I love hearing from my donut gang sisters (join my community Here). Because I love chatting with these women, I am always sending out emails asking for their thoughts and questions. One thing most people mention is the struggle to accept the set point weight theory. After responding to so many emails about this, I decided it was time to write a post about it.

What is Your Set Point Weight

People tend to gravitate towards a certain weight range. God designed us this way; He created our bodies with mechanisms that maintain homeostasis (the ability or tendency to maintain internal stability in an organism to compensate for environmental changes). Part of homeostasis is our set point weight.

The regulation of our weight involves communication between our organs through chemicals in our blood. Simply put, our body has a weight range in which it is designed to function optimally. Our body will continuously fight to maintain that weight range.

Everyone has a set weight range that our bodies fight to stay in. Just as you have no control over your height, eye color or shoe size, you also have no control over your set point weight. Your body is biologically and genetically determined to weigh within a certain range.

Just as height varies between people, set point weight varies for each individual person as well. Scientists estimate that the average person has a set point range of about ten to twenty pounds. So, at any given time, there is a ten-to-twenty-pound range at which your body will be comfortable and not resist attempts to change.

Truly, the natural rhythm of weight fluctuation within ten to twenty pounds throughout the different seasons of the year (and the many seasons of life) is normal and healthy!

Finding Your Set Point Weight

There is no test available to tell you what set point weight God gave you. However, you can find your own set point through eating and exercising intuitively.

If you have spent years losing and gaining weight in the dieting cycle, your metabolism is probably stressed and confused. Please remember that it can take up to a year of normal eating for your body’s metabolism to function properly and restore your body to a weight range that is healthy for you.

Things to be Aware of as You Set Out to Find Your Set Point Weight

One of the first steps of eating intuitively is allowing all foods back into your diet. I often see two things happen with this step:

1. When we start eating all foods after years of deprivation, our natural response is to overindulge. This what I call the Honeymoon Phase of IE. We are finally allowed to eat the foods we desire, and we experience deprivation backlash where we just can’t get enough!
2. In the beginning of intuitive eating, many people still subconsciously hold on to a diet mindset. They are physically allowing previously restricted foods and eating behaviors, but they are still thinking that it is wrong. They’re afraid to get fat and are considering restricting again in the future. This phenomenon has been described as emotional deprivation. You may not actually be restricting, but you think you should be, and the response is last supper/binge-style eating.

Deprivation backlash combined with thoughts of future deprivation can lead to a phase of overeating, possibly binge eating and a time of weight gain. Notice I said a phase.  

An incredible transformation occurs after this initial phase of possible binge-eating and emotional deprivation plays out. As we strengthen our walk with Jesus and we let go of diet culture beliefs, our bodies and minds begin to heal. 

• We continue to allow foods and behaviors.
• We trust that food will always be available.
• We begin to honor our hunger and fullness.
• We will trust ourselves with food and stop feeling so out of control with it.

Finally, your body will settle in its sweet spot. Once you’ve learned to listen to your body’s signals of hunger and fullness and are honoring its need for movement and rest, your metabolism will return to optimal functioning. It revs up to compensate when you have extra calories and slows down when you have a day of not eating enough. Your body will settle within its comfortable weight range.  

https://youtu.be/RuCBeHnhQg0

Accepting Your Set Point Weight

Learning to accept the fact that your body needs to be at a certain weight is a good way to stop the vicious cycles of dieting. The more you try to go below your body’s set point range, the harder your body will fight to retain its natural weight.

Eating and exercising intuitively will allow your body stay at the weight it functions best. Knowing who you are in Christ is the key to accepting your body’s natural set point weight. You were created by God in His image on purpose and for a purpose. And I promise you that purpose is not manipulating your body size.

If you are having trouble accepting that your weight may not be the “ideal” weight you had in mind, sit down with the Holy Spirit and dig into the Word of God. Ask the questions:

• Who am I in Christ?
• What purpose does God have for me?
• What passions has God placed in my heart?
• Where does the Bible say I find my joy, peace, and happiness?
• What am I trying to achieve by reaching this “ideal” body?
• Do I really need the “ideal” body I have imagined to achieve God’s purpose for my life?

Our society is obsessed with thinness. As Christians, we must stop believing that thinness equals happiness. We have to remember that we are in this world but not of this world. Do you desire to serve the Lord or to appease our culture?