Why It's So Hard to Lose Weight, Ep #003
In today's episode, we will talk about why it is so hard to lose weight and we'll start to touch on some of the things you can do. The whole podcast is about solutions to why it is so hard to lose weight but this episode is going to be a little bit more about the technical side because I want to get into a little bit of the science of why it is so hard. I hope, if nothing else, you leave this episode with a better understanding of why it is so hard to lose weight and be able to give yourself a little more credit and a bit more grace, but most importantly to stop blaming yourself so much if it has been hard for you to lose or keep weight off.
Points of interest...
The typical history of clients' weight loss attempts [1:52]
Basics of the calories in calories out model [4:31]
Basics of the carbohydrate-insulin model [8:36]
Not all calories are equal [12:18]
The set point [16:49]
Are medications or surgery right for you? [19:06]
It’s not your fault! [25:26]
What to do with today’s information? [29:37]
Is this your weight loss story? If so you are not alone and you are not a failure.
When I first meet a patient, I like to get a history of their experience with their weight and any previous attempts they've made to lose weight and how those have gone. The typical story goes something like this... The patient tells me that they haven't started a program, in the past, they were watching calories, portion size, or carbohydrates, but they had some sort of nutrition plan. Some increased exercise, some didn't, but the plan was working. The first week things went great. The first-month things went great. The second-month things went pretty well, but they didn't lose quite as much weight as that first month. In the third-month, they are still losing a little bit of weight. But at some point around six months, they felt like they stopped losing weight. It was like the system, whatever it was, stopped working.
Then at some point something happened, maybe they went on vacation or had a stressor in their life, they stopped their exercise program or they didn't have time to meal prep. Then they went from no longer losing weight to regaining weight and ended up back where they started or even a higher weight until they came to see me. A lot of times they have repeated this cycle more than once, even dozens of times. Maybe lots of different programs, some programs worked, and some didn't. The story always seems the same though, that at a certain point it just didn't work as well, and at a certain point it just stopped working. Oftentimes people feel like a failure when this happens.
Homework: What to do with what you’ve learned?
I hope you learned something and that this opened your eyes to some of the complexities of why it is hard to lose weight and keep it off. This is just scratching the surface of how complex the issue is but I hope some of it made sense.
One thing I would like for you to do, your homework for today, is to be nice to yourself! You need to stop blaming yourself for the past attempts that didn't work or didn't get you to whatever your goal was at the time. If someone else has blamed you, whether that be someone in healthcare or someone in your family, let it go and be nice to yourself. So you are not at fault, it's just biology.
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