WHY YOUR WEIGHT WON’T BUDGE

 

You’ve reached a time in your life when you’re ready to hop on the weight loss train. So you think “I’ll start by eating less and exercising more. Because fewer calories in = less accumulated body weight AND more exercise = more calories burned = less body weight.” Right?

Not quite – and this is exactly where conventional weight loss methods go wrong. Because our body is much more complex than a simple math equation. It’s much more like a complex biology project. And to be successful in our weight loss efforts we have to look at it that way. 

 

Body weight biology 101

Body weight is regulated by hormonal signals released from the gastrointestinal tract, pancreas, and fat tissue that regulate our food intake and energy expenditure (aka calories burned). The hormones that are most involved in appetite are leptin, ghrelin, cholecystokinin, peptide YY, insulin, pancreatic polypeptide, and glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1). While these names probably don’t mean too much to you, it’s important to know that they are messengers that signal to your brain whether you need to eat or whether you are satisfied. 

 

When we feed our body well and with the right nutrients, our hunger hormones are balanced and will only signal hunger when we really need to eat (like during meal time). However, when we deprive our body or when we don’t feed it with the right nutrients, our hunger hormones go out of balance and signal hunger even when we don’t physically need food (like when you grab that 10pm snack even though you just had dinner). This is because our body compensates for the inadequate supply of nutrients by:

1. Reducing the amount of energy we use up
2. Reducing levels of leptin and cholecystokinin
3. Increasing our appetite and levels of ghrelin (our “I’m hungry” hormone). 

 

These changes promote weight regain after a period of weight loss. Even worse, these changes in hormones do not revert back to baseline values within 12 months after the initial weight loss. 

 

What do these specific hormones do in terms of weight?

• Leptin is a hormone made by fat cells and enterocytes (cells in the small intestine). It inhibits hunger and therefore works to reduce food intake. It also increases energy expenditure and reduces storage of fat.
• Cholecystokinin and amylin are released from the gastrointestinal tract and pancreas in response to food intake. These hormones are involved in helping us digest fat and keeping us full after a meal, respectively.
• Ghrelin stimulates hunger and may promote energy storage instead of energy utilization.

 

So you can see how lower levels of leptin and cholecystokinin combined with higher levels of ghrelin work against us when we try to keep the extra weight off.

 

What does this mean in the long-term?

Simply put, following a diet that restricts calories is not sustainable – it changes the way our hormones respond to food intake, satiety, and hunger, which ultimately causes us to regain the weight that we may have just lost. 

 

So what can you do?

• Don’t eat less, eat right. Losing weight should not be about eating less – it should be about eating right to support your health and overall wellbeing. Liberalize your diet instead of restricting it. 
• Focus on whole, fiber-rich foods instead of “low calorie” foods. Low calorie foods can cause an imbalance in our hunger hormones. Instead focus on fiber rich foods that decrease ghrelin and feed your entire digestive tract. 
• Chose the most nutrient dense foods. Better quality nutrition, means better metabolism and easier weight loss.

 

Co-written by Cristina Veltri Illien