Do I Need to Control My Weight?

Ever wonder how much control we really have over our body weight? So did I. So I looked into the science, and this is what I found…

Thermoregulation:

Ever heard of thermoregulation? It’s your body’s innate ability to stay in control of it’s own temperature. It keeps our bodies within a very narrow, functional range without a second thought from us. I don’t know a single person who tries to interfere with their body temperature: we don’t worry that we should be colder or hotter, we know and trust that our bodies can handle it. And when our bodies give us cues we’re heading outside of where we want to be, we shiver and bundle up, or sweat and strip some layers.

It’s incredible how well of a grasp our bodies have on maintaining healthy temperatures. A normal body temperature is around 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Just three degrees below this is hypothermia, and six degrees too high means a life-threatening fever. Varying those few degrees in either direction causes your organs to malfunction, and your heart and lungs to fail.

Most people wouldn’t bat an eye at things like thermoregulation. And for the most part, the same rings true for proper hydration…

Osmoregulation:

I know you’ve heard of hydration and dehydration. So, it should come as no surprise that our bodies have unique, complex ways of keeping a tight control over osmolality.

Regardless, fancy water bottles and staying hydrated have become trendy as of late. Some bottles even have timeframes written on them in which you should drink the goal amount of water by, and other people have taken to carrying around full gallon jugs. But just like with thermoregulation, our bodies can handle osmoregulation, as well. While people fret over having clear pee, scientists have confirmed that “urinary output is a response rather than a reflection of (tightly regulated) blood tonicity.” Our bodies can handle these things!

Nevertheless, with weight, we worry even more…

Liporegulation:

Most people don’t realize that our weight is just as tightly regulated by our bodies as everything else is. In the same way that we feel cold or thirsty, we get hungry, too.

To clarify, even though we call these urges feelings, they’re nothing like the emotional “feelings” we’re used to referencing. Instead, they’re signals from our bodies to keep us regulated. And just as thirst helps decrease osmolality when you’re dehydrated, hunger serves a purpose, too.

My point is: hunger isn’t a “feeling” to question; it’s a bodily urge meant to signal a need to be met. Just as we don’t micromanage our body temperature, we don’t need to micromanage our weight either. Your body regulates your weight in the same way that every other part of your body is regulated. Your weight is not the exception to the rule.

Weight isn’t the one thing that’s out of control about your body.

And despite cultural influences to feel like our weight is something our bodies can’t innately handle, this isn’t a foreign concept. All living organisms adapt to their environment in order to maintain homeostasis. We see this throughout all of nature: plants, animals, prokaryotes, and viruses alike. We all innately adapt.

Plants adapt to drought stress, bacteria adapt to antibiotics, viruses mutate to be less virulent to their host, and Alaskan wood frogs literally freeze their bodies to the point of stopping their hearts in order to survive the winter. In this same way, we have biological mechanisms in place to control every little thing about us, from our hydration status, to our body temperature, to - you guessed it - our body size. Is it so far-fetched to acknowledge this? Heck no!

Here’s my proof:

In 2016, scientists decided to investigate a well-proven but not-so-well-understood phenomenon called “adaptive thermogenesis.” Adaptive thermogenesis is your body’s metabolic adaptation to weight loss. Here’s how it works, in a nutshell:

When your body dips below the weight it wants to be, it lowers your resting metabolic rate (RMR) in order to help you regain weight.

In their study, the researchers studied contestants of the weight loss competition show, The Biggest Loser. They took physiological measurements at baseline before the competition began, at the very end of the competition, and then again six years later.

Here’s what they found:

The average resting metabolic rate (or RMR: the amount of energy your body uses to complete basic bodily functions at rest) decreased by an average of 800kcal/day by the end of the competition. The more weight someone lost, the slower their RMR became. And despite weight regain 6 years later, their RMRs grew slightly more repressed. In fact, the longer the subjects were able to keep their weight from returning, the slower their metabolisms became. So, those with the largest long-term weight loss also had the most ongoing metabolic slowing.

They also found that total energy expenditure (or TEE: the amount of energy your body uses at rest, digesting food, and enabling physical activity) was lower at the end of the competition despite having large increases in physical activity. And six years later, guess what? Their TEE remained below baseline.

And those weren’t the only changes they saw. In those 6 years, plasma leptin and T4 also remained lower than baseline, while HDL and adiponectin were increased. What does this mean?

All of these physiological and biochemical changes are evidence of their bodies trying to correct a weight imbalance and return to homeostasis.

Unfortunately, the researchers missed the forest for the trees. I assume they were too heavily influenced by their own biases to recognize the meaning of their data, because they conclude: “long-term weight loss requires vigilant combat against persistent metabolic adaptation that acts to proportionally counter ongoing efforts to reduce body weight. ” *sigh*

In reality, here’s what we can gather:

Your metabolism adapts proportionally in response to any efforts to reduce or increase your body weight in an effort to defend it’s baseline or “set point” size. This doesn’t mean we should vigilantly combat our bodies. It means:

We need to trust that our bodies know what size to be, regardless of our desires and unnatural interference.

The irony of ironies is this: people expend a significant amount of mental energy trying to “control their weight,” but all they’re really doing is making their weight temporarily out of control.

The truth is:

Your weight is already completely under control.

And your body’s calling the shots. All you have to do to have a healthy weight is trust that your body’s got this, and give it what it needs. Just because we have a current cultural fixation on weight, doesn’t mean we have to question our bodies’ capabilities.

So, for future reference, I propose a definition:

Liporegulation (noun):

The homeostatic, biochemical regulation of body fat.

Bottom line:

Thirsty? ==> Drink something.

Cold? ==> Bundle up.

Tired? ==> Take a rest.

Hungry? ==> Eat more food.

It really is that simple. Don’t let fear override your sense of self.

Big love,

Maria

Lee, Y., Wang, M. Y., Kakuma, T., Wang, Z. W., Babcock, E., McCorkle, K., Higa, M., Zhou, Y. T., & Unger, R. H. (2001). Liporegulation in diet-induced obesity. The antisteatotic role of hyperleptinemia. The Journal of biological chemistry, 276(8), 5629–5635. https://doi.org/10.1074/jbc.M008553200

Fothergill, E., Guo, J., Howard, L., Kerns, J. C., Knuth, N. D., Brychta, R., Chen, K. Y., Skarulis, M. C., Walter, M., Walter, P. J., & Hall, K. D. (2016). Persistent metabolic adaptation 6 years after "The Biggest Loser" competition. Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.), 24(8), 1612–1619. https://doi.org/10.1002/oby.21538

Hew-Butler, T. D., Eskin, C., Bickham, J., Rusnak, M., & VanderMeulen, M. (2018). Dehydration is how you define it: comparison of 318 blood and urine athlete spot checks. BMJ open sport & exercise medicine, 4(1), e000297.

Reed, G. W., & Hill, J. O. (1996). Measuring the thermic effect of food. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 63(2), 164–169. https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcn/63.2.164