NUTRITION
Healthy Eating
Meal Prep
Vitamins & Supplements
Lifestyle Diets
Weight Management
Conditions
Products
HEALTH NEWS
How Your Body Tries to Prevent You from Losing Too Much Weight
Written by Michelle Pugle on January 27, 2022 — Fact checked by Dana K. Cassell
Exercise is one way to lose weight. Reducing calorie intake is another. FreshSplash/Getty Images
Many people have experienced the frustration of not being able to lose additional weight once some initial pounds have been shed.
Experts say this might be due to something called metabolic adaptation.
This is the prehistoric process that signals our bodies to slow metabolism to avoid excessive weight loss due to food scarcity.
Experts say the best way to avoid this adaptation is to lose 1 to 2 pounds a week over an extended period of time.
If you’re not reaching your weight loss goals, the reason may be something called metabolic adaptation.
Metabolic adaptation is one of your body’s survival mechanisms that occurs when you’re losing a significant amount of weight.
A new studyTrusted Source conducted by the Department of Nutrition Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham concludes that metabolic adaptation was associated with more time to reach weight loss goals.
This might explain why it can become more difficult to lose weight after you’ve lost some initial pounds.
In their study, researchers looked at women who were premenopausal and above the healthy weight range listed for body mass index (BMI).
Participants lost an average of 16 percent of their weight over an average of 5 months. Researchers said metabolic adaptation after the 16 percent weight reduction increased the time it took to lose more weight.
The study participants included 65 premenopausal women with overweight; 36 white women and 29 Black women. Both groups followed an 800-calorie diet until they hit a specific BMI.
One group was considered sedentary (only exercising once per week) while the other group engaged in routine exercise. All participants did not smoke and reported regular menstrual cycles.
All participants also:
had normal glucose levels
had a family history of overweight and obesity in at least one first-degree relative
were not taking medications that could affect body composition or metabolism
On average, adherence to the diet was about 64 percent. These results were consistent after adjusting for other causes that could be interfering with weight loss.
Nutrition experts weigh in
Metabolic adaptation happens when our body adjusts to reduce our resting metabolic rate (RMR).
The RMR is how many calories our body needs to function properly and maintain weight, explained Caroline West Passerrello, MS, RDN, LDN, a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, as well as community coordinator and instructor at the University of Pittsburgh and owner at Caroline West LLC.
This rate is different for everyone and changes throughout our lives since it’s based on factors such as age, height, weight, activity level, and body composition, Passerrello told Healthline.
“We know from research that RMR does change with weight loss,” she said. “However, there are many variables that determine if the change in RMR is clinically significant and if the change to RMR will persist once a person’s weight has stabilized.”“Human physiology has many safeguards in place to keep our body processes functioning,” Passerrello said. “Many of these safeguards also make it difficult for an individual to maintain lost weight.”
If you are interested in losing weight, Passerrello said the general recommendation is to adjust your energy balance.
This means reducing the number of calories consumed or increasing the number of calories expended to result in a weight loss of about 1 to 2 pounds per week.
You must be logged in to post a comment.