Set Point
Your body’s set point continues to be an elusive subject because it is a difficult one to test or prove, but it does seem to have some anecdotal evidence. I see it time and time again when people embark on a new fitness and diet regime and make drastic improvements only to revert back to their former glory a year or so later. So what is up with set point and how do we change it?
Your set point is the weight, lean mass and fat that your body finds to be it’s optimum setting. This is based on your age, activity level, diet, climate you live in and many other innumerable factors. The good part is that we can control many of these factors to some degree. Your set point is the point that your body will always try to return to but if you make lifestyle changes you can effect your set point. Active people as a whole have a leaner set point than sedentary people simply because they are more active and probably eat a better diet. Habits are very difficult to change but your set point is basically the sum of your habits plus some evolutionary tweaks that ensure that you put on a little extra weight.
Three square meals a day, grocery stores, and restaurants are a fairly new blip on the radar of evolution. So it is safe to say that our eating habits have changed substantially in a fairly short period of time. I am not going to attempt make any scientific claim about how long it takes evolutionary changes to take place but I will speculate that it is more than a couple generations. So basically, our set points have yet to catch up with our evolution, will they before all of our arteries are clogged with goo, hopefully, or better yet hopefully our brains can catch up first.
What you must realize in terms of evolutionary set point is that we are programed to eat a little extra and store the reserves for leaner times. Thus leading to a dilemma, dieting is basically simulating the leaner time our bodies are prepared for, so our body compensates by not only lowering our metabolism, reducing our energy, but also by causing us to crave more food and stores for the next drought. This leads to the yo-yo diet effect that is plainly visible in many modern day dieters.
The solutions for this? One, loose weight slowly and steadily by developing healthy eating and exercise habits, avoid yo-yo dieting. Make these changes less drastic and more permanent. Two, when you are eating in a deficit focus on maximizing nutrients. Leaner times in the past can not only be associated with less food but also fewer nutrients. Providing an extremely healthy but low calorie diet will trick your body into not realizing how little food it is actually consuming.
Your set point reflects your lifestyle and vise versa. Consistency is key.