How Your Body Tries to Stop You from Losing Too Much Weight

Frustration

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 recent study conducted by the Department of Nutrition Sciences at the University of Alabama concludes that metabolic adaptation was associated with slowing weight loss progress.

This might explain why it can become more difficult to lose weight after you've lost some initial kilos.

When Does Metabolic Adaptation Occur?

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 run all the physiological processes of the body (at rest).

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.

A smaller body tends to spend less energy at rest. Food requires energy to digest, so when both food intake and weight drop, so does the amount of energy your body spends on a daily basis. Additionally, traditional diets can deplete some muscle mass which futher drops the resting metabolic rate.

The degree to which people are affected by metabolic adaptation will vary greatly, but if you have reached a "weight loss plateau" , it may well be a factor to consider.

Can you still lose weight?

Human physiology has many safeguards in place to keep our body processes functioning. Some of these safeguards also make it difficult for an individual to maintain weight loss.

If you are interested in losing weight, it's best to do it gradually so as not to "trigger" your body to block your efforts. Average healthy weight loss does not exceed 1 kilogram per week.

Also, it's best to avoid any kind of diet that is a VLCD (very low calorie diet) as this is sure to be counter-productive.

The best option is a diet that has sufficient protein and nutrition while not giving the body an excess of sugar and simple carbohydrates. These are easily converted to sugar and stored in the body as fat. The key is not to flood the body with sugars which trigger an excessive insulin response. This leads to "energy storage" - as fat - rather than "energy consumption".

A diet which focuses on protein will also improve lean muscle mass, ensuring that the metabolism remains steady as fat is lost.

So, Why Herbalife?

Herbalife's weight loss programmes are based on healthy, high-protein, low GI shakes. Bioavailable protein helps to build lean muscle mass. This actually increases metabolism as more energy is required by muscle for maintenance. This is the complete opposite of what happens when you just attempt to create an "energy deficit" in the body.

For more information on Herbalife Weight Loss Programmes, tap here.