The difficulty of many obese people is not that of losing weight, as many can suppose: there are people with overweight and obesity problems who manage to lose even many kilos successfully, for example fifteen or twenty. On the contrary, the big obstacle for those who tend to gain weight is not to regain the lost weight but to continue to lose weight. But how to keep the right weight forever, without having the fear of becoming obese or worse, gaining even more weight? This is what the researchers of the University of Copenhagen wondered who then studied the complex mechanisms by which our body can lose weight or gain or accumulate it with differences between subject and subject.
Here’s one thing they found: if those who lose weight manage to maintain the right weight for at least a year, the body will tend to stabilize towards this new weight, without trying to regain the lost kilos. In fact, starting from one year, hormones that inhibit appetite would naturally increase, counteracting the action of ghrelin, the main hunger hormone (which, on the contrary, would increase at the beginning and during the diet as an “alarm” response to our body to weight loss). The researchers found this on obese people who had managed to maintain the right weight after one year from the end of the diet: twelve months would therefore be the critical point to overcome if we want to be thin forever.