Set Point aka "Happy Weight"

[squeezablysoft]

So I don't know how many of you are familiar with this concept of a "set point weight" or "happy weight", but I find it intriguing. http://www.mirror-mirror.org/set.htm

I think that will be a fun experiment for my first year of college, to just kinda eat what I feel like without trying to lose or gain and see what happens. They say it can take up to a year to settle into your set point weight and in all honesty the first few weeks prolly won't really count cause I will respond to my new-found food freedom by becoming a junk-food vacuum cleaner for awhile.

[Jerry Thomas]

Thanks for posting the link to the article about set point weight. Very interesting and explains a lot about why people diet and can't keep the weight off. But in my case, I just don't understand why my "happy weight" keeps going up. Am I getting happier???

[squeezablysoft]

Where the article says "Your body is biologically and genetically determined to weigh within a certain weight range." I know they mean "determined" in the sense of "pre-destined", but I picture my dna and my body gritting their metaphorical teeth and being all "we're going to get to xxx (my body knows this number even though I don't yet) pounds if it takes everything we've got!" and lining up all the various hormones and stuff that affect metabolism, appetite, etc like war cannons. It quite amusing.

[BigFA]

After slowly and steadily gaining 130 lbs. over 12 years and reaching 305 lbs., I have settled in at 275 lbs. and can't seem to get any lower. I eat normally, work out 3 times a week and can't get below this point. So it is my "Happy Weight". 100 lbs. more than when I started and still well into the obese category. I discovered along the way that I loved gaining and enjoy being fat. Goes nicely with my FA desires and love of fat women of all sizes.

[Jerry Thomas]

There was an article on the front page of the New York Times this week (Monday May 2) about how many of the "Biggest Loser" contestants have gained back their weight. The article basically says that dieting can cause your metabolism to change so that you burn fewer calories after dieting and hence gain weight even if you eat normally. It said that your body "fights" to return to its previous weight. Isn't that what we've been saying all along? Trying to force yourself to lose weight just doesn't work in the long run. So eat, be happy, and enjoy life!

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/he...loss.html?_r=0

[squeezablysoft]

Originally Posted by Jerry Thomas

There was an article on the front page of the New York Times this week (Monday May 2) about how many of the "Biggest Loser" contestants have gained back their weight. The article basically says that dieting can cause your metabolism to change so that you burn fewer calories after dieting and hence gain weight even if you eat normally. It said that your body "fights" to return to its previous weight. Isn't that what we've been saying all along? Trying to force yourself to lose weight just doesn't work in the long run. So eat, be happy, and enjoy life!

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/he...loss.html?_r=0

This lends a lot of credibility to the idea that some ppl are just meant to be fat. I sometimes wonder how much of the health risks associated with obesity are actually due to the physiological stress of constantly fighting biology. Someone needs to do a study to see if heavy ppl who have never dieted are better off.

[happily_married]

Originally Posted by squeezablysoft

This lends a lot of credibility to the idea that some ppl are just meant to be fat. I sometimes wonder how much of the health risks associated with obesity are actually due to the physiological stress of constantly fighting biology. Someone needs to do a study to see if heavy ppl who have never dieted are better off.

You'd need a test group and a control group ideally as demographically similar as you could possibly get them. For example, within 5 years of age of each other, no genetic pre-disposition to diseases of any kind, similar ethnicity, income level, and lifestyles. I think it is a fascinating idea, but the actual value in these studies I believe is extremely limited because any given variable holds its value only when the other variables are held constant. Of course we know, reality simply doesn't work that way.

[squeezablysoft]

Originally Posted by Jerry Thomas

There was an article on the front page of the New York Times this week (Monday May 2) about how many of the "Biggest Loser" contestants have gained back their weight. The article basically says that dieting can cause your metabolism to change so that you burn fewer calories after dieting and hence gain weight even if you eat normally. It said that your body "fights" to return to its previous weight. Isn't that what we've been saying all along? Trying to force yourself to lose weight just doesn't work in the long run. So eat, be happy, and enjoy life!

