Why it’s hard to maintain weight loss

About 70% of American adults are trying to lose weight. However, as a result of evolutionary pressures dating back to our most distant ancestors, our bodies are hardwired to resist weight loss.

“We’re richly endowed with genes that advocate for storing calories as fat,” says Michael Rosenbaum, MD, a professor of pediatrics and medicine at Columbia University’s Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, who studies how our bodies fight weightloss.

Early humans were subject to frequent periods of poor access to nutrition. People who better store calories from fat when food is available and conserve it when food is not are more likely to survive and reproduce. “Evolutionary pressures favor genes that enhance reproductive ability, and the ability to store calories would clearly meet this criterion,” says Rosenbaum. “The tendency to gain weight and the difficulty in losing it and keeping it off is primarily a biological problem, not a reflection of laziness and gluttony.”

Your Body’s Weight Loss Battle

Rosenbaum’s research with his Columbia colleague Rudolph Leibel, MD, and many others has shown that losing weight and keeping it off are different. And keeping the weight off is harder, often requiring a lifetime of attention. Contrary to popular opinion, people without obesity generally have as much difficulty maintaining a small degree of weight loss as people with obesity have even greater levels of weight loss.

During weight loss (usually with diet) and maintenance of weight loss, multiple biological systems they “conspire” to return us to our previous levels of fat stores to maintain the transmission of calorie storage genes. After losing weight, your metabolism will probably slow down and your appetite will be higher, and it will probably stay that way if you keep the weight off.

To maintain the weight lost, you must actively work to address and hopefully reverse the biological changes induced by weight loss. But what is the best way to do that?

Rosenbaum is currently trying to find out by looking at the regulation of body weight from “the lower fat cell to the higher cortical centers of the brain” in a much more meticulous way than previous studies.

The key question is: Can we identify the reasons why weight loss is difficult for each individual and design personalized approaches that make it easier?

Each person has different degrees of slower metabolism and increased appetite and different reasons that make it difficult to maintain weight loss, says Rosenbaum. By looking for the genes, biomarkers, and behaviors that have the greatest effects on each person, researchers can design more focused interventions to address individual differences. “There are no assumptions that one approach will work for everyone, but there is every reason to believe that we can design the best approach for everyone,” she says.

Body weight is important for health

Many people are concerned about weight. Unfortunately, Rosenbaum says, we tend to define successful weight management based on appearance, not health. “Even a small amount of sustained weight loss can have tremendous health benefits, and anyone who achieves it should be supported and admired,” he says.

Healthy habits that maintain weight

The National Weight Control Registry tracks more than 10,000 people who have sustained weight loss. In this group of successful weight loss maintainers: 78% eat breakfast every day; 75% weigh themselves at least once a week; 62% watch less than 10 hours of television a week; and 90% exercise, on average, 1 hour per day. That said, there is no one-size-fits-all program. “If there were universal things to do that would work for everyone, we’d be doing them,” says Rosenbaum.

Rosenbaum recommends:

• Find what works for you. Some people do better with a low fat dietsome on a low-carb diet, some on intermittent fasting, and some will need to switch regularly.
• In general, diets should be balanced and healthy, minimizing ultra-processed foods and high-fructose corn syrup.
• Exercise regularly. Try to spend less time in front of the screen and more time to “move”, even if it’s just walking around the room while watching TV.
• Don’t compare yourself to others or what works for them.

The only scientifically proven weight loss tips are: eat less and move more. However, Rosenbaum points out, simply stating the laws of thermodynamics ignores the tremendous physiological opposition to doing so. Some people can lose weight and keep weightloss with exercise, but most weight recovery is attributable to eating more, rather than moving less, so diet should be a primary focus.

Whatever you do, says Rosenbaum, do it safely and with input from a health professional.

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