eli5:Why do people struggle to keep weight off after losing it?

1.98K views

I love watching weightloss challenges, so I watch people go through these crazy transformations but often times after I hear that the participants will gain a significant portion, if not all, of the weight back. Why is that? Is it diet? Biology?

In: Biology

7 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

There was a great article in the New York Times from 2012 called A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity that held some interesting bits. Unfortunately it’s behind a paywall, but it’s been summed up nicely on [another site](https://mcn.com/2012/06/28/a-mathematical-challenge-to-obesity/).

I don’t think it’s confirmation bias when I say that the main bullet points make sense to me. The idea that a body has a state of equilibrium and must stay in that state for roughly 3 years before weight change is steady, makes perfect sense in retrospect. We’ve all had years where our weight goes up and down, usually around 5 lbs. in either direction, and the theories mentioned in that article just start to coalesce.

The most disturbing quote for me was this part: “The body changes as you lose. Interestingly, we also found that the fatter you get, the easier it is to gain weight. An extra 10 calories a day puts more weight onto an obese person than on a thinner one.”

You are viewing 1 out of 7 answers, click here to view all answers.