When trying to lose weight, we often hear people say, “Well, it simply takes somebody a shorter time to gain weight, but a longer time to lose it,” or, “You didn’t gain the weight overnight, so you can’t expect to lose it overnight.”
On the surface, this does seem true. But there are other reasons for the differences in the speed of gaining weight versus the speed of losing it, other than “just because.”
According to the Texas Heart Institute,
"In adults, the major bulk of adipose tissue (“fat”) is a loose association of lipid-filled cells called adipocytes. Fat cells grow larger than their original size when they fill with lipids, which are a group of fat and fat-like substances, including cholesterol. When our adipocytes fill with lipids and reach a critical size, young, unspecialized cells in our bodