your Hormones
Of course, we can’t talk about weight without talking about your hormones. They are a critical force in how you store and what you burn. While I don’t think it’s the underlying change, I do think it’s a significant change, and any change can help.
If your hormones are out of whack more than likely your weight is as well. Decrease the bloat and inflammation and let this snowball build by merely working on the hormone change.
the take-home point
Long-term weight loss and sustainable weight-control are not ever going to be about complicated caloric equations. It is ALWAYS going to be about creating a cooperative and optimized metabolic, hormonal, and internal biochemically well-functioning physiology.
Remember, metabolism doesn’t work on some linear, calorically balanced equation, regardless of what pop diet books tell us. It’s not always the result of conscious decision to eat less or exercise more or eat more or whatever you want.
It’s a biologically regulated process.
At the simplest level, any successful weight loss intervention has to involve lowering the set point. Listen to the podcast to get all the details and then incorporate just one thing and watch it slowly transition your life.
5-day hormonal reset
If you need a more specific plan to get you started, you should consider my quick 5-Day Hormonal Reset. Designed to jumpstart your hormones, cleanse your life and mind and get your body revving again.
Founded in rest, healing and rejuvenation this program provides the day-to-day lifestyle changes as well as specific diet to reboot your system and get your hormones flowing naturally again.
The better news, it does it without any added supplements, hormones or tinctures. Just a diet based on real wholesome, nutritious and hormone worthy foods and a lifestyle conducive to change.
Learn more about the 5-Day Reset Here.
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