I’ve been coaching for a couple of years now and I haven’t had a single client yet who hasn’t come to me with a yo-yo weight story. They’ve been successful before and some of them have even reached their goal weight only to have it all come back. They’re super frustrated, embarrassed and weary of being able to lose it again and actually keep it off. Oftentimes their experience is what makes them reluctant to try coaching. They’re thinking, maybe this is just another thing that won’t work. 

I totally get that and so I wanted to do this episode on the science behind what’s going on biologically. Whether you decide to get a coach or you’re self-coaching, you absolutely need to know this information to release weight. When I learned about this, it explained everything and I literally felt like a light bulb had gone off in my head. So let’s get started. 

The latest research shows that we have a weight set point in our brains, similar to how we have a temperature set point in our brains that keeps us for the most part at 98.6. Your weight set point is very likely what you weigh right now. 

Have you noticed that if you get the flu and lose some weight because you just aren’t able to eat, you tend to gain it back quickly even when you’re not overeating? Even when you’re eating really healthy, the way you want to be eating? Your body is going into major conservation mode to decrease your metabolism because it’s trying to get back up to your weight set point. It’s just like when you get too cold. If your body temperature is at 97-degrees, you will shiver to get yourself back up again. This is just innately how our bodies function - they like homeostasis. 

If you’re under the impression that to lose weight it’s all about calories in, calories out then this wouldn’t happen would it? But our human bodily processes aren’t a simple math equation. It just doesn't work that way.

Now think about someone you know who is naturally thin. For example, say she weighs 125lbs. She splurges a bit over the holidays and she gains 5lbs. If in January she goes back to eating how she did normally, the 5lbs will just come off in a couple of weeks without any extra effort on her part. Why do you think? Is she just lucky - genetically blessed? 

No. It’s due to the weight set point. What’s happening is that her body is sensing there’s excess on board and revs up her metabolism on it’s own to burn off those 5lbs. Just like when your temperature gets too high and you start sweating profusely. Your body is naturally trying to cool itself off and get back to homeostasis. It’s the same with weight. 

If you are consistently overweight, then your weight set point is too elevated. That is basically the problem. We need to get that weight set point down. When you do a low fat, calorie restricted diet for weight loss, you might lose weight initially. It depends. Some people respond differently, but it becomes pretty uncomfortable over the long term. The problem is that this kind of diet doesn’t reduce the weight set point.

For example, if your weight set point is set at 200 pounds, but you want to weigh 170 pounds, conventional advice tells you to cut 500 calories per day to lose 1 pound per week. 

So let’s say you do that successfully. You’re really diligent and eating less. At first you have some success and you get to 185 pounds. But then you notice you’re not making any more progress and you’re becoming more hungry. What’s happening is that your appetite is kicking into overdrive and your basal metabolism is slowing in order to regain the weight. Your body is trying to get back up to the weight set point. 

This has a big mental effect because you’re doing everything you think you’re supposed to be doing and not getting any results. So frustrating. Then you start to feel terrible, you’re grumpy, hangry and you don’t have any energy for even the most gentle yoga class. Plus the foods you’re eating aren’t even satisfying so you’re continually in this un-satiated state. It’s no wonder you quit. 

Then of course the weight comes back on at super speed and often with a little bit extra. Now you’re at 205 or 210. That weight set point got bumped up because of overeating, to accommodate for that intolerable feeling that we had.

So then you try even harder by cutting more calories. But this doesn’t really work because our body responds by further slowing our metabolism. It’s such an uphill battle.  And we think, well that didn’t work. I must not have tried hard enough.

It’s not that you didn’t try hard enough, it’s that we haven’t reset your weight set point yet. How to do that? Listen up friends.

It’s all about hormones.

Unless you’re in medicine or a scientist, you probably don’t really have an in-depth understanding of what they do or how they work. If you’re like me, you basically have been thinking they’re very complicated and mysterious because basically they’re responsible for anything and everything that’s going on with your body and your mood. And I’m not going to get into the minutiae of hormones, there is just one that is key when it comes to your weight set point and that’s insulin. Because it plays a HUGE part in weight loss. 

When I learned about the science here I was blown away. It totally changed how I ate. So I wanted to share what I know with you so that you can put this knowledge into action. You can use it to inform your meal plan with confidence that you’re doing the right thing to release excess weight in a healthy way. Now disclaimer, I’m not a dietician so this is all info based on my own research and personal experience, however this is going to be an overview for practical application with the most up to date science. I’ll link to all my sources in the show notes for you. There’s also a book that goes into this in detail which I’ll tell you about at the end. Because I always encourage you to do research on your own and talk to licensed professionals if you can. Okay, so let’s get into it shall we?

Here’s what you need to know. It’s not food that causes you to be overweight - it’s your insulin response to the food. Let that sink in for a minute because it explains why we all react differently to the same food. I’m sure you can think of someone who can eat whatever they want and never gain weight. Why isn’t that you? It has to do with how your body utilizes insulin and the best thing to know is that you can change this and by the end of this episode, I promise you’ll know exactly how. 

Here’s how it works for everyone: You eat food > your insulin goes up > your body goes into storage mode

When you don’t have food and are in a fasting state like when you’re sleeping during the night > insulin goes down > your body burns the stored sugar and fat in your liver from the day time.

What does this mean for your food plan? If you’re eating constantly throughout the day, you’re not allowing the critical period of very low insulin to balance the high insulin periods. 

So it means grazing food all day or a lot of snacking is going to hinder your weight loss attempts, even if you’re eating healthy food. You need to allow time between meals to actually feel true hunger. That’s a good thing, it’s your body telling you it’s time to eat. 

If you’ve been overeating you’ve been persistently high in insulin which leads to insulin resistance. In response, the body raises insulin in a knee-jerk reaction to ‘overcome’ this resistance, and these high levels will make your body put on weight. 

This is the vicious cycle of weight gain that we can break with fasting. And I don’t mean fasting for days at a time. You can try intermittent fasting or simply eat three meals a day.  If you eat dinner at six or seven and then you don't eat again until six or seven in the morning, that's a 12-hour fast. That's a long time where your insulin levels are lower and your body needs that to reduce that weight set point.

If you don’t alter your hormones (predominantly insulin), you won’t be able to access your fat stores. Your body knows that if you can’t get energy from body fat, you can’t run an energy deficit forever. So your metabolism (or BMR) drops. It will only spend what you take in. For example, if you are only taking in 1500 calories, you can only spend 1500 calories.

If you cut a few calories every day, your body will burn less calories and you will not release fat. Weight loss plateaus and then you start to regain weight. So, only counting calories, as a strategy for weight loss, has been proven over and over again to fail. Which if you’ve ever dieted to lose weight only to regain it, you know all too well. 

This does not give you license to overeat because when you overeat that also spikes your insulin, but isn’t it reassuring to know you don’t have to starve yourself to reach your goal weight?

We often obsess about the foods we should or shouldn’t eat. Should we cut out dairy or gluten? But we often ignore the equally important question of ‘when to eat’. By working with our body’s response to insulin, we have a far higher chance of successfully releasing extra weight.

To summarize, here are the guidelines for ‘When to Eat’

1. Don’t eat all the time (do time-restricted eating or intermittent fasting). 

2. Stop snacking and eat three meals a day

3. If you want to lose more weight – increase the fasting periods (time between meals)

Now if you’re like, “What? No snacks? How will I get through my day?” You might be interested to know that snacks weren’t even a thing until the 80’s when food companies started manufacturing snack foods and telling us that we needed them. They realized they probably couldn’t get people to eat more food at their meals, so they cleverly created other eating opportunities. 

As a kid I can clearly remember having a snack at recess and after school every single day whether I was even hungry or not. My sister and I loved those hot pocket pizza things you microwaved. I can’t imagine why because they were always frozen on the outside and yet the inside pizza stuff would burn your mouth. 

Or maybe you’re thinking, “Well this doesn’t apply to me because I’m not a snacker.” But think about times when you might be grabbing just a little of this or a little of that here and there. Like grabbing a handful of nuts, having something extra after dinner or a drink. This all counts. 

So what do you do when you get hungry in between meals and want a snack? I have another podcast episode on Hunger you might want to check out. It’s Ep. 17 and my most popular episode to date, actually. But here’s how you can think of it, so long as you’re eating well during your meal times -especially getting enough protein and healthy fats, it’s okay to feel hungry and not act on it. Nothing is going wrong. It will subside. You may be uncomfortable temporarily, but it will pass. Your body will use the extra fat on your body as fuel.

Now you may be wondering, do all foods raise insulin? Yes, but some more than others. And you won’t be surprised by this list. I’m sure you know how to eat healthy already. But knowing this will really help you make healthy food decisions because you’re choosing them not just because you know they’re healthy, but because you know WHY they are healthy. This can make all the difference in what we actually do.

The two groups that spike insulin are sugar and flour. They’re both very concentrated and highly refined. Our bodies can process them and digest them very quickly, so we get a very quick increase in our blood sugar levels. Then of course the insulin levels follow with that. The insulin levels are sky high. We are in storage-overdrive.

Here are the guidelines for ‘What to Eat’ to keep insulin levels in check

1. Avoid sugar – it causes insulin resistance and high insulin

2. Eat less refined grains like white rice, bagels and white flour as they have a high insulin effect

3. Eat enough protein. Most women don’t get nearly the amount they should. If you’re trying to put on lean muscle you can eat as much as 1 gram of protein for your ideal body weight.

4. Don’t be afraid of eating healthy, natural fats – they have a low insulin effect and bonus they help you feel more satiated from your meals. 

5. Eat whole, real unprocessed foods – refining increases insulin effects

Now if you’re thinking, oh this is that low carb, high fat thing. Or this is keto. That’s not what I’m talking about here. Those are more extreme versions and you can choose to do that if that's what you want. Some people really do a lot better on a low carb diet. They lose weight better, especially people with certain endocrine-related issues. They just do much better on a low carb diet. If that is you, by all means go for it. There are plenty of people who rave that they’ve never felt better, but it’s just not for everyone. 

Not everybody necessarily needs a low carb diet to lose weight. Not everybody is going to physically feel good when they're on a low carb diet either. You still can eat starchy vegetables like sweet potatoes, white potatoes, squashes, things like that. Also whole grains in their whole form, so not whole grain bread. If you want to eat wheat, then you're eating wheat berries, buckwheat, or you're eating quinoa, or you're eating brown rice, things like that. When you eat those, make sure you have fat with it. 

Add avocado, coconut oil or olive oil because it’s not only going to help you reach your goal weight, it will make your food sooo much more satiating. You actually won’t eat as much. You won’t be eating heaps and heaps of pasta to get full because the fat is not only helping your insulin levels, it’s helping you stay fuller, longer and just creates a nice comfortable feeling in your stomach. And when you feel satiated you can go on about your day rather than thinking so much about your next meal. 

If you’re wondering about how much complex carbohydrates will work with your body or if you need to go full keto, play around with it. If you like starches, start by having them regularly. Then if you hit a weight loss plateau (which if you think about it, is your body in homeostasis again), you can change things up to get your body to release more fat. 

This also means that if you’re a meat eater you can eat higher fat cuts of meat. Eat the chicken thighs instead of the chicken breast or the higher fat ground beef instead of the lean turkey or the super lean ground beef. 

I hope this info gives you some clarity about why you haven’t been reaching your goals so far and some inspiration that it is possible without starvation. Now if you start working your plan, and for my clients that means:

• Eating three meals a day

• Using the hunger scale to gauge amounts

• Journaling your food 

• Eating more fat and protein 

• Drinking lots of water

• Significantly reducing flour and sugar

...And you’re not losing weight right away, rest assured, nothing is going wrong. Just because you don’t see immediate results doesn’t mean it’s not working or that it won’t work. If you’ve been overweight for awhile, you are very likely insulin resistant. If you're insulin resistant, then you're very likely not going to start losing weight right away when you do this. Because you need to get your body more insulin sensitive to reduce your overall insulin levels, to get the results of getting that weight set point down, and losing weight, releasing that fat storage.

For some women, this can even take a month or so before the weight starts to drop. I want to encourage you that nothing has gone wrong, this is how it’s supposed to go. Your body is adapting and relearning how to function so that you’re no longer a ‘sugar-burner- someone who burns carbs-craving simple carbs every time you’re hungry, to a fat burning machine. 

When you understand this, you get why the calories in calories out hasn’t worked for you in the past. This is the reason my clients have always yo-yo’d with their weight. It’s basically because your body is very smart and does not want to die.  

We know that excess weight is really caused by excessive insulin, not excessive calories. It is a hormonal imbalance, not a caloric one. Insulin signals our body to store food energy in the form of body fat. When we fast, and insulin goes down, we burn some of that stored energy and this is why we don’t die in our sleep every night. At all times, you are either in storing mode or burning mode. 

If you want to go more in depth on this, get a book called, "The Obesity Code." It's by Dr. Jason Fung out of Toronto. He went down a rabbit hole of figuring this out after working with Type 2 diabetic patients because he noticed they were getting more and more insulin and could not lose weight. They were getting fatter and fatter. He then turned to researching why what we're doing in weight loss isn't working and how blaming the patient is not the answer.

I’ll have a link to his book in the show notes and I also have all of my podcast episode transcripts on my website at mindfulshape.com

Okay, I’m so glad you have this info for your week ahead. As always feel free to reach out to me on Instagram you can email me at paula@mindfulshape.com Have an amazing week and I’ll talk to you again next time.

Links: 

The Obesity Code: Unlocking the Secrets of Weight Loss by Dr. Jason Fung
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d7KkyXnyB4
https://idmprogram.com/a-short-primer-on-how-to-lose-weight/
https://idmprogram.com/the-failure-of-the-calorie-theory-of-obesity/