READ TIME: 1 x macchiato (short but strong) (5 min)
KEY POINTS:
Stalls in fat loss are always going to happen if you diet for long enough. They’re just an adaptive process in the body to let us survive famine for longer.
We can break the causes of stalls into two main categories, metabolic adaption and behavioural compensation.
We tend to focus more on metabolic adaption than behavioural compensation despite the latter being the bigger issue the majority of the time.
A number of the metabolic adaptions increase the likelihood of behavioural compensation.
Before we get started, I’m writing this article with the assumption that you’ve been doing everything right so far. That you’ve set yourself up for success when starting your diet?
Not sure? Check out this article here that gives the basics of setting up your diet.
Anywho, onto this week’s article.
One of the most common topics I cover with clients is what to do when you’re no longer losing weight. Or that it’s frustratingly slow.
First of all, you’re not alone.
It's almost inevitable that at some point on your fat loss journey, progress is going to slow and eventually halt. It's incredibly rare that I work with someone who doesn't hit multiple plateaus at some point.
The speed at which this happens is likely down to:
1. The size of the deficit initially created. A larger deficit should, in theory, take longer to close.
2. Individual genetics. Some individuals bodies seem to adapt at an alarmingly fast weight, while others seem to be a lot less efficient.
3. Compliance to the plan.
But what's causing fat loss to stall?
We can break down the causes into two main categories:
Metabolic adaption
Behavioural compensation
However, even these terms can be hard to differentiate with both affecting one another.
Metabolic Adaption
Metabolic adaption aka adaptive thermogenesis refers to the various metabolic and hormonal changes that occur within the body, collaborating like an evil organisation whose sole purpose is to shut your energy deficit down. Ruining your dreams of dirty dancing in a service station like Joe Manganiello in Magic Mike.
While it may feel like that, it's not the case.
Your body has good intentions it just doesn't understand nor care for your goals. Metabolic adaption is a defence mechanism crafted by the body over hundreds of thousands of years to ensure that in times of famine it slowed our journey to starvation, ultimately giving us a better chance of finding some tasty mammoth steak and making it through the said starvation period.
Pretty smart right?
Research indicates that metabolic adaption may reduce energy expenditure by 10-15% further than would be expected just from losses in body mass.
These adaptions include:
Becoming more efficient at creating energy from fuel (increased mitochondrial efficiency). This sounds good, but it means that we essentially burn fewer calories to create ATP (energy). So when it comes to body composition, it's probably better to be metabolically inefficient.
You burn fewer calories digesting and absorbing food, due to eating less total calories (reduced TEF).
NEAT, or energy expended during “non-exercise” movement such as fidgeting or normal daily activities, also decreases with an energy deficit.
Hormones that stimulate metabolic rate, such as thyroid hormones and leptin drop.
And we see reductions in hormones that tell the brain we have "adequate" energy such as insulin and leptin, which in turn cause "hunger" related hormones like ghrelin to increase.
Furthermore, these hormonal changes may actually impact how our brain reacts to food cues, such that when dieting the reward system parts of the brain may be more receptive while the self-control areas may be dulled.
You get the picture.
Through multiple hormonal and metabolic adaptions, our bodies decrease the energy we expend and nudges us towards doughnuts and nachos (increasing our energy intake).
Behavioural Compensation
Behavioural compensation refers to the changes in our behaviours that compensate for the energy deficit we've created.
These are variables that we may have a certain amount of control over.
For example.
Perhaps your calorie intake has sneakily crept up as you pay just that little bit less attention to the size of your meals.
The tablespoon of peanut butter has gradually become extra rounded and we're being a little more generous with the muesli.
Perhaps we're prone to the odd BLT (bite, lick, taste).
Snacking as you cook or clean up after dinner, grabbing a few lollies from the bowl at work, pinching a few chips you off your mate's plate.
The extra food you allow yourself for working so hard at the gym.
Or maybe without even knowing it, you're spending a little bit more time on the couch and a little bit less time moving.
I've seen (and done) it all before.
It's estimated that these types of behavioural compensations can result in anywhere from 12-64% less weight loss than we'd expect.
Polidori and colleagues conducted one of my favourite studies of the year (yes certain studies excite me, what of it).
What made this particular study so interesting is that they placed subjects in a calorie deficit without changing their food intake.
I'll give you a second annnndd....
"Wait a minute, how can that be possible?" I hear you ask.
Well, they used a drug called canagliflozin, which results in you peeing out glucose, thereby creating an energy deficit. So same food going into the system, but fewer calories absorbed.
What the researchers found was that for every 1 kg of weight subjects lost, their calorie intake rose by 100 calories per day, gradually closing the energy deficit created and stalling fat loss. (See below)
Over time, both behavioural compensation and adaptive thermogenesis work to close the energy gap, thereby stalling our fat loss.
What we can also take from this is that part of the hormonal adaptions to fat loss is pressure to change our behaviours. To make us eat more and move less.
Which brings us to what we really want to know.
What to do when it occurs.
Stay tuned for next weeks PART 2.