"Set point theory" (doctors, carb, lose weight, exercise)
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Just curious if anyone else here has read about this and what their thoughts are? Simply put, at a particular point in time within your life, your body has a metabolic equilibrium. Reduce calories, body weight drops but slowly and stubbornly with lots of plateauing, and quickly returns if anything in your lifestyle returns. Increase calories, and (to a point) your body will increase its basal metabolic rate to absorb the newly introduced calories. What sometimes happens when people say their weight creeps up, is that they keep reseting their set point upward over time, possibly because insulin levels are chronically high and fat stores are increasing and being held in perpetuity...a very dangerous journey.
The solution, some say, is to have a target weight in mind. When you've worked hard to achieve that weight through whatever method you could (preferably something insulin lowering such as a lower-carb or keto/IF/carnivore/whatever diet), "hang out" at your new set point for as long as possible, weeks or months even, suffer through it, until your body eventually "gives up" and adapts to the new set point. Returning to your old eating habits (assuming they were reasonable and not some sort of junk food high sugar thing), you no longer return to your old set point.
Hey summer, I never really thought about set points but I’m really guessing it is real, or at least, the body resists to change your weight at certain point.
I ve been exactly the same weight (the scale doesn’t move up or down not even 10% of a pound) I think it’s my body’s resistance to weight change. So yesterday in purpose I ate a lot, so I expected the scale move up. Guess what! The weight remained exactly the same.
I think our bodies are always adapting every day. If something changes for long enough your body will take action to adapt to it. That has been seen over and over again. Thus, when you think about it, it is a little foolish to think that dieting or reducing calories for an extended period of time would NOT have your body adapt.
I think the true reason why some people cannot lose weight or some people are crazy 600 lbs obese has to do with how well your particular body can adapt. There is a spectrum all along the line of how quickly or not quickly you can adapt. Buy using a once size fits all diet mentality -- calories in vrs calories out, untold damage has been done.
The new *craze* in dieting is finding ways to lose weight around this natural instinct. Instead of fighting it, learning how to work with it to reduce weight. A few doctors have come out and said that "dieting" as we think of it ... eating less until you reach goal, is the reason there are so many fat people. Once you have investigated everything else and nothing changes... you have to look at what is left.
Hey summer, I never really thought about set points but I’m really guessing it is real, or at least, the body resists to change your weight at certain point.
I ve been exactly the same weight (the scale doesn’t move up or down not even 10% of a pound) I think it’s my body’s resistance to weight change. So yesterday in purpose I ate a lot, so I expected the scale move up. Guess what! The weight remained exactly the same.
Good experiment. If you *kept* eating that way and if the macros were sufficiently high carb, I would posit that eventually your body would adapt to a higher weight. How high and how long it would take would probably depend on a number of factors: age, thyroid function, insulin sensitivity, etc.
Do think there is something in it but probably no scientific back up, have found that when I lost weigh took a couple years before my body excepted that new weight as a norm
I've heard the argument made by doctors, but from the numbers I heard you have to get down and keep at your new, low set point for at least 18-24 months in order to set it downwards.
In theory the method would be to
1. Lose weight primarily using IF to keep as much metabolic turnover as possible until hitting goal weight.
2. Stay at goal weight with maintained IF and restricted diet for 2 years (24 months).
3. Reintroduce more calories at a rate of 50 kcal more/week until a "normal healthy diet" can be maintained.
So number 1 is no joke, and already a struggle for most. Step 2 is a bit harder but I guess doable if you went through the trouble of number 1. 3rd has to a real ***** to do. As reintroducing the "normal diet" will probably take about lets say 1000/50=20 weeks and having the discipline etc to restrict yet increase the calories in a controlled manner, tough one to say the least.
I don't doubt that this works, but it's probably pretty damn hard, not to mention the basic minimum time this takes fat to eating "normal" and maintaining weight is about 3 years.
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