If you need motivation to get into old habits after the holidays, you should read the obesity expert’s warning. The holiday kilos can follow you for life if you do not shop fast.
After many weeks of ice cream, barbecue, wine in the glass and potato chips in the bowl, it can be relatively hard to go back to everyday life.
When the lazy holidays are to be replaced with busy weekdays, it is easy to feel a little sorry for oneself. So even if the pants you bought before the summer have already become a little tight, and the shirts are tightening in places they have not tightened before, you feel that you deserve to enjoy yourself a little extra after the work day.
And that training, can you wait a bit with it? Just like that until you get upstairs again. After all, everyone puts on a little weight during the holidays, right?
Friends and girlfriends and colleagues nod in agreement. They also want to enjoy themselves a little. And that must be law, right?
– I would be careful to downplay the weight gain many people experience after the holidays. Then there is a great danger that the extra kilos will follow you for life, says obesity expert Jøran Hjelmesæth to Nettavisen.
He is a professor at the University of Oslo and head of the Center for morbid obesity in Health South-East at the Hospital in Vestfold.
We do not become overweight overnight. It happens gradually. Kilo for kilo, and Norwegians mainly put on weight during holidays and celebrations.
If you leave the kilos for too long, your body will get used to your new weight. If you later lose weight again, then your body remembers the highest weight you have had – and tries to work your way up there again.
Unjust? Possible. But true? Yes.
The conclusion, according to Hjelmesæth, is this:
– The absolute smartest thing you can do to maintain a healthy weight throughout life, is to never become overweight.
Fact
The main reason why more and more people are struggling with obesity and overweight is not a lack of willpower or too little exercise, but that those who are genetically predisposed to develop obesity, now have greater access to high-calorie food and drink. While in the past there was limited access to food, many now live in abundance. In addition, society facilitates the increase by offering high-calorie food and drink for cheap money.
Those who ultimately decide to gain weight and lose weight will often succeed. But because the body wants to maintain the highest weight it has had, it goes into sleep mode quickly and initiates a series of mechanisms to increase weight again. A person who has lost weight must therefore consume 300-500 fewer calories per day than a person who has not lost weight, even if they weigh the same. The person must do this for the rest of their life, otherwise the body manages the weight upwards again – kilo by kilo.
Research shows that very few of those with obesity have managed to keep the weight off after a weight loss. Among those who seek professional help to lose weight, only one in six succeeds in maintaining weight. Among those who manage to lose weight, around 30-35 percent of the weight loss is back after one year.
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Therefore, you should take your vacation pounds seriously
Many people probably think that one kilo of weight gain after the summer holidays is not something to talk about. Basically, it’s all right, but over time it can become quite a lot.
Let’s say you weigh 75 pounds as a 25-year-old. If you follow your pattern from this summer, you will weigh 95 kilos as a 45-year-old.
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This is problematic for two main reasons:
1. The body always wants to maintain the highest weight
The problem with gaining a pound here and a pound there, is not necessarily that it is so difficult to lose weight again.
The real challenge is to keep the weight down after you have succeeded in losing the “holiday kilos”.
Because no matter what you have weighed, the body wants to maintain the highest weight it has had. If you have weighed 90 kilos and lost 15, your body will work to get back to 90 kilos again.
The body does not care that you have better health at 75 kilos, it still wants up again.
To achieve this, the body turns on a number of mechanisms. You get very hungry and harder to get full, among other things. For many who have succeeded in weight loss, you also find an extra joy in eating good food after a diet, so you may choose fatty and sweet foods, says Hjelmesæth.
As a result of the body fighting to the highest weight, many end up in an eternal round dance with these holiday kilos. They go up four kilos, then down four kilos. Up three kilos, down three kilos.
This yo-yo diet is tampering with your metabolism – that is, your metabolism. Because the body experiences weight loss as a danger, it slows down the metabolism to maintain weight.
This is what we refer to as “flare mode”, and turns on after a time of limited calorie intake. The experts do not know exactly how fast it strikes, but they assume that it happens already after a weight reduction of three to four kg.
This means that you burn much less energy than you did before you lost weight – both at rest and in activity – rest of your life.
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– This means that you must take into account two important changes in your metabolism after a successful weight loss. First, your metabolism decreases when your weight decreases, by about 10 percent at 10 percent weight loss, and in addition, the flare effect causes the body to lower your metabolism even more, so you may need to reduce your calorie intake by 20 percent to maintain a 10 percent weight loss.
This may mean that, for example, after a weight reduction from 100 kg to 90 kg, you must consume 600-800 fewer calories per day than you did before you lost weight in order to maintain your weight, says Hjelmesæth.
– There are still large individual differences when it comes to how much fuel the body implements after weight reduction, says Hjelmesæth.
– Be a little vigilant in the weeks ahead
Fortunately, it is not “game over” for you and your slightly tight pants just because you have eaten a little well during the holidays. But the trick is to act a little fast, instead of accepting that you now weigh a little more than you did in May.
– The holiday kilos need some time before they settle down, but you should be a little vigilant. In a few weeks, you should be back to your old weight, says Hjelmesæth.
– How long does it take before the body gets used to the company from the holiday kilos for good?
– I do not know, but three or four weeks will probably go well. This usually goes well if you eat healthy, choose vegetables and fruits over cakes and other high-calorie foods. If you are also a little more active, it will probably not be long before you are back where you were before the summer.
BEWARE: Be a little vigilant in the weeks ahead, advises Hjelmesæth. Eat healthy and be active, then you will soon be down to the same weight as before the summer. Foto: Getty Images
One common denominator among 6,000 with morbid obesity
It is therefore not without reason that the National Institute of Public Health and The Norwegian Directorate of Health Asks us to eat healthy and be a little active every day. If you work preventively against obesity, you can save yourself many problems later in life.
Research also shows that very few of those with obesity have managed to keep the weight off after a weight loss. Among those who seek professional help to lose weight, only one in six succeeds in maintaining weight. Among those who manage to lose weight, around 30-35 percent of the weight loss is back after one year.
– Here at the Center for morbid obesity, we have now treated over 6000 people with morbid obesity. The common denominator for them is that the vast majority have at some point lost a lot of weight. So they have succeeded in losing weight, but then they have gone up again, says Hjelmesæth, and concludes:
– This applies to very many of those who are overweight or obese in Norway today. The main problem is not to lose weight, but to keep the weight down after you have finished losing weight.
