What is Set Point Weight?
Have you ever heard the term set-point weight but had no idea what it meant? Here's what it means and why it changes how you think about dieting entirely.
Your set point weight range is a range of about 10–15 pounds that your body naturally gravitates toward and works to maintain. Just as the body regulates temperature and blood pressure, it also regulates body weight, constantly adjusting your hunger cues, energy levels, and metabolic speed to stay within that range. And this range is about as genetic as height: research suggests that roughly 70 percent of individual differences in body weight are shaped by genes.
What this means is that all of those "failed attempts at weight loss" were never really failures at all. Regaining weight after dieting is actually evidence that your body is working exactly as it should - it's trying to protect you from what it perceived as a famine. You did nothing wrong. If you think you did, it's because the diet industry has convinced you the regain is your fault, which works out well for them, because the blame is what sells the next diet.
Now here's where things get complicated. Research suggests that a majority of people who lose weight through dieting eventually regain it and many end up weighing more than when they started. Why? Because the pull of the set point range is so strong that when we repeatedly force our body below it, our brain senses danger. It initiates biological changes to help regain weight and can raise the set point range to protect against future famines. (Our bodies don't distinguish between intentional famine, also known as dieting, and the real thing.) Your body will then defend that new, higher range just as strongly as it defended the original. (This is also why the new weight-loss medications only work while you take them. They suppress the signals your body uses to defend its range, and when they stop, the set point is still there, doing its job.)
Understanding set-point theory matters because it doesn't just explain why diets fail and why our bodies resist weight change - it shows how distinct health is from body size. If you're interested in improving your health (which we don't believe is an obligation, by the way), you can do it by focusing on sustainable, health-promoting behaviors instead of restrictive dieting. You can step out of the cycle of restriction, blame, and shame and finally be at peace with your body.
Interested in doing this healing work? Schedule a free consultation call here.
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