2023-07-01 09:10:32
by Elena Meli
When you go on a diet, the brain intervenes to bring the weight back to the “set point”, which may not coincide with the ideal weight. That is why the lost kilos recover. But there are tricks to ensure the maintenance of the result achieved
The real challenge is not to lose weight, but to maintain weight loss: many studies have shown that weight gain after a diet is more than probable and according to a review of 29 studies on long-term weight loss, more than half of the weight lost is regained in a couple of years, more than 80 percent within five years.
The “ideal” weight according to the brain
It’s not for lack of will, but it’s all the fault of our weight set point. The weight set point is the “ideal” weight according to the brain, an organ that also functions as a sort of “thermostat” of weight and above all of body fat, or rather the energy reserve we have to cope with periods of low energy intake so much feared in millennia of evolution. The weight set point is fixed over time based on lifestyle: elements such as diet, amount of physical exercise and movement in general, hormonal balance, psychological conditions, the sleep-wake cycle. On the basis of these parameters, the brain fixes a weight that according to it is adequate for our habits, so the weight set point may not coincide with the ideal weight we would like, because, for example, by eating a lot of fat, sugar and calories for long enough it can «calibrate » upwards, making any attempt to lose weight more difficult. When you go on a diet, the brain intervenes to bring your weight back to the set point and, in addition to increasing your appetite, it sends signals of general malaise that dissuade you from eating less: for this reason, you often feel tired at the beginning of a diet, weak, prone to headaches, a little depressed. The mechanism is so powerful that even with a substantially correct diet, the tendency to absorb more calories, due to the drop in metabolism and increased appetite, can partially regain the weight lost with the initial diet, drastic or less.
How to re-calibrate the set point
Being able to reduce the weight set point is not impossible and above all it is the only way for a diet to work in the long run, without making you regain weight: once the new balance has been reached, appetite and metabolism will also adjust accordingly. Also for this reason drastic diets cannot have lasting efficacy: they lower the set point too much and too suddenly and the brain rebels. On a rational level we know that we are on a diet for a good reason, but the ancestral brain goes into alarm: we have evolved for millennia having little food available that we had to get by hunting animals or picking berries, fruit, tubers, herbs, so in case of diet we immediately put in place defense mechanisms. So as soon as the caloric intake drops a lot and all together, the brain inevitably sends hormonal signals that lead to an increase in appetite and a decrease in metabolism: if on average 1500 calories are needed to live, on a diet the necessary expenditure can, for example, be reduced of 10 percent and so 1350 will be enough. However, as soon as the 150 extra calories are introduced, the body will store them: it is a compensatory mechanism orchestrated by the brain to survive periods of famine, which it seems can be maintained even for a year after a strict diet period.
To “trick” the brain and reduce the weight set point, then, it is better to choose a diet with unprocessed foods, lots of vegetables cooked in a simple way, whole grains: it is the regimen that gradually makes you “lose weight” even the idea that the mind has of itself, but it takes months and sometimes years for the brain to change its mind about the weight at which it feels «happy».
July 1, 2023 (change July 1, 2023 | 09:09)
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