http://news.yahoo.co...enforthehealthy

The effects of a sedentary, gluttonous lifestyle are hard to shake, even after the person has become an upstanding, healthy individual, a new Swedish study suggests.

Researchers found that even a short period of overeating and a lack of exercise can have lasting effects on a person's physiology and make it harder to lose weight and keep it off.

Eighteen healthy people of normal weight were given the arduous task of limiting their physical activity (to no more than 5,000 steps a day) and increasing their food intake for four weeks. The participants in this so-called intervention group ate 70 percent more food, for a total of about 5,753 calories a day, over the study period.

At the study's start, the participants, whose average age was 26, had to be willing to gain between 5 percent and 15 percent of their weight in the name of science.

A second, control group ate and exercised as they normally would.

The couch-potato group added 14 pounds (6.4 kilograms) on average, with gains in both their body fat and their fat-free body mass. Six months after the group was allowed to go back to eating normally and exercising, they lost 71 percent of the gained weight, on average. [7 Diet Tricks That Really Work]

However, one year after the study period, those individuals still had more body fat than they did at the study's start.

For instance, compared with a baseline of about 20 percent body fat by weight, the gluttonous group had about 24 percent six months after the study period. And after a year, almost half of the body-fat increase was still there. Their fat-free body mass had dropped to baseline values by then.

The difference between the groups was even greater after 2.5 years, when participants in the overeating group showed a gain of 6.8 pounds (3.1 kg) from the baseline. Meanwhile, the control group didn't show any significant weight gain.

"The long-term difference in body weight in the intervention and control groups suggests that there is an extended effect on fat mass after a short period of large food consumption and minimal exercise," said study researcher Åsa Ernersson of Linköping University in Sweden.

The research was funded by the University Hospital of Linköping Research Funds, Linköping University, Gamla Tjänarinnor, Medical Research Council of Southeast Sweden, and the Diabetes Research Centre of Linköping University. The results will be published in an upcoming issue of the journal Nutrition & Metabolism.

I think just from what I've seen from my own life this is pretty accurate. Given, I haven't been consistent enough to completely take off the weight over a long period of time, but have found that it doesn't take very long for me to gain the weight back. I've often wondered if after a certain period of time of living at a certain weight, your body develops a "set point" sort of a new baseline weight that it will always revert back to, and it will take years and years of getting to and managing a lower weight for your body to correct to the new baseline.

A good read is Covert Bailey "The Ultimate Fit or Fat" Bailey explains the vicious cycle thing very well, tells that diets still don't work, and even explains the setpoint thing. I have the book previous to that one, The New Fit or Fat" They were written about 10 yrs apart.

He says the setpoint is changed with aerobic exercise as is you chemistry to burn fat..no surprise there. But we have to do it for the rest of our lives.

Takes about 3 days to read and very worthwhile.

Tom

great

Kerrie that crazy girl!

I don't know either... I would guess it is probably an epigenetic shift.  You are born with certain genes, but the way they operate (protein expression) can be changed over your life due to environmental and other factors.  So it's possible your genes are basically being reprogrammed to keep your body fat based on whatever you are eating or whatever your level of physical fitness is.

Nice to know that there might be hope that you can "reprogram" your body. This is obviously why so many people get discouraged and end up gaining the weight back. They may be battling genetic factors that can make it all that harder to keep the weight off. Hence why it is so important to stress this is a lifestyle change, and if we really want to get in the best shape we can and stay in that shape, we can't revert back. Short-term Diets don't work, because they are fundamentally in opposition to the research we're seeing.

Set-Point Theory

•    According to the set-point theory, there is a control system built into every person dictating how much fat he or she should carry – a kind of thermostat for body fat. Some individuals have a high setting, others have a low one. According to this theory, body fat percentage and body weight are matters of internal controls that are set differently in different people.
•    The set-point theory was originally developed in 1982 by Bennett and Gurin to explain why repeated dieting is unsuccessful in producing long-term change in body weight or shape. Going on a weight-loss diet is an attempt to overpower the set point, and the set point is a seemingly tireless opponent to the dieter.
•    The ideal approach to weight control would be a safe method that lowers or raises the set point rather than simply resisting it. So far no one knows for sure how to change the set point, but some theories exist. Of these, regular exercise is the most promising: a sustained increase in physical activity seems to lower the setting (Wilmore et al. 1999).
•    According to the set-point theory, the set point itself keeps weight fairly constant, presumably because it has more accurate information about the body’s fat stores than the conscious mind can obtain. At the same time, this system pressures the conscious mind to change behavior, producing feelings of hunger or satiety. Studies show that a person’s weight at the set point is optimal for efficient activity and a stable, optimistic mood. When the set point is driven too low, depression and lethargy may set in as a way of slowing the person down and reducing the number of calories expended.
•    The set point, it would appear, is very good at supervising fat storage, but it cannot tell the difference between dieting and starvation. The dieter who begins a diet with a high set point experiences constant hunger, presumably as part of her body’s attempt to restore the status quo. Even dedicated dieters often find that they cannot lose as much weight as they would like. After an initial, relatively quick loss, dieters often become stuck at a plateau and then lose weight at a much slower rate, although they remain as hungry as ever.
•    Dieting research demonstrates that the body has more than one way to defend its fat stores. Long-term caloric deprivation, in a way that is not clear, acts as a signal for the body to turn down its metabolic rate. Calories are burned more slowly, so that even a meager diet almost suffices to maintain weight. The body reacts to stringent dieting as thought famine has set in. Within a day or two after semi-starvation begins, the metabolic machinery shifts to a cautious regimen designed to conserve the calories it already has on board. Because of this innate biological response, dieting becomes progressively less effective, and (as generations of dieters have observed) a plateau is reached at which further weight loss seems all but impossible.

Adapted from Integrative Group Treatment for Bulimia Nervosa by Helen Riess, M.D. and Mary Dockray-Miller Questions about this topic? Contact the Center for Health Promotion and Wellness

Unfortunately it's much easier to reprogram the body for higher weight than lower.  An interesting thing to determine would be why when someone diets and loses weight, the set point they return to often moves higher.  I doubt it can all be put to muscle loss as there's no way I have less muscle after doing bfl than before but set point creeps up almost every time I stop.