Why Weight Regain Is Common And How To Prevent It

When compared to weight loss maintenance, weight loss is easy. Six out of every seven overweight people will lose significant weight in their lifetimes. Weight regain, on the other hand, is statistically prevalent in 80% of people within a year of weight loss, 85% within two years, and 95% within three years. Of the people who revert back to their previous weight, ⅓ to ⅔ of them regain even more weight than they had before they began trying to lose weight. In this article, I will explain why and what you can do to prevent it.

If you’ve ever worked your socks off to lose weight only to regain it within a year or two, you need to know that it is not your fault.

Life today bears no resemblance to that of our hunter-gatherer ancestors thousands of years ago. Food was extremely hard to come by and eating a few hours after a meal was never guaranteed. In fact, the concept of regular meals is a relatively new one in evolutionary terms. The good news - back then - was that humans evolved a metabolic system that protected them from starvation and death. When food was limited, metabolism slowed down to conserve as much energy/calories as possible. When large amounts of food were consumed, energy/calorie stores were rapidly replenished. Having already experienced scarcity, the stored energy/calories would then be even more fiercely guarded in future to prevent starvation when food became limited again.

This is bad news today because our genetics have remained the same. We are still hard-wired for potential scarcity, hence the strong inclination to gorge despite unprecedented abundance.