Many people trying to shed pounds have seen their diets stall after a certain amount of weight loss. A new study shows how the body’s metabolism slows as a way to balance the lower amount of calories that are consumed.
This “metabolic adaptation” is a response to weight loss by decreasing the resting metabolic rate — that is, the number of calories a person needs to keep critical systems functioning, such as the heart and the lungs.
“Metabolic adaptation during weight loss can make it harder for people to achieve their goals,” said the study’s first author, Catia Martins, an associate professor of nutrition science at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. “In this study we found people with more metabolic adaptation took longer to achieve their weight-loss goals.”
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Martins and her colleagues found that dieting took one day longer for every 10-calorie drop in resting metabolic rate.
“We had some women whose resting metabolic rate dropped by close to 700 calories, which means it would take them 70 more days, or about two months longer, to achieve their weight loss goals compared to someone with no metabolic adaptation at all,” Martins said.