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/he...loss.html?_r=0

"His routine went like this: Wake up at 5 a.m. and run on a treadmill for 45 minutes. Have breakfast — typically one egg and two egg whites, half a grapefruit and a piece of sprouted grain toast. Run on the treadmill for another 45 minutes. Rest for 40 minutes; bike ride nine miles to a gym. Work out for two and a half hours. Shower, ride home, eat lunch — typically a grilled skinless chicken breast, a cup of broccoli and 10 spears of asparagus. Rest for an hour. Drive to the gym for another round of exercise."

I think I'd rather die of a heart attack. Seriously.

[Tad]

There actually have been studies on the impact of yo-yo dieting. Maybe not a ton of studies or on huge population samples, so perhaps we are at more the 'some evidence of' rather than 'conclusively proven' stage, but IIRC correctly what I've read is:
people who had more than one cycle of large weight loss showed ~30% weaker immune response, even many years later, compared to people who have only had one or none.

With respect to The Biggest Loser, the report I heard about the above said that they'd looked at metabolic rates of former contestants, some years after the show, and they were low compared to typical people of their weight -- while they had been typical before taking part in the show.

Given that our immune response is one of the many baseline systems which consume energy all of the time, these seem fairly consistent -- enough 'starvation' (multiple cycles, or a really extreme case) causes the body to decide it should save resources permanently. This isn't just some magical switch -- it means growing less new cells, having a less vigorous immune response, and various other things. It is like deciding to save money in a building by turning down the heat, not having the cleaning service in as often, not being as aggrsesive about repairing things, etc.

[Xyantha Reborn]

My hubby's natural point is 260 - he kind ballooned up pretty fast then his body ground to a halt, his body happy. He doesn't struggle to keep weight off, his body seems perfectly content to self manage at this point.

He starvation dieted before meeting me, and denied the health impacts for years. Recently he learned he has fatty liver (not dangerous in and of itself or affecting his health directly) but the doctor immediately turned a shrewed eye on him and told him "you went on a starvation diet at one point, didn't you?" And told him most fatty liver he encountered was caused by weight loss, not weight gain. The body doesn't react well to starvation, and stores fat anywhere and everywhere, including the liver and other organs to protect them. He said he was less worried about patient's weight than their lifestyle and food. Love this doctor so far!

[squeezablysoft]

I think I might be experiencing something like this now. I'm kinda involuntarily eating "healthy" right now because of the ppl I live with, and I honestly think I would feel better if I were eating a lil less "healthy". Like I've always had a problem with getting sick if I go too long without eating, but it had been getting better but now it's getting worse again. Yesterday I got swamped at work and tried to push through without my afternoon snack and ended up so miserable I went to bed right after supper. Granted it prolly didn't help that I also ate half a tin of sugarless mints in lieu of a proper snack, and got overheated from forgetting to take my sweater off when the afternoon heated up. But it is strange that I'm eating a balanced diet, supposedly getting enough calories, and I'm not losing weight, but my body kinda feels like I'm semi-starving half the time. But if I have a set point that is higher than what I weigh now it would make sense.

[Xyantha Reborn]

Keep in mond sugar, fat, and salt change the chemistry of your body. If you eat badly then eat healtht, your body goes through withdrawl.

I have been weaning out non natural sugars, and my tastes have radically changed; pop has become cloyingly sweet, as has chocolates and other stuff. It isn't that I don't eat sugar or am on a diet, but am trying to utilize natural sugars instead. So for rhe first few weeks i had that feeling, and now i find processed sugar excessively sweet.

[squeezablysoft]

Originally Posted by Xyantha Reborn

Keep in mond sugar, fat, and salt change the chemistry of your body. If you eat badly then eat healtht, your body goes through withdrawl.

I have been weaning out non natural sugars, and my tastes have radically changed; pop has become cloyingly sweet, as has chocolates and other stuff. It isn't that I don't eat sugar or am on a diet, but am trying to utilize natural sugars instead. So for rhe first few weeks i had that feeling, and now i find processed sugar excessively sweet.

Well I did just get a birthday card with a cupcake on the front and inside they wrote "I thought you would like this card since you love sweets. " My sweet tooth is rather infamous.

[loopytheone]

Originally Posted by Xyantha Reborn

My hubby's natural point is 260 - he kind ballooned up pretty fast then his body ground to a halt, his body happy. He doesn't struggle to keep weight off, his body seems perfectly content to self manage at this point.

He starvation dieted before meeting me, and denied the health impacts for years. Recently he learned he has fatty liver (not dangerous in and of itself or affecting his health directly) but the doctor immediately turned a shrewed eye on him and told him "you went on a starvation diet at one point, didn't you?" And told him most fatty liver he encountered was caused by weight loss, not weight gain. The body doesn't react well to starvation, and stores fat anywhere and everywhere, including the liver and other organs to protect them. He said he was less worried about patient's weight than their lifestyle and food. Love this doctor so far!

...I know myself that starvation can cause organ problems like that but to have a doctor say that starvation diets can cause fatty liver disease really makes me realise I was right about what I've thought all along. I was told that I have a fatty liver because I'm overweight but honestly, before I went on a starvation diet I had no problems. And I was obese beforehand but I was so strong and robustly healthy before hand and my whole health has gone hugely downhill following that stupid starvation diet. Despite all the years that have passed since then, my body feels much weaker and more frail than before.

As for the original question, I would say my bodies set point is around 180lbs. I gain weight easily up to that point but the fact that in two weeks I've eaten 10 boxes of shortbread, 36 kitkats and 5 tubs of ice cream in addition to my normal food intake and barely gained any weight at all suggests my body just doesn't want to get any bigger. Which is fine by me; I eat when I am hungry and what I am hungry for, no matter what.

[Jerry Thomas]

I went on a starvation diet when I was in my early teens (they called it the "grapefruit diet" at the time because you were supposed to drink lots of grapefruit juice which supposedly burned off the fat). Well, I did it because I wanted to "look nice" for the girls - unfortunately I didn't know about FFA's back then! Anyway, I did lose lots of weight, but I was told that such an extreme diet was probably causing permanent damage to my internal organs, esp. my heart. Now, many years later, I do have various health problems, and although the doctors say it's because of my weight, I still wonder if it's because of my extreme dieting when I was younger. They say the same thing can happen to people who have lived through war and deprivation when they are young - the effects on health might not show up until decades later.

[Dragoonboy]

For me, probably between 800-900 pounds. I'd already be immobile at 750 pounds, so another 50-150 pounds would make sure I'd stay immobile.

[TwoSwords]

Originally Posted by happily_married

You'd need a test group and a control group ideally as demographically similar as you could possibly get them. For example, within 5 years of age of each other, no genetic pre-disposition to diseases of any kind, similar ethnicity, income level, and lifestyles. I think it is a fascinating idea, but the actual value in these studies I believe is extremely limited because any given variable holds its value only when the other variables are held constant. Of course we know, reality simply doesn't work that way.

The long and short of it is; "don't trust statistics. They rarely prove anything by themselves."

[squeezablysoft]

Did you know that 62% of all statistics are just randomly made up?

[TwoSwords]

Originally Posted by squeezablysoft

Did you know that 62% of all statistics are just randomly made up?

And the rest don't really prove what people claim they do. There's a whole science behind why statistics are not proof of anything.

For one thing, much of the time, statistics are based on drawing a connection between two things. For instance, a high percentage of people with yellow teeth developing lung cancer. It sounds like proof of something, but in reality, we just call this a "correlation," and that doesn't necessarily imply that one is causing the other, nor, even if one is causing the other, does it imply which one is the cause. Yellow teeth don't cause lung cancer, any more than lung cancer causes yellow teeth. The correlation is actually because both are caused by smoking.

Often, the cause of a strange, statistical correlation is another factor, not considered by the statistic. In some cases, it may just be a strange coincidence, and further studies will turn up completely different statistics. This is why statistics are not considered a method of proof. They are, at best, a piece of evidence to be explained by other, better evidence. This is why Mark Twain referred to them as one of the three kinds of lies.

Then there's always the chance a statistic could arise from a biased study, or a simple mistake on the part of the person obtaining it. We're only human, after all.