What causes weight loss resistance?

Peacerk

Hi,
Is there any resistance that I should be aware of which might be caused due to chronic diseases, auto immune or other such illness , which effects on weight loss by resisting it even you strive very hard by exercises and diets, it just don't let you loose weight or you will loose weight for some time and gain back it again.

Any advice is appreciated.

Jthanmyfitnesspal

In a word: evolution.

If you are otherwise healthy, most of the resistance is your body's natural tendency to want to eat more now to store up for later. This is a very good strategy if your next meal is uncertain, but not so great if food is a given. You need to override this tendency by rational choice if you want to control your weight.

tinkerbellang83

Peacerk wrote: »

Hi,
Is there any resistance that I should be aware of which might be caused due to chronic diseases, auto immune or other such illness , which effects on weight loss by resisting it even you strive very hard by exercises and diets, it just don't let you loose weight or you will loose weight for some time and gain back it again.

Any advice is appreciated.

Can you provide some context for your question - are you asking because you're struggling to lose weight or perhaps because your weight has been higher on the scale after attempting to diet. Or do you have a chronic disease and are wondering how it will affect your own weight loss?

Some chronic diseases can have affects on metabolism and on energy levels. However, there are people who have had successful weight loss once treated and/or adjusting their diet.

For the most part people who struggle to lose weight, struggle because they either aren't patient enough (it takes 4-6 weeks to start seeing a trend) or because they are eating more than they think (it's very easy to underestimate food portion sizes).

apullum

The vast majority of people who believe they cannot lose weight are actually not in a calorie deficit consistently. “Striving very hard” does not cause weight loss unless you ensure a calorie deficit. You can ensure a consistent calorie deficit by weighing ALL your food, getting as close to your MFP calorie goal as possible each day without going over. Most people who don’t use a food scale are eating more than they think they are.

Some people who believe they can’t lose weight are being impatient, or they do not understand normal water/waste weight fluctuations. After making any changes to your diet or exercise plan, do that plan consistently for a month before deciding whether or not it’s working. This usually gives time for normal weight fluctuation to subside.

Using a trend weight app like Libra or Happy Scale helps most people see long term weight changes, rather than short term fluctuations.

I would focus on those two things first. Weigh ALL your food and consistently hit your calorie goal without going over for a month. Track your weight in a trend weight app. Keep your exercise routine at whatever level you’re currently comfortable with. See what happens.

Unknown

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AnnPT77

Peacerk wrote: »

Hi,
Is there any resistance that I should be aware of which might be caused due to chronic diseases, auto immune or other such illness , which effects on weight loss by resisting it even you strive very hard by exercises and diets, it just don't let you loose weight or you will loose weight for some time and gain back it again.

Any advice is appreciated.

Untreated hypothyroidism can have a calorie penalty of perhaps up to 5% of RMR (clinical observations), and can lead to unusual water weight fluctuations (which is not fat) and fatigue (so less activity, and lower calorie expenditure).

Some other health conditions, or medications, can affect water retention (still not fat ) or fatigue/activity levels (perhaps in subtle, but still meaningful ways). Some can also affect appetite, which can lead to weight gain if in a context outside careful calorie counting and good compliance with calorie goal.

Research suggests that fidgety people can burn up to a couple of hundred (-ish) more calories per day than non-fidgety ones. I mention that not to suggest that people should try to fidget, but to illustrate that something that small can make a relevant difference.

For a variety of reasons, people who've engaged in extreme diets (very fast weight loss) will experience more "Adaptive Thermogenesis", or a tendency for their bodies to burn slightly fewer than expected calories for at least some period of time after weight loss. This will not prevent future weight loss, even if it's in play, but may mean that the person needs to eat fewer calories than expected to achieve that weight loss. There are ways to counter Adaptive Thermogenesis (a long discussion in itself, but exercise, diet breaks, intentional increases in non-exercise activity are some candidates).

Stress - including the physical stress of dieting, especially lengthy/extreme dieting, or exercise - can lead to more water retention, or more extreme water weight fluctuations. Again, this isn't fat gain, so we maybe shouldn't care, but it can mask fat loss on the scale and confuse or discourage us. Avoiding those stresses may be helpful. Managing other life stresses, especially while cutting calories, may also be helpful.

Dieting, especially dieting with under-nutrition and extreme calorie cuts (fast loss, fad diets), repeated over and over in yo-yo fashion many times, can lead to very gradually and subtly declining body composition (relatively more fat, relatively less muscle, and relatively less activity because of the reduced muscle making activity less easy/pleasant). That can cause at least a mild decrease in calorie needs, so mean we need a lower calorie goal than we used to, in order to lose weight. That's a really bad thing long term: Yo-yo dieting is bad for health. The better counter to worse body composition would be to work on improving body composition (strength training, probably at maintenance calories, or close) instead, for at least those not severely obese. Strength training, good nutrition, and slow loss are the best avoidance mechanisms.

Weight regain over a long time period is more likely to be from getting more loose with eating practices, or reducing exercise (amount or intensity), or a change in life routine that reduces daily movement (like moving from a big house to a small one, say).

Weight loss is pretty simple, in terms of "rules": It's about following a consistent process that leads to eating moderately fewer calories than we actually burn, over quite a long period of times (months, not days, generally). That process might be calorie-counting, but any healthful process that leads to a calorie deficit will work.

However, sometimes - for nearly everyone - weight loss isn't easy, in a practical sense. It may be a tiny bit less easy for someone with certain extra challenges (like hypothyroidism, for example, or older age, both of which I have). It's kind of easy to assume that our individual challenges make weight loss much harder for us than for other people.

But it's not always easy for other "normal" people, either. Maybe not much easier than it is for those with challenges. We feel our own difficulties quite acutely; others' difficulties are hidden within them, and can seem theoretical (or even whiny!) if we merely hear about them, but don't feel them.

Nony_Mouse

Peacerk wrote: »

Hi,
Is there any resistance that I should be aware of which might be caused due to chronic diseases, auto immune or other such illness , which effects on weight loss by resisting it even you strive very hard by exercises and diets, it just don't let you loose weight or you will loose weight for some time and gain back it again.

Any advice is appreciated.

Even with chronic illnesses, it still comes down to calories in vs calories out for fat loss. A number of factors, as the wonderful @AnnPT77 has set out above, can influence the calories out side of the equation, including a drop in RMR (resting metabolic rate). For fatigue causing illnesses, just the drop in NEAT (those small, incidental movements Ann spoke of) can have quite an impact. Generally, outside of hypothyroidism, effects on RMR and calorie needs in chronic illnesses haven't really been studied, because they're simply not a research priority. I have ME/CFS, have packed on a considerable amount of weight (through a massive decrease in activity, and generally being too miserable to care what I put in my mouth) since getting sick almost two years ago. I'm just getting around to doing something about that now, and while it would be great to know scientifically whether my illness has an impact on calorie needs, I can assure you that there are absolutely no studies on it.

So, I start where everyone should, by assuming the various calculators are about right for my calorie needs (and I know for me that they used to be), setting a sensible deficit (and I've made that a little smaller than normal so I don't tank my already meagre energy levels), and then meticulously tracking my calorie intake and weight loss. In another 6 weeks, I'll have enough data to know whether I'm losing at the expected rate, and I can tweak things if necessary.