Weight Loss

What is set point weight?

by Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP

It’s true that we inherit eye color, hair, skin, body-type and more from our parents, and for the most part, we can’t change these traits. But what about our weight? For many years, scientist believed that set point — our body-to-fat ratio within a 10- to 15-pound weight range that optimizes our chances of survival — was something inherited that we couldn’t influence.

But in the past few decades it has become clear that the set point isn’t entirely predestined and unchanging. In fact, your set point is also governed by your environment, even from the time you are growing in utero. In a 2010 article on the set point theory, German scientists wrote: “Searching for the genetic background of excess weight gain in a world of abundance is misleading since the possible biological control is widely overshadowed by the effect of the environment. ” And our environment includes our lifestyle choices and eating habits.

The reason it may feel like we can’t change our set point weight is that our bodies like stability — and our metabolism defends the set point by slowing down or speeding up when our weight approaches the outer limits of our set point’s range.

So how can you change your environment to reprogram your weight? Follow our tips for optimizing metabolic rate and consider one more factor: your emotional health.

We’ve always known intuitively that laughter is the best medicine, but before now we haven’t really grasped why. Studies of laughter therapy in type 2 diabetics showed that as many as 23 different genes were altered as a byproduct of laughter. Not only that, but the activity of several blood enzymes and their precursors changed as well, in ways that were beneficial toward preventing a range of metabolic imbalances.

So one of the ways that we can send positive signals to our genes, cells, and proteins is by cultivating positive emotions. At the same time, addressing sources of negative emotions — particularly trauma from our past that is a continual source of sadness, guilt, shame, or anger — can reduce the flow of negative messages to our genes and cells. (For further guidance, I suggest reading Dr. Candace Pert’s Molecules of Emotions.)

You can influence your set point

It’s so important that women realize that we can communicate with our genes and get at least some of them to change their behavior. Our genes receive messages all the time through our nutritional choices and the patterns of our emotions, whether we realize it or not. Our Personal Program for Weight Loss Resistance helps you take care of your nutrition, your emotions, exercise, and stress, to help influence your set point and make lasting changes in your body. But keep in mind that influencing set point doesn’t happen all at once. If you are trying to lose a large amount of weight, we suggest doing this in increments and letting the body have time to stabilize in between periods of losing the weight. To make lasting changes, our set point needs time to rebalance. We’re always here to help.

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Last Modified Date: 11/29/2011
Principal Author: Marcelle Pick, OB/GYN NP