Set Point Range Blog

Did you know that your body has a weight range at which it loves to stick?

So all those years you have been trying to shrink yourself, lose those last 10lbs, you have been lied to.

Your set point range (or weight) is determined by several factors including genetics, environmental factors and lifestyle.
It will not stay the same throughout your whole life and one thing that can actually increase your set point range? Dieting!

Yikes! I know! Let’s dig in!

Your set point range is the weight at which your body wants to live at in order to function optimally. You will be able to eat intuitively, fuel your body well, move in a way that suits your body and life and maintain this weight range fairly easily. Your body is VERY happy here! It is pretty effortless. Scientists state that our set point range is usually around 10-20lbs (I find mine varies about 5kg over time up and down) but everyone is individual here. Your set point range is your body’s sweet spot.

Genetics play a role in determining your set point range. Humans come in all different shapes, sizes and builds. We are not meant to be a carbon copy of one another (even though diet culture tells you that!) So your genetics will play a partial role in the body shape and size that you have, you cannot change this! It is out of your control.

Lifestyle and environmental factors also have an impact. For example your body may have a naturally higher set point after having children or as you age. Things such as stress and anxiety can also have an impact as our hormones fluctuate and we use tools such as emotional eating to help us cope.

Now let’s talk about dieting. You know those before and after pictures that are paraded around constantly? How many have you seen 5 years later? Where the person has maintained the weight they lost? None? Or very few I imagine. Well there’s a reason for that! Studies have shown that up to 80% of people who diet have regained all the weight or MORE within 5 years. So the question is why?

Your body experiences deprivation during a diet. You aren’t feeding it enough calories (energy) to survive hence the weight loss. So your hunger hormones leptin (the satiety hormone) decrease and ghrelin (hunger hormone) increases.

Therefore you feel more hungry. Your body is asking you to fuel it but you don’t listen and so it believes you are in a famine.

Waaaaaaah! Scary times!

Clearly the body does not want to be experiencing famine and so when it does get enough calories to fuel it well, it stores some for later use. You know, for the next time you starve it (aka diet).

Unfortunately so many of us have lost the ability to listen to our body and in particular our fullness and hunger cues. I am not saying at all that if you live in a larger body and YOU want to lose weight for your health, that you are stuck in that bigger body forever and all hope is lost. If we can relearn how to listen to our bodies and educate ourselves around foods to fuel us and foods for our soul and portion size whilst working on our relationship with food and exercise, you may find that your body is happier at a lower set point range. But for the most part, if it’s those last 10 lbs or so you consistently struggle with, your body’s telling you it isn’t happy there and it may be time to accept your body and start taking care of it instead of starving it.

Just a thought.