Lose Weight For Good – Without Dieting

Struggling with overeating? It’s not your fault, an expert says. Understanding how your body works can help you regain control

His first thought when a patient came into his office clutching a bag full of sausage rolls and crisps was, “Take responsibility for yourself and go on a diet.”

But Dr Andrew Jenkin-son’s attitude has since changed – and in a fascinating new book, Why We Eat (Too Much), he tells us why.

Jenkinson is a British surgeon who specialises in bariatric surgery – operations to the digestive system to help people lose weight – and he’s the first person to admit he used to judge some of his patients who’d gorge on fattening foods.

Yet after listening to countless obese patients describe being in a trap, unable to lose weight no matter how hard they tried, he turned his focus from appetite to metabolism.

His conclusion: it’s all down to the weight set-point.

WHAT’S THE WEIGHT SET-POINT?

It’s the level of energy or fat storage our brain calculates is necessary for our survival. In chronic dieters, the weight setpoint shifts. The more diets you’ve been on, the higher your weight set-point and the slower your metabolism. This is because your body wants to protect you: when you diet, you often don’t get enough kilojoules so your body hangs onto whatever it can get.

So you might lose weight when you’re on a diet but as soon as you abandon it, your weight shoots back to where it was before.