{"id":826,"date":"2024-04-23T11:56:02","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T11:56:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/23\/heres-when-your-weight-loss-will-plateau-according-to-science\/"},"modified":"2024-04-23T11:56:02","modified_gmt":"2024-04-23T11:56:02","slug":"heres-when-your-weight-loss-will-plateau-according-to-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/23\/heres-when-your-weight-loss-will-plateau-according-to-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s when your weight loss will plateau, according to science"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Whether you\u2019re shedding pounds with the help of effective new medicines, slimming down after weight loss surgery or cutting calories and adding exercise, there will come a day when the numbers on the scale stop going down, and you hit the dreaded weight loss plateau. <\/p>\n

In a recent study, Kevin Hall, a researcher at the National Institutes of Health who specializes in measuring metabolism and weight change, looked at when weight loss typically stops depending on the method people were using to <\/strong>drop pounds. He broke down the plateau into mathematical models using data from high-quality clinical trials of different ways to lose weight to understand why people stop losing when they do. The study published Monday in the journal Obesity. <\/p>\n

What he found is that part of the reason that gastric bypass surgery and new weight loss drugs such as Wegovy and Zepbound are so effective is because they double the time it takes to hit a plateau. People are able to lose weight for longer than by cutting calories alone. <\/p>\n

The body regulates weight by trying to maintain an equilibrium between the calories we eat and the calories we burn.\u00a0 When we expend or cut calories, and start burning our stored energy, appetite kicks in to tell us to eat more.\u00a0 Hall\u2019s studies have shown that the more weight a person loses, the stronger appetite becomes until it counteracts, and sometimes completely undoes, all the hard work they\u2019ve done to lose in the first place. <\/p>\n

This feedback mechanism was valuable for our hunter-gatherer ancestors, but it doesn\u2019t work so well for modern humans who have easy access to energy dense ultra-processed foods. <\/p>\n

Plateaus at different points<\/h2>\n

To study the trajectory of weight loss using calorie restriction alone, Hall modeled the observed weight loss in the CALERIE study, which randomly assigned 238 adults to either two years of following a 25% calorie restriction diet or eating as they normally would. The study ran from 2007 to 2010 and was sponsored by the NIH. The adults in the group that cut calories lost on average about 16 pounds.\u00a0The group that followed their normal diets gained about 2 pounds. <\/p>\n

Though the people who took part in the CALERIE study kept up their efforts for two years, their weight loss stopped somewhere around the 12-month mark, as their appetite ramped up to counteract it. <\/p>\n

Hall notes that his study deals in averages. The timing of a weight loss plateau may vary for individuals. <\/p>\n

Hall\u2019s model predicted that in order to achieve the weight loss reported in that study, <\/strong>people whose diets started at 2,500 calories per day had to cut just over 800 calories a day. <\/strong>Their bodies responded by prompting them to add to their daily caloric intake an estimated 83 calories for every kilogram of weight they lost. <\/p>\n

A kilogram is about 2.2 pounds. For every 2.2 pounds of weight participants lost, their appetite responded by asking for 83 more calories a day. The average weight loss reported in the study was 7.5 kilograms, or 16 pounds, which would mean that at their lowest weights, they were feeling the need to eat 622 more calories a day more than before they started losing weight. <\/p>\n

But they weren\u2019t actually eating 622 more calories a day \u2014 instead, that\u2019s the extra amount of appetite they were feeling, even as they\u2019re putting in the same amount of effort as they did in the beginning to cut 800 calories a day. <\/p>\n

At the end of the study, Hall said, participants were working as hard as they did in the beginning to resist food, but only managing to cut about 200 calories a day instead of the 800 they were shooting for. That brought their weight loss to a halt. <\/p>\n

In Hall\u2019s model, as people in the CALERIE study lost more weight, their appetites roared back, and around the 12-month mark, they stopped losing weight. <\/p>\n

The drugs semaglutide and tirzepatide, which mimic gut hormones to help people lose weight, prompted greater caloric restriction.\u00a0For semaglutide, the active ingredient in <\/strong>Wegovy, Hall\u2019s model predicted that as people gradually increased their dose in the study, they went from eating about 600 fewer calories a day to 1,300 fewer calories a day at the highest dose.\u00a0For tirzepatide, the active ingredient in Zepbound, the number of calories people cut from their diet each day increased from 830 on the lowest dose to 1,560 on the highest does tested in the study. <\/p>\n

But crucially, the drugs didn\u2019t merely have an effect on the number of calories people cut from their diets. They also lowered the number of calories their bodies were prompting them to eat back as they lost weight \u2014 in effect, weakening their appetites.\u00a0For Wegovy, people only wanted to eat back about 49 calories daily for every kilogram of weight they lost. For Zepbound, that number was 48.\u00a0By cutting their appetites by about half, they were able to keep losing weight for longer, an extra year on average compared with calorie restriction alone.\u00a0People taking weight loss drugs generally stopped losing weight around the two-year mark. <\/p>\n

Weight loss surgery had the strongest effect of all, prompting people to cut about 3,600 calories <\/strong>from their diets each day, and only eat back 58 calories for every kilogram they\u2019d lost every day.\u00a0People who\u2019d had weight loss surgery also had another year before their reached their plateau, suggesting that the surgery turned down their appetite significantly. <\/p>\n

More interventions might be necessary<\/h2>\n

Hall says there are several important insights from this study.\u00a0The first, he said, is drugs such as Wegovy and Zepbound and interventions like weight loss surgery, lengthen the time it takes to hit a plateau, but they don\u2019t stop it from happening completely. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s happening is that they still experience an increase in appetite, the more weight that they lose,\u201d Hall said. <\/p>\n

\u201cIf they had no appetite circuit, in other words, the drug just kind of kicked in and their intake stayed at this very low level. It would take many, many years for them to reach a plateau and they would lose, you know, an exorbitant amount of weight,\u201d Hall said. <\/p>\n

While it may stymie dieters, the appetite feedback circuit is actually a good thing, he said.\u00a0It would be dangerous if a drug or treatment got rid of appetite entirely. If that happened, a person might stop eating entirely until they died. <\/p>\n

Hall said the study also helps to refine some ideas about why people stop losing weight. <\/strong> <\/p>\n

For example, one theory has been that weight loss damages metabolism, so people end up burning far fewer calories at rest than when they started and can regain weight very easily. <\/p>\n

Hall says metabolism does drop after weight loss, \u201cbut not anywhere near the amount that will be required to explain the timing or magnitude of the weight loss plateau,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Hall says the study also seems to disprove the notion that the drugs eventually stop working.\u00a0 \u201cI think that\u2019s also incorrect,\u201d Hall said. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur modeling suggests that the reason for the plateau is because that\u2019s the point at which the drugs effect has been matched by the increase in appetite,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

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    <\/ul>\n<\/div>\n

    Sometimes people hit a plateau well before they\u2019ve reached their goal weight, which can be extremely frustrating. <\/p>\n

    Hall said in situations like that, people may have to add interventions to increase their effect. <\/p>\n

    \u201cAnother very common thing now is that people who didn\u2019t lose as much weight from bariatric surgery as they thought, will go on one of the GLP-1 receptor agonist so they\u2019re adding interventions on top of each other,\u201d Hall said. <\/p>\n

    Whatever route you choose, \u201ca persistent effect is required to maintain the weight loss,\u201d Hall said.\u00a0 So it\u2019s a good idea to consider whether you can keep doing what you\u2019re doing for the long haul. <\/p>\n

    People who hit a plateau after cutting calories can likely bust through it by restricting calories even further or adding exercise to their routine. <\/p>\n

    \u201cThe whole point here is that whatever you do, you have to keep doing it. And so you\u2019ve gotta be happy with that lifestyle intervention for the rest of your life. Otherwise, it\u2019s not going to have the added benefit,\u201d Hall said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

    This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Whether you\u2019re shedding pounds with the help of effective new medicines, slimming down after weight loss surgery or cutting calories and adding exercise, there will come a day when the numbers on the scale stop going down, and you hit the dreaded weight loss plateau. In a recent study, Kevin Hall, a researcher at the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":827,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"loftocean_post_primary_category":0,"loftocean_post_format_gallery":"","loftocean_post_format_gallery_ids":"","loftocean_post_format_gallery_urls":"","loftocean_post_format_video_id":0,"loftocean_post_format_video_url":"","loftocean_post_format_video_type":"","loftocean_post_format_video":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_type":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_url":"","loftocean_post_format_audio_id":0,"loftocean_post_format_audio":"","loftocean-featured-post":"","loftocean-like-count":0,"loftocean-view-count":813,"tinysalt_single_post_intro_label":"","tinysalt_single_post_intro_description":"","tinysalt_hide_post_featured_image":"","tinysalt_post_featured_media_position":"","tinysalt_single_site_header_source":"","tinysalt_single_custom_site_header":"0","tinysalt_single_custom_sticky_site_header":"0","tinysalt_single_custom_sticky_site_header_style":"sticky-scroll-up","tinysalt_single_site_footer_source":"","tinysalt_single_custom_site_footer":"0","footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retirednurseblog.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}