Weight Regain: Why It Happens and What To Do About It

Has your weight fluctuated over the years? Is it hard to stay on track and motivated? Ever lose weight only to deal with weight regain months later?

It happens to the best of us.

After months of hard workouts and following a healthy diet you finally reached your weight loss goal!

However, after getting to that finish line you slowly start noticing the numbers going up on the scale.

Don't get down on yourself!

There are a number of reasons why weight regain happens, and there are ways you can quickly get back on track.

The trick is to figure out what is causing you to put the pounds back on, and then take steps to reclaim your fitness.

Here's what you need to know about weight regain.

Check out these 5 tips for keeping weight off after weight loss!

Why Weight Regain Happens

Loss of Motivation

It’s easy to be motivated at the beginning of a weight loss journey.

Most women will sit down and write up a plan that includes their workouts and nutrition with a clear achievement in mind.

And as the pounds melt away, this creates a positive feedback loop that pushes you even more towards these goals.

However, as you get closer to your goal weight and hit a weight loss plateau, this motivation starts to wane.

And then, when you finally reach your objective, you feel like there isn’t anything else left to do.

Losing this drive is what causes many women to regain the weight.

So what can you do to overcome this loss of motivation?

One of the best things you can do is find the right motivation and create new goals that aren’t necessarily weight-related, but will still allow you to maintain a high level of fitness.

These can be both performance-related or health-related goals.

Examples include:

Body Composition

Your body composition, specifically body fat percentage, may be more important than your overall weight.

So instead of only focusing solely on the scale, you can start monitoring your body fat percentage.

Body composition plays a huge role in your overall health.

Adding lean muscle mass through resistance training and a high-quality diet can help get you to a goal body fat percentage.

Health Markers

Keeping an eye on specific health markers will also keep you on track.

This includes monitoring blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood glucose levels.

Maintaining a healthy weight will go a long way in keeping these biomarkers at an ideal level.

Weight Lifting/Resistance Training Goals

Once you reach your goal weight, you can start focusing more on performance goals.

For example, you can try improving certain weight lifting objectives, like hitting a bench press or squat PR.

You can also try to increase reps of specific exercises, or make it a goal to get to the gym at least three times a week.

By focusing your attention on improving your overall fitness, the pounds will naturally melt away.

Endurance Goals

During your weight loss plan, you may have picked up on some new activities that you really enjoy.

If you love running, sign up for a 5K and aim for a goal time.

Or you could join a master's swim group and enter into some swim meets.

These types of activities will not only keep you motivated but will surround you with people that have similar goals.

Lack of Support

Speaking of surrounding yourself with like-minded, goal-driven people, a lack of support is another reason a lot of women tend to regain weight.

Studies have found that both men and women are more likely to make a positive health behavior change if their partner does.

This means that involving your partner in healthy behavior changes can help you both improve your health.

Plus, research shows that having a workout buddy can actually make you both exercise more.

In one study, researchers at the University of Aberdeen asked half of the study participants to find a new ‘gym buddy' while the other half continued with their normal exercise routine.

The results showed that the group who found a new exercise partner exercised more than those who followed their regular exercise routine.

Having an exercise companion and exercising together seems to be beneficial for the promotion of emotional and social support.

Emotional support, in turn, promotes exercise by enabling better self-regulation, in particular self-efficacy.

This video will provide you with some tips on how to overcome a lack of support.

Negative Thoughts

Once you start regaining weight it can be hard to not let negative thoughts creep in.

Many women feel like they are destined to just be overweight and that “they have always been fat.”

These thoughts can lead to a negative self-fulfilling prophecy.

The trick is to not let these ideas change your outlook on how much you have achieved.

You did the hard part and lost the weight.

This proves that you have the will and power to achieve anything you put your mind to.

One way to refocus your self-perception is to try meditation and other mind-body techniques.

Reframing your thoughts can often be the first step to getting you back on track.

Biologic Factors

Many aspects of weight gain are related to things you can change, such as activity level or your mental outlook.

However, as women age, there are other biological factors that come into play that can cause them to gain weight.

Menopause/Decreased Estrogen Levels

When women hit menopause, estrogen levels fall and lean body mass decreases, something known as sarcopenia.

Even during perimenopause, or the period a few years prior to menopause, women will start to see declining estrogen levels.

Studies have shown that estrogen can increase the signaling power of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1).

This hormone is a major player in muscle synthesis, and its activation enhances muscle growth.

But getting older doesn’t have to mean losing muscle or gaining fat.

While estrogen replacement therapy may be a viable option in some women, this is something that must be discussed with your physician. There are always risks and benefits of starting hormone replacement therapy.

A safer approach is to increase physical activity.

Ongoing research supports the fact that exercise training is an effective approach to increase estrogen levels naturally.

Plus, resistance training has been found to be important in supporting muscle growth later in life by slowing the loss of muscle mass.

Lower Metabolism

Decreased testosterone levels go hand in hand with a lower metabolism.

Having a higher percentage of lean muscle mass is critical if you want to keep your metabolism revved up.

This allows your body to continue burning calories throughout the day, which will help you maintain a healthy weight.

Resistance training is one way to raise your metabolic rate by increasing muscle mass.

Another way is by adding high-intensity workouts.

Higher intensity exercises will force your body to continue to burn calories, even after the workout has ended.

This is called Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC).

So if you are short on time, the key is to really up the intensity.

This means that even a workout that is short in duration will be high in fat burning and will keep your metabolism running.

While both moderate intensity, continuous cardio and high-intensity intervals both produce EPOC, the benefit of intervals is that they can produce the same amount of EPOC in a shorter period of time.

Learn how you can start increasing your metabolism after 40!

How To Get Back On Track

Staying on top of your health and fitness can be tough for a busy dad that is juggling work, family, and hundreds of other responsibilities.

And if you start to regain weight after months of hard work you may feel like a failure.

But the truth is, your fitness journey was never meant to be for a few weeks or months.

Being in the best shape of your life is a lifelong commitment.

There are a lot of reasons why women regain weight, from psychological to physical.

Once you identify these barriers you can take the necessary steps to get you right back on track.

*Please know that weight loss results & health changes/improvements vary from individual to individual; you may not achieve similar results. Always consult with your doctor before making health decisions. This is not medical advice – simply very well-researched info on weight regain and why it happens.