A lot of remarkable things happen when you lose weight: your clothes fit better, you have more energy, and you may even feel more confident. But what is actually happening inside your body when the number on the scale goes down? Many things. And these positive changes could start sooner than you think. In fact, losing 5 pounds alone, especially if you're overweight, can jump-start a whole host of bodily changes toward better health.
Fully understanding the biology of weight loss would not take too long and many hours in college. To take the hassle out of signing up, here's a brief explanation of what's really going on in your body during the early stages of weight loss and the benefits of losing 5 pounds.
your fat cells
You gain weight when you eat more calories than your body needs to support its basic functions—think breathing and digestion, as well as exercise. Your body converts these excess calories into fat and stores it in your fat cells for later use, should there be a shortage.
When that shortage doesn't arrive, and you continue to exceed your caloric needs, more and more fat is stored in your cells, which begin to grow larger and larger. This is the reason why your pants seem smaller and smaller.
But when you start to lose weight, the opposite happens.
Dieting produces a condition of negative energy balance, where energy is less than energy expended. The body must use stored energy to survive, which comes mainly from our fat cells. Under this 'stress' of negative energy balance, hormones in the bloodstream increase the ability of fat cells to release stored fat for use as energy in other tissues.
As this happens, your fat cells shrink, and your pants seem to get bigger.
However, this does not happen immediately. According to the authors of a review, published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in March 2014, during the initial stage of weight loss, the body primarily burns stored carbohydrates and protein, as well as a considerable amount of water. This early phase lasts several days or weeks, until the body switches to burning fat for energy. However, you can expect your fat cells to start shrinking by the time you lose 5 pounds, which means you'll start to notice mirror changes.
your blood pressure
Beyond being able to wear skinny jeans, one of the biggest reasons for losing 5 pounds or more is heart health.
Being overweight increases the volume of blood your body must carry through your blood vessels, which increases the stress on your arteries. Over time, high blood pressure can lead to narrowing and hardening of the arteries, affecting your ability to carry fresh, oxygenated blood to your heart. This increases the risk of heart attack, stroke, and heart disease.
The good news is that your blood volume drops pretty quickly when you start to lose weight. The efficiency of weight loss is quite remarkable, with just 1 kilo of loss there is a drop of one point in blood pressure. Therefore, relatively modest amounts of weight loss in the 3 to 5 pound range can lower blood pressure by 3 to 8 points, which is significant in terms of reducing the risk of heart disease and other conditions.
The way that weight loss lowers blood pressure is complex. It has to do with a combination of changing hormones, better kidney function, and decreased stress on the heart.
your hormone levels
Hormones are the Uber of your body. They carry chemical messages through the bloodstream and tissues that affect things like metabolism, growth and development, reproduction, sexual function, and mood. But excess body fat can affect the normal functioning of hormones and affect processes that are crucial to health.
A large body of research, including a study published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology in July 2012, has shown that being overweight or obese can increase a woman's risk of breast cancer receptive to hormones. According to BreastCancer.org, the association is not fully understood, but is likely due to increases in hormones, including estrogen, which occur with excess weight.
Estrogenically active fat is linked to breast cancer. If the fat a woman lost was estrogen-producing fat, then hormone levels will drop when that fat is lost. That is why losing weight is recommended to reduce the risk of breast cancer.
Losing weight can help normalize hormone levels quite quickly. In the 2012 Journal of Clinical Oncology study, women lost 10% of their body weight during the 12-month trial, and markers for several estrogen-like hormones, as well as testosterone, decreased by 10-26%. .
Interestingly, whether the women lost weight through diet alone or through a combination of diet and exercise affected the results. Women who dieted and participated in regular exercise had a much greater decrease in potentially risk hormones.
your appetite
However, not all are good news. Although potentially dangerous levels of some hormones change favorably, other unfavorable hormonal changes can occur, which can affect your ability to lose 5 pounds and then keep it off. Humans are programmed to store body fat in case of famine. Our bodies tend to adjust to a calorie deficit in an effort to maintain homeostasis and conserve fat reserves.
To maintain the status quo, appetite-stimulating hormone levels rise ghrelin, while the levels of Leptin it suppresses the appetite. These hormonal changes can persist even after you've reached your goal, making it difficult to maintain weight loss.
your muscles
If you lose 5 kilos with the help of exercise, your body will adapt. At the start of a new training plan, you are more likely to see rapid results in muscle gain and fat loss. Your body is less conditioned, so you have to work harder and you'll burn more calories than someone more used to doing the same activity.
The good news is that you are getting in shape; The bad news is that you will have to gradually increase the intensity, duration, and/or frequency of your workouts to continue to get results.
Your dream
Being overweight increases the chances of having a sleep disorder, and having a sleep disorder increases the chances of being overweight.
The good news is that losing those extra pounds can improve sleep along with obesity risk factors. In a 2012 study conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, 77 volunteers who were overweight or obese reported different sleep disorders and were divided into two intervention groups: a weight-loss diet or a weight-loss diet. lose weight with exercise.
After six months, both groups had lost 7 pounds and 15% of their belly fat. As a result, both groups improved their overall sleep score by approximately 20%. Based on those findings, losing even 5 pounds can help you sleep much more soundly.