On the other end of the spectrum, the amount that your body will fight back against when it comes to fat loss is also very dependent on you and your genetics, much in the same way as your genetics determine how much your body fights against weight gain. Some people will lose weight very easily when underfed, not really feeling any negative effects, but some people can find it a lot more difficult. Unfortunately, as we have said, the mechanisms for resisting weight loss are a lot more effective than those resisting gain because famine has been a part of our evolutionary history for millions of years, since we resembled fish and even further beyond that. Place an efficient mechanism for resisting weight loss in an environment which almost encourages overeating and not moving and you have a problem.
The things which happen to resist weight loss include:
This last factor is theoretically the greatest reason for the difference in weight loss between individuals, but fortunately it can be fought back against in ways which we’ll talk about in the module on tracking and measuring. For now, the simplest way to fight back against the fight back, is to control the magnitude of your surplus or deficit.
If nothing else, we hope this section goes some way to showing that those who are overweight, while they can indeed do something about it, aren’t just ‘greedy and lazy’, which is how it is often put forward.