"Natural" Weight?

ennay · 01-31-2012, 01:21 PM

I have a few weight points I naturally settle at. Not a single point but places it takes extraordinary effort to move up or down from and once I do I move quickly to the next one. They have been the same for 25 years.

KaeLynnB · 01-31-2012, 01:40 PM

I believe this. For years I sat around 200-205. Its very easy for me to loss to that point (Which I have now done) Now the hard part is getting past that point, and its not going very well. Trying IF to see if I can finally break through!

MikeP · 02-01-2012, 12:33 AM

That is a good point.

uselessknowledge · 02-01-2012, 01:01 PM

I'm pretty busy so I didn't really look into this much but it's interesting to see some discussion on it!

Well obviously if you eat low-calorie you will lose weight and if you eat high-calorie you will gain.*The point is, there is potentially some scientific basis for the theory that once you've been at a certain weight for a while, your body will naturally gravitate more towards that weight if you haven't maintained your lower/higher weight for long enough.*

There are probably also some genetic reasons for some having lower or higher "natural" weights. Did your ancestors survive a famine and pass on those fat storing genes to you? Haha. (Obviously I'm oversimplifying.)

There are probably some minor psychological factors at work too.*

We could also just reduced this to the fact that a lot of us are more or less consistent in the amount of calories eaten when we aren't paying attention, and eventually this just becomes maintenance for a certain weight.

That's definitely not to say that we're doomed to stay at that weight or use it as an excuse- it could just make maintaining a significant weight loss more difficult. I definitely see this happening in my life... It's probably a combination of factors that makes for a pretty strong pull towards a "natural weight" for some of us but I think many of these factors that can be controlled to get away from it. Those are what we should focus on...which I think most of the people here are doing,

freelancemomma · 02-01-2012, 01:13 PM

<<More likely it's that people tend to eat a certain amount of calories, and whatever weight is at maintenance for those calories is what people tend to gravitate toward.>>

I agree with this. I resist the set-point theory, partly because it seems so defeatist and partly because I don't find the science convincing.

F.

kirsteng · 02-01-2012, 02:30 PM

I'm not sure if I'm convinced of the idea either.. but I'll be interested to see how my weight loss fits into the theory from here on out.

One of my 'set points' in weight was 257 pounds, which I was for many years. I hit that weight about 2 1/2 months ago in this weight loss journey, and have been STUCK like glue to it ever since. I did eat maintenance level cals for a month of that time however.. so I can only say I've been plateaued at that level for about 1 1/2 months now.. but it's interesting that I'm stuck here and this was my weight for many years. Hmmmm...

My other weight that I held for many years was around 240 pounds. I'm super interested to see if I hit a plateau at that weight too... I'll check in with this post when I get there!