Research
Hormonal
Physiological changes following weight loss, including decreased resting metabolic rate and increased hunger hormones (ghrelin) and decreased satiety hormones (leptin), actively promote weight regain and make long-term maintenance difficult.
Understand that your body will biologically fight weight loss through increased hunger and slower metabolism. This is not a failure of willpower. To counter this, you need external support (like extended care programs) and skills training to manage these strong biological signals, as they will not disappear on their own.
StrongSupportsVERY_HIGH confidence
Following weight loss, resting metabolic rate decreases beyond the level expected from the loss of body mass alone... the body has several compensatory neuroendocrine mechanisms that occur following calorie restriction and weight loss to increase food intake and decrease energy expenditure.
Why this rating
Supported by multiple studies on metabolic adaptation and neuroendocrine responses.
Source
Long-Term Adherence to Health Behavior Change
Kathryn R. Middleton et al. · American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine · 2013
DOI 10.1177/1559827613488867
narrative_reviewCited 482×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Extended care interventions (face-to-face, telephone, or internet-based) significantly improve long-term adherence and weight maintenance compared to standard care with no follow-up.Good
- Skills training, specifically relapse prevention and problem-solving skills, combined with extended care, significantly improves long-term weight maintenance compared to extended care alone or no further contact.Good
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