Buzz
Losing weight is a known challenge, but the real hurdle is maintaining that weight loss. Setting a target weight and adopting eating habits that align with that goal can create a clear path to steady progress. Here's why this approach works.
To grasp the flaws in the conventional dieting mindset, we spoke with two experts, Alan Aragon and Lou Schuler, authors of The Lean Muscle Diet.
An Introduction to NEAT
To understand why most diets don't work, Aragon and Schuler explain the concept of non-exercise adaptive thermogenesis, or NEAT for short:
Research on rapid weight gain is often overlooked in high-level studies. With few exceptions, this area has mostly been explored by high school football coaches, bodybuilding experts, and self-taught endocrinologists, or steroid enthusiasts. There's likely some overlap among these groups. In a landmark study, James Levine and his team at the Mayo Clinic deliberately overfed non-obese men by 1,000 extra calories daily for eight weeks. This is like adding four McDonald's hamburgers to your daily diet without altering anything else. A pound of fat holds 3,500 calories of stored energy, so basic math suggests that adding 7,000 calories per week, with no extra exercise, should lead to two pounds of fat. Over the course of eight weeks, that’s 16 pounds.
But that’s not what happened. A significant amount of calories were burned through a newly discovered process, named non-exercise-activity thermogenesis (NEAT) by Dr. Levine. NEAT includes any form of movement, conscious or unconscious, even something like tossing and turning in your sleep. Thanks to NEAT, participants only gained an average of 10 pounds.
But there's even more to the story. The range of NEAT responses was staggering. One participant burned an extra 692 calories while overeating, practically turning into a human hummingbird. His body did everything it could to keep his weight constant, even without any additional effort. If you think you're resistant to gaining weight (in bodybuilding, they call this a "hardgainer"), it’s likely not just in your head. You might be a NEAT powerhouse. On the other hand, one volunteer burned 98 fewer calories. His body seemed to slow down, making it easier for the excess calories to settle in and stay there.
So, how does NEAT affect dieting? Lou points out that it’s directly tied to the flaws in the typical way people approach dieting.
Imagine a fictional character named Dan, weighing 240 pounds, who decides it’s time for a change. Dan picks up a bestselling diet book (not one written by us), and commits to following the sample diet exactly. What he doesn’t know is that the sample diet only provides 1,300 calories a day—less than half of what he usually eats. He also hasn’t set a clear target weight. He just wants to lose weight as quickly as possible.
At first, the weight seems to melt off Dan—24 pounds in just six weeks. His wife jokes that he loses a pound every time he steps into the shower. In a month, Dan expects to be under 200 pounds for the first time since his freshman year in college.
But there’s something Dan doesn't realize: his diet has already started to fail. His constant hunger makes it harder to stick to the plan, and since he’s been over 200 pounds his entire adult life, his metabolism starts to push back. His NEAT has already dropped, and as he loses lean muscle mass, his resting metabolism slows down too. By the time Dan admits that he's no longer sticking to the diet, he’s gained back some of the weight, and his body is ready to put the rest back on—plus a few extra pounds. This is the inevitable result when you throw a firecracker into the hornet's nest of homeostasis.
Eating in a way that mirrors your target body weight ensures your diet remains naturally sustainable. As we've emphasized before, sustainability is key to long-term success.
How to Prevent a Drop in NEAT
Alternatively, Dan can set a target body weight, which will help him achieve better success, according to Schuler and Aragon.
Imagine Dan had set a specific goal of reaching 216 pounds—an ambitious but achievable 24-pound loss, which represents 10% of his starting weight. Let’s say he gave himself six months to reach this goal, rather than losing the weight accidentally in just six weeks. And let’s assume he followed a diet plan that was tailored to maintain this target weight once he hit it. The weight loss wouldn’t happen in a straight line; Dan might lose several pounds per week at first, but towards the end, the rate would slow down to less than a pound a week. However, once he reached 216 pounds, the likelihood of staying there would increase. His metabolism would adjust to the target weight as he neared it. Would Dan be happy at 216 pounds? We hope so. A 10% reduction is a significant achievement. Losing just 2 to 5 percent of body weight has been shown to improve blood pressure, blood sugar, and triglycerides, all key factors in Metabolic Syndrome. And nothing prevents him from losing more weight later on. But before worrying about further weight loss, he must first accomplish goal #1: make sure the weight he has already lost stays off.
Creating a Plan Based on Your Target Body Weight
So, how can we design a plan based on your target body weight?
First, determine your desired body weight and target body fat percentage.
Use this calculator to calculate the maintenance calories for your new target weight.
Next, set a realistic timeframe to reach that goal. Lou and Alan recommend allowing yourself six months for every 10% of body weight you want to lose.
Losing weight is only part of the challenge; the real test is keeping it off, and this is where many people fall short because their diets failed them. If your past weight loss journey sounds similar, show yourself some self-compassion, then try again with a more realistic timeline. By following the steps outlined above, you’ll not only reach your new body weight but also maintain it for good.
Images courtesy of Alan Cleaver, Mike Atkinson, and peterned.
