In all of weight loss research – and, trust me, there’s a lot of it out there – one of the most well-established phenomena is weight regain. The statistics show that between 80 and 95% of dieters regain all that hard-lost weight, and two-thirds of us even end up fatter after the diet than before we started. So why do you regain all that weight, and even a little extra? And could you guard your wellbeing against weight regain?
A lot of diet plans work on the basis that your metabolism is a calculator: eating too many calories + not burning enough off = weight gain, and the opposite leads to weight loss. However, if you think that this is the way to weight loss wellness, you may not have heard of the law of metabolic compensation. According to this law, your metabolism is less like a calculator and more like a thermostat or see-saw. It’s not a case of eating less calories, burning more and, hey presto, you’re skinny forever. In fact, when you eat less and burn more, your body compensates. You become hungrier and burn less calories at rest.
When it comes to weight loss, you often look for the quick fix and so you can forget that short-term solutions often fail to produce long-term results. Let’s say you want to lose weight at a sensible rate by following a low-calorie diet, so you decide to reduce your calorie intake to 1500 calories per day. At first, sticking with the plan is relatively manageable, and you even lose a few pounds in the first fortnight. However, this is where your compensatory metabolism kicks in. Then, you become hungry all the time, have less energy, and crave sweet, salty and fatty foods. As an added bonus, depending on your individual response to the law of metabolic compensation, your metabolism will slow down your daily calorie burn. This means that if you have an unfortunately large metabolic compensation, your progress won’t only stall, but may even lead to weight gain.
It seems so simple, so why haven’t we heard about this sooner? In fact, the research into this issue goes back as far as 1975, when scientists published a study in the journal Lancet that looked at the issue of weight loss resistance. The researchers studied 29 women who claimed they could not lose weight, by isolating them in a house and controlling all their food and exercise, in order to test their metabolism. While most of the women lost weight, 10 women did not lose any weight and one actually gained weight. The research shows then that a) metabolism varies from person to person and b) the suppression of the metabolism that compensatory reactions achieve can even render low-calorie diets ineffective.
