RYW 139: Set Point Theory is BS and Here's Why Your Weight Is Not Biologically Fixed

Okay, so let's start with where it came from.

Set point theory, as most people know it, and quick explanation, it's this idea that no matter what you do, Your body has got this innate set point within it, meaning you can try as hard as you want.

You could do whatever you want.

You can try and lose weight.

You might lose weight, but your body's always going to reset itself back to this natural set point.

That's the theory of set point.

Where it came from, it was actually put together in... 1982 by two researchers called William Bennett and Joel Gurin I think his surname was and their starting point was actually fair enough they were looking at why dieting kept failing people and why people would lose weight and then gain it back over and over so they were asking actually a really valid and good question however here is the thing the evidence that they built the theory on came almost entirely from studies on rats for a start so not people but from rats It was scientists in the 1970s.

They'd been overfeeding rats on high fat, high sugar diets, watching them gain weight, putting them back on their normal food and then watching them return to their original weight.

And at the same thing, they were also doing it in reverse.

So they were restricting the rats.

watching them lose weight, put them back on normal food and the weight came back on again.

And from that, from what rats were doing in a laboratory, in a very strict, controlled environment, we, collectively, we built this theory about how human bodies work and we started telling millions of people that their weight was biologically fixed.

Now some of the biology I am going to state is real and I want to be really honest about that.

There is genuine research showing that when people lose weight through extreme restriction the body does adapt.

So hunger hormone shift, metabolism can slow down, the body basically responds.

That has been documented but that's describing what happens when someone loses weight by depriving themselves and often in quite extreme ways.