So…. you want to lose weight?

Our bodies really are equipped to deal with hibernation or consumption of minimal nutrients over time. Think about it like this: When we decrease our intake, our bodies go into storage mode. Even if YOU know that you’re going to have food at your disposal, your brain doesn’t, which in turn triggers a hibernation-like response to store food in the fat cells.

I worked at a well-known weight loss camp last summer. One take home tip I received was this example. Someone who’s already been overweight and is not within normal range compared to someone who hasn’t been overweight can eat the same food, say three slices of pizza. The person who has never been out of normal weight range will likely be ok with one slice. However, the individual who has been overweight (even if it’s in the past) has a greater chance to gain weight from this consumption. Unfortunately, fat cells are the one cell we know of thus far that never die, they merely shrink. The individual who has been overweight may have lost fat yes, but they never lost the fat cells.

Here’s a pretty excellent video to describe what I’m saying if you prefer an audio-visual method: (yeah, the title’s a bit extreme, try to override your urge to pass up on it based on the html)

http://www.youtube.com/user/insanehomefatloss?v=1ZaZniN-cpE#aid=P7cGGyyA-ig

I keep noticing that with my restricted consumption, though I initially lost a lot of weight quickly, albeit water weight, the pounds aren’t shedding like one may anticipate. Makes sense though. How can I mess with nature and a protective mechanism that has been in place to delay extinction of our species? I can’t.