The New York Times recently ran a fascinating article on the struggles of the contestants on the television reality show, The Biggest Loser.
It seems that the vast majority gained back most, if not all, of the weight they had shed during the show. A couple of years later, some even ended up weighing more than their heaviest weight.
Take a look at the article, but here’s the barest of summaries: It’s an evil conspiracy on the part of your fat body to regain that fat. Any thing less than the caloric intake you consumed to maintain that heavy weight triggers brain signals to tell you that you are starving to death.
Those signals, from a hormone called leptin, trigger maddening hunger and especially brutal carb cravings.
I’m a living breathing example of the Leptin Curse.
Five years ago, I shed 100 unwanted pounds on the HCG diet. I felt great! I got tons of compliments and a dynamite new wardrobe that included the size 12 jeans I thought I’d never wear again.
I congratulated myself, first by eating a formerly forbidden avocado. That was actually a healthy choice. Then a piece of cake. Just one. I deserved it, after all. Then a small plate of pasta.
About that time, I was diagnosed with adrenal fatigue (which also triggers carb cravings) and I’ve battled hypothyroidism for years, so there was some explanation, I thought.
The carb cravings became obsessive. I fought them like a tiger. I thought it was just a psychological trigger from the months of deprivation during the diet.
Now I know something entirely different was taking place.
Let me back up a moment. During the diet (which I chronicled extensively and about which I wrote a book), I was careful about psychological triggers. I never talked about “losing” weight, because psychologically anything that is lost must be found again, right? I also ate 700 rigidly restricted calories a day.
But now that I’ve learned about the Leptin Curse, I know that whether or not I psychologically thought I need to find what I had lost, my body was also desperately seeking to regain that lost unwanted weight.
Slowly the pounds began to creep back on. First five pounds, then ten and then…
Five years after my lowest weight, I am now 50 pounds heavier—but I am also 50 pounds lighter than I was at the beginning. It’s a glass-half- full, glass-half-empty situation.
My weight has been stable for more than a year, so I doubt I will return to my heaviest weight. It seems that no matter how much I starve myself, it doesn’t budge downward to any great degree. Neither does it nudge upwards if I indulge.
Does this mean I give up and eat any kind of crap I want? Not at all. I eat a healthy diet. I exercise a lot.
And I’m learning to accept myself for what I am.
Do I wish I weigh 50 pound less? Sure!
Am I going to obsess about it for the rest of my life? Absolutely not. I’ll eat an ice cream cone or a plate of pasta from time to time and greatly enjoy it.
Over time, I will learn to stop the negative self-talk and accept myself for where my body has decided I need to be.
