It Takes Time To Rewire Your Body After Losing Weight

We want it and we want it NOW.  Patience is indeed a virtue and it’s in short supply.  Our impatience often gets in the way and can undercut our efforts to change--including losing weight and keeping it off.

Losing weight is hard enough but keeping it off can be even harder. New Danish research suggests that if you can maintain your weight loss for a year it will actually get easier after that. It turns out that extra weight blocks a hormone that can control hunger.  The scientists tracked the hormone levels of 20 obese people who went on an ultra low-calorie diet for two months, losing an average of 13 percent of their body weight. After that, subjects went on a less extreme weight-maintenance diet for a year and their weights stayed stable.

The data showed that the hormone ghrelin, which makes you feel hungry, spiked by 23 percent after the subjects' initial weight loss, making it harder to stick to their diets. However, over the next year, the subjects' ghrelin levels dropped back down by seven percent.

It's thought that extra body fat may hinder your cells' ability to produce hormones that make you feel full and satisfied, so losing fat and keeping it off over time could allow that hormone production to return to normal. (Women’s Health)