Interval weight loss: How to trick your body into losing weight

CRASH dieting wreaks mayhem with your metabolism — but there are ways to trick your body into losing weight, obesity researcher Dr Nick Fuller reveals.

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WE are all tuned to a set body weight. Our body weight is regulated via feedback that controls energy intake and energy expenditure, resulting in the body protecting its level of fat when too much food is consumed or too little activity performed (that is, when energy balance is disturbed).

In the academic world there have been several models proposed and much debate as to how this regulation might take place.

However, regardless of how body weight regulation occurs, what seems certain is that there is a set body weight that our body protects.

Yo-yoing weight

Your body does all it can to hold onto its reserves, and a person’s metabolism (how much energy we burn at rest) will lower when put under stress — for example, under a period of significantly reduced food intake.

Crash dieting wreaks mayhem with your metabolism and body composition in a way that will see your weight decrease and increase in a cyclic fashion, with the trend not going down over time but up. If you want to lose weight and keep it off, diets — and that refers to any type of diet — are not for you.

Dr Nick Fuller

Preserving your metabolic rate

My method is about preventing any associated decrease in metabolism and reduction in muscle mass and associated weight regain from dieting.

Interval Weight Loss is focused on doing all it can to preserve or increase the amount of energy you burn at rest instead.

It is not a traditional slow versus fast weight-loss approach, which results in the same amount of weight regain over a longer-term follow-up period whatever approach you try.

This plan is focused on minimising any loss of lean muscle mass associated with weight loss, and increase in appetite hormones associated with a large deficit in energy intake.

We know that weight regain is driven by muscle mass and appetite-regulating hormones, but one of the biggest challenges is that weight regain is often associated with a larger gain in fat mass as opposed to muscle mass.

This is an unfavourable situation to be in, as muscle mass is metabolically active, meaning it burns more energy at rest than does fat.

Crash dieting wreaks mayhem with your metabolism. Picture: Thinkstock

Set point

It’s important to get the body outside of its normal comfort zone to achieve success and
set you up for long-term weight-loss maintenance. This means you need to work towards redefining your set body weight over a gradual period.

This is done by an Interval Weight Loss approach, by which I mean a period of weight loss followed by a period of weight maintenance. It has absolutely no fasting or dieting component, but instead relies on small changes to your nutritional intake and physical activity level, and closely monitoring your body weight on the scales.

You might set a goal of a 2kg weight loss over the first month, with your goal to maintain it over the second month, before then aiming for another 2kg weight loss during the third month and then again maintaining it during the fourth month, and so on, until your individualised goal weight is achieved.

This approach is in effect reprogramming your body weight to a new “set point” and must be done gradually.

Tricking your body

You need to do all you can to prevent your weight from bouncing back to where you started and really convince your body that a 2kg weight loss is your new “set point”.

I would recommend aiming for 1-2kg per month (no more than half a kilogram per week) for those at the lower end of the scale, with an upper limit of no more than 4kg (1kg per week) per month for those at the higher end. If in doubt, 2kg per month is a suitable goal.

Once your body accepts and becomes comfortable with your new weight after a month, you can work towards the next 2kg weight loss the following month.

It’s important to get the body outside of its normal comfort zone to achieve success. Picture: Thinkstock

Interval Weight Loss by Dr Nick Fuller

Participants set a goal of a 2kg weight loss over the first month.

However, don’t be tempted to continue with weight loss during a weight maintenance month if you see weight coming off when you’re on the scales.

As ridiculous as it may sound, if this does occur and, for example, you notice a trend in weight loss between week four (month one) and week six (month 1.5), you’ll need to increase your energy intake by eating more or decreasing your activity over the following week or weeks: for example, weeks six (month 1.5) to eight (month two).

This will ensure your weight returns to the start point (that is, your weight at the start of the weight maintenance period).

Go on, treat yourself

This might mean allowing for more than one treat or takeaway/dining-out meal during the coming week or weeks, so that you stick as closely as possible to that 2kg weight loss, or the specific weight-loss goal per month you set.

Many patients I have helped see the weight coming off, get excited, and think they should ramp up their efforts so that more weight is lost.

This is the complete opposite of what they should be doing, and I have to urge them to slow down and eat more to maintain their body weight during the weight maintenance months.

Thrilling as it may be to see weight rapidly coming off, you will not succeed if you do not follow this simple principle.

— The above is an edited extract from Interval Weight Loss by Dr Nick Fuller, Ebury Australia, RRP $32.99, out now.

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