Do you struggle to maintain your weight loss or to lose additional weight once you’ve reached a certain weight? Having trouble reaching or maintaining your ideal weight is actually very common. It affects 90% of losers but you don't have to settle for the set point theory that claims you have no control over your ideal weight. New research studies have found you can reset your set point, no matter how much you’ve struggled to maintain and lose weight in the past.
What Determines Your Set Point
There is some truth to the set point theory that you can't do much about your genetically pre-determined weight. Your weight set point, the weight that your body tends to want to maintain, is determined primarily by genetics but there are a variety of environmental factors that contribute to your set point as well, including what you eat, when you eat, how much you eat and most importantly how much weight you lose and how long you maintain that loss.
One of the most important factors to gaining control of your set point is how much weight you lose and how long you maintain that loss explains Dr. George Blackburn, author of Break Through Your Set Point: How to Finally Lose the Weight You Want and Keep It Off. According to Dr. Blackburn, losing too much weight too fast disrupts your body’s current balance. Your body perceives this imbalance as a threat and takes action to "defend your current set point" by shifting hormones into a fat storing state that results in weight gain. A less aggressive loss that you can maintain for a few months, on the other hand, is not as disruptive to your body and makes further weight loss much easier.
More Strategies To Control Your Set Point
Another important factor that controls set point is daily physical activity. Staying physically active on a daily basis sends an important message to your body that there is no need to store fat because fat must be used to fuel daily activities. Staying active on a daily basis also has the added benefit of burning more calories, another factor that contributes to set point. The best news about Dr. Blackburn's research is that these are only a handful of variables that you can manipulate when trying to re-establish a new set point. Other things that can help you achieve an ideal weight of your choice include sleep, type of exercise you do, fatigue, portions, and stress (just to name a few).
Learn more research proven strategies to reset your weight set point from Break Through Your Set Point: How to Finally Lose the Weight You Want and Keep It Off
