A lot of noticeable things occur when you lose weight – your stomach becomes flatter, your clothes fit better, and you feel more energetic. But do you know what really happens inside your body when you drop weight?
Well, a whole lot.
And many of these significant changes start to occur sooner than you think. As a matter of fact, just 10 pounds of weight loss can jump-start many bodily shifts and changes toward better health.
In this article, we will briefly explain what’s actually occurring in your body during the initial stages of weight loss and the advantages of shedding 10 pounds to help you understand the biology of weight loss.
Your fat cells
You gain weight when you consume more calories than the amount your body needs to perform its essential functions. These excess calories are converted to fat and stored in your adipose cells for future use in the event of a shortage. This function illustrates our internal survival mechanism for famine and unreliable food sources.
When there’s no shortage of food, and you keep consuming more calories than you need, you will store more and more fat in your adipose (fat) cells, which start to become bigger and bigger. This phenomenon explains why your jeans appear to get smaller when you are gaining weight.
The exact opposite occurs when you begin to lose weight
Joseph Houmard, a kinesiology professor at East Carolina University, says,
“Dieting produces a condition of negative energy balance, where energy in is less than energy expended. The body must then use stored energy to survive, which primarily comes from our fat cells.”
He continues,
“With this ‘stress’ of negative energy balance, hormones in the bloodstream magnify the ability of the fat cells to release stored fat to be used for energy in other tissues.”
As this occurs, your adipose cells reduce in size – and your jeans appear to become bigger and bigger.
However, this does not occur instantly. According to a 2014 research review published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the body mainly burns stored protein and carbohydrates and a large amount of water during the initial stages of weight loss.
This initial stage can last for many days or even weeks until your body starts to burn fat for energy. For those who lose weight on a low-carb diet, such as Ideal Protein, this initial stage is much shorter, and fat-burning results come more quickly. Theoretically, your fat conserving adipose cells should start shrinking by the time you lose 10 pounds, meaning that you will begin to notice changes whenever you look in the mirror.
Your blood pressure
Aside from being able to put on skinny jeans, another critical difference you will start making by losing 10 pounds and more is elevating your heart health.
According to Mayo Clinic, being overweight raises the volume of blood your body needs to circulate through the blood vessels, which increases the pressure on the arteries. With time, this high blood pressure can cause the arteries to become narrow and harden, affecting their ability to carry oxygenated blood away from the heart. These changes raise the risk of having a stroke, heart attack, and cardiovascular disease.
The great news is that the volume of blood you must circulate through your body reduces pretty quickly when you start losing.
“The efficiency of weight loss is quite remarkable, with as little as 2 pounds of weight loss producing a one-point drop in blood pressure. Thus, relatively modest amounts of weight loss in the range of 4 to 8 pounds can decrease blood pressure by 3 to 8 points, which is significant in terms of reducing risk for heart disease and other conditions,”
– says Houmard.
More remarkably, patients on Ideal Protein typically see their blood pressure medication dose being lowered within the first 3-4 weeks on Phase 1.
How weight loss helps lower blood pressure is a bit complicated but is more simply stated as stabilizing fluctuating hormones, improving kidney function, and reducing pressure on the heart.
Your hormone levels
Hormones are the “Uber” of your body. They relay chemical messages throughout the blood and tissues that impact functions such as your metabolism, reproduction, mood, sexual function, growth, and development.
But according to Harvard Health Publishing, excess body fat affects the proper functioning of hormones, and the processes they influence, which are essential for health.
A lot of research, including a 2012 study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, has indicated that being obese or overweight can raise a woman’s risk of developing hormone-receptive breast cancer. Although the connection is not well understood, it may be due to increases in levels of hormones, like estrogen, that come with excess weight.
Estrogenically active fat is attributed as a causative factor in breast cancer. If those 10 pounds of weight a woman lost was fat that produced estrogen, then hormonal levels will decrease when that fat is lost. This is why weight loss is recommended to reduce the risk of breast cancer.
Shedding weight can help regulate hormone levels very quickly. In a 2012 study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, researchers found that the women dropped 10% of their body weight during the one-year trial and that markers of estrogen-like hormones and testosterone reduced by approximately 10-26%.
Combining exercise yield better results
And how the women dropped the weight – whether through diet or a combination of exercise and diet– impacted the results. Women who dieted and exercised regularly experienced a significant reduction in the levels of potentially risky hormones. In other studies, it is also shown that fat loss is beneficial for cancer survivors. In a study presented at the 36th Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium (SABCS), postmenopausal cancer survivors lost an average of 44 pounds who were put on Ideal Protein. For these postmenopausal women, weight loss is essential because it’s associated with increased breast cancer-free survival and overall survival.
Your hunger
Even though possibly harmful levels of certain hormones change positively, unfavorable hormonal changes can also occur. These can impact your ability to drop 10 pounds and keep off the weight. From an evolutionary standpoint, the human body is “configured” to store fat in case of a shortage. Our bodies tend to adapt to a calorie deficit to maintain homeostasis and preserve the fat stores.
To maintain the present conditions, ghrelin levels (an appetite-stimulating hormone) in the body go up, whereas the levels of leptin (an-appetite suppressing hormone) reduce. These changes in hormone levels can persist even after you have attained your weight-loss goal, making it hard for you to maintain your new weight. Hunger itself is not a bad sign, and if the desire is met with nutritious and proportionate food, it won’t derail your success.
Your muscles
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), your body will adjust if you lose 10 pounds of your weight with the help of exercise.
At BioIntelligent Wellness, we educate our clients that HOW you lose weight is sometimes more important than how much you lose. Clients who lose weight following an adequate protein approach, like on the Ideal Protein protocol, maintain their lean mass (some even gain) while losing weight. This change in muscle mass is vital as it’s the basis of your metabolism.
Exercise alone can produce results, but movement while losing is even better. When you start a new exercise regimen, you are more likely to get quick results in fat loss and muscle gain. This initial change is because your body’s starting place is that of not being conditioned. Therefore, because of this inefficiency, you need to work harder, and you will expend more calories than a person who is more conditioned in doing the same activity.
The good thing here is you are becoming fitter, and the bad thing is you will need to gradually increase your workout’s intensity, frequency, and duration to keep getting results.
Your sleep
According to the authors of a review published in Nature of Science and Sleep, being overweight raises your odds of having a sleep problem. Having a sleep disorder can increase your chances of becoming overweight.
The great news is, just 10 pounds of weight loss can make you sleep better and improve your risk factors for obesity. In a study conducted by researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, seventy-seven participants who were either obese or overweight and had different sleep disorders were classified into two groups – (i) one followed a weight-loss diet, (ii) the other adopted a weight-loss diet along with exercise.
It was found that both groups dropped 15 pounds and 15% of their abdominal fat after six months, and consequently, the sleep score of both groups increased by around 20%. So, losing just 10 pounds can help you sleep better.
If you would like to learn more about the other potential benefits you could see from dropping those 10 pounds, please schedule a complimentary consultation and see how Ideal Protein can offer you the fastest path to wellness and your weight loss goals.
