We know it’s hard to lose weight, and it’s an even bigger struggle to keep the weight off! Let us explain why it’s hard to lose weight. This is not your fault and it has nothing to do with your willpower. When attempting to lose weight, you will experience your own body working against you. The body i.e., the hypothalamus, tries to do 4 things to hinder sustainable weight loss (take a look at graphical representation below). Is this pattern looking familiar to you? Call us now so we can help you put a stop to this pattern! 

A person weighing 250lbs (link: What is Obesity) has decided to lose weight and is trying his hardest by restricting calories, excersiting, healthy lifestyle choice, etc. After 2-3 weeks, he experiences that he is more hungrier than usual, tried, and always exhausted. This is NOT because he is weak or beginning to lose willpower. This is because his body in defending his highest weight as the body responds in the following way.

Emphasis on 4 things:

1) bad hormones go up (i.e., increase ghrelin levels causing more hunger and cravings) and lowers the level of good hormones (leptin, etc)
Ghrelin stimulates the brain, which leads to an increase in appetite, and it slows down metabolism and decreases the body’s ability to burn fat.
The level of Ghrelin increases during dieting and this could explain why it is very difficult to achieve long-term results from dieting.

2) decrease resting BMR so we don’t burn as much, we slow down, feel tired and lazy

3) the above 2 things increase our hunger, we want high-calorie dense food to replace what we have lost

4) the body becomes fuel efficient, start to live with small number of calories (gain even more)

With these forces (1-4) working against our weight loss efforts, a point will come after a few days, or weeks, where we give up. This is not the problem with our willpower, this is our body causing you to do that, because it is not in your control. Therefore, the body weight comes back to baseline, and you regain the weight you have lost. It does not stop there, it re-gains even more weight.