Reasons You Regain the Weight
Reasons You Regain the Weight
Updated March 14,
2019
It often feels like there are two distinct
phases of weight
loss: One where you're losing the weight and then another where you
gain it all back. If you ever feel that way, you're in good
company. There are no exact numbers, but some estimates suggest that
anywhere from 80 percent to 95 percent of people who lose weight regain it.k When it comes to maintaining weight loss, you can't control some complicating
factors, such as your age, sex, and genetics. But you can control how sedentary
you are, what you eat, and how much you exercise.
Putting at least the same amount of work into
maintaining your weight loss as you did to lose it in the first place, and
knowing what can contribute to pounds creeping back, can help you stop the
cycle for good.
Unrealistic Diet and Exercise Programs
Some diets, especially those that restrict
entire food groups, are simply not sustainable for the long term (plus, they're
often unhealthy).
As soon as you restrict something, you may find that your body starts to crave
it. That can quickly end a diet.
If you add in an unrealistic exercise plan,
say going from very little exercise to seven days a week at the gym, it's easy
to see why weight regain is so common. While you might lose weight initially,
these extreme diet and exercise programs require such drastic changes that you
can only follow them for a short period of time. Plus, you're not learning how
to create new, healthy habits that you can employ moving forward. Jellybgone.com,
looks after you here!
The Energy Gap
As soon as you start losing weight, your body
suddenly wants it all back. It can't tell the difference between intentional
weight loss and being struck by famine. It immediately goes into protective
mode, lowering your metabolism and stimulating your appetite to preserve fat
stores.
On top of that, when you lose weight, your body needs fewer calories to
maintain itself. However, your body prompts you to keep eating those calories
to fill this "energy gap." One study found
that for every two pounds you lose, your body will try to get you to eat 100
more calories than usual.
A Sedentary Lifestyle
Another known culprit of weight regain is
your relationship with your car, TV, computer, and other assorted electronics
that encourage you to sit for hours at a time.
Sitting can actually shut down your
metabolism, but it's what we spend most of our time doing. Successful
weight-losers often restrict how much TV they watch and look for ways to be
active throughout the day, in addition to their regular workouts.
Not Enough Exercise
Aside from avoiding too much sedentary time,
exercise is crucial for successful weight loss and maintenance. The American
College of Sports Medicine reports that consistent physical
activity is essential after weight loss—and the more the
better.Everyone needs a different amount of
exercise based on a variety of factors including gender, age, fitness level,
weight, body composition, and genetics. Experts suggest starting with the
following guidelines:
- For weight loss:
225 to 420 minutes per week of moderately vigorous exercise (i.e, about 60
to 90 minutes of exercise most days of the week)
- To prevent weight gain: 150 to 250 minutes per week of moderately vigorous
exercise (i.e., about 20 to 35 minutes of exercise most days of the week)
Preventing Weight Regain
There are no simple solutions, but it's
usually easier to prevent weight from coming back than it is to lose it. So,
working hard on maintaining your loss will pay off.
Start
by Losing Weight Slowly
When you lose weight quickly, especially if
you're dieting without exercise, you not only lose fat, you lose muscle as
well. That slows your metabolism,
which contributes to even more weight gain.
If you want long-term weight loss, you need a
long-term lifestyle
change, which will include a variety of new skills and habits. That
includes how to exercise: What you enjoy, how much you can handle, how to fit
it into your schedule, how to stay motivated on
a daily basis, and how to make
your exercise habit stick.
You'll also need to learn how to eat
differently: How to monitor your portions and
avoid emotional
eating, for example. And you may have to deal with other issues that
contribute to weight gain, such as stress and
lack of sleep.
Recalculate
Your Calories
The more weight you lose, the fewer calories
your body needs to maintain itself. Tracking that can help you keep the energy
gap you need to maintain weight loss.
When you calculate how many calories
you burn during exercise, make sure to subtract the number of
calories you would have burned if you weren't exercising. For example, if you
burned 300 calories during a 30-minute run, subtract the number of calories you
would have burned sitting (e.g., 20 to 40 calories). This gives you a more
accurate understanding of your calories in/calories out equation.
Exercise
Your number-one defense against your body's
natural tendency to hold on to weight is exercise. It doesn't just burn
calories; it also weakens your body's desire to regain weight.
Researchers don't understand all the
mechanisms behind this, but believe working out may encourage the body to
become more sensitive to leptin (a
hormone that regulates appetite) so you don't feel as hungry. One
study showed that exercise decreased the rate of weight regain in
rats, while another found that among more than 100 moderately obese men and
women dieters who exercised, 44 percent reported eating
less after exercising.
If you're new to exercise, start with what
you can handle and what your schedule allows, and work your way up from there.
Your exercise program should include cardio (about
three to five workouts a week) and strength
training (about two to three nonconsecutive days a week).
Keep
Moving Throughout Your Day
Build physical activity (aside from your
focused exercise) into your day so it's second nature. The idea is to minimize
sedentary time. For example, if you sit at a desk all day, try an office or staircase workout.
You can even get some meaningful movement with a lunchtime
workout.
You may also want to use
a pedometer. Aim for 5,000 to 10,000 steps a day in addition to your
workouts.
Stay
Strong
People who maintain weight loss for more than
two years tend to keep it off. It seems that the longer you maintain weight
loss, the better you get at mastering the delicate balance of calories in and
calories out and figuring out how
much exercise you need to maintain that balance.
Two years may seem like a long time, but many
of us have a lifetime of less-than-helpful habits to overcome. It's going to
take a while to unravel all that history. Remembering how long it took to gain
the weight may help you keep things in perspective.
This doesn't mean you have to
be "perfect" for the next two years. You'll get sick, busy
with the holidays, injured,
go on vacation, or just lose
your motivation. Falling
off the exercise wagon will happen, but what's important is what you
do about it.
The road to change isn't always a straight
one. Admit any missteps you make, learn from them, and ease back into your
program.
Is there anything more frustrating than losing weight only to
have it come back on and then some? 85% of the people in the U.S. that lost
weight last year will put it back on. That’s because the big and I mean Big
weight loss companies design their programs that way. These companies make in
the billions of dollars each year at weight loss programs, why would they want
to change them? We are not controlled by big-pharma and have a system that can
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