Can the Brain Sabotage Weight Loss?

Most people, when they are trying to lose weight will get discouraged and quit trying because they don’t see the scale go down.  You are doing everything right and still you aren’t losing any weight.  This kind of thing happens frequently when people are on low calorie diets.  There are usually solid reasons why your weight loss has stalled. For instance, people who limit their calorie intake too much will stop losing, because their bodies react like they are in starvation mode.  When your body is starving, it will slow down metabolism to hang on to the fat you have. 

There is a lot of science behind weight loss; research has shown that making lifestyle changes such as eating healthy and eating recommended portions will eventually allow you to be successful in losing weight.  One thing that is important is that you remain accountable for your actions throughout your weight loss journey.  Research has shown that the brain keeps a natural set point for our weight.  In other words, our brain tries to keep us at a certain weight.  We can reset that set point, but not by starving ourselves. We must maintain a healthy eating plan and a healthy activity plan to be successful in training our brain not to sabotage our weight loss efforts.

Weight loss is a journey, it’s not a diet.  Most people who go on diets will fail because they have the diet mentality.  Going on a diet usually means that you must restrict the foods you love.  As most of us know, most of our favorite foods are dense with calories.  It’s important that you don’t deprive yourself of your favorite foods, because you will eventually lose your resolve and binge on your favorite foods. It happens to almost everyone who thinks of their weight loss efforts as a diet. 

How much weight should you lose in a week?

Anywhere from 0.5 to 2 pounds a week is the proper weight loss that your body can handle. The Weight Watcher’s program suggests that 2 pounds of weight loss a week is healthy.  Trying to lose more than this can set road blocks in your path somewhere down the line. If you try to lose too quickly, your body is likely to shut down and you will hit a plateau.  It’s those stalls that are so discouraging to people who have a lot of weight to lose.  The best way to lose is to use portion control.  You should know the difference between a portion size and a serving size.  A portion size is the amount of food you put on your plate; conversely, a serving size is the recommending amount of food.  For instance, the serving size on a jug of milk is 8 ounces, so if you use a big glass and fill it up, you might have 2 servings of milk or more instead of the recommended serving of milk.

If you aren’t losing weight, you could be eating too little or too much.  I doesn't take much for the brain to sabotage weight loss. Remember your serving sizes and also track how much food actually goes into your mouth.  Most of us, if we don’t measure will judge with our eyes how big a portion we should have.  By eyeballing our serving size, we almost always take more than we should have.  It’s plain arithmetic, calories in and calories out.  If we don’t use the calories we ingest, we gain weight. If our calories out equals our calories in, our weight stays the same.  We must have a calorie deficit in order to lose weight, but at the same time we must not trick our brain into thinking that food is scarce.  There is a healthy balance to losing weight.

Sources:

http://healthland.time.com/2012/01/04/diet-disruptor-how-the-brain-sabotages-weight-loss/

Weight Watchers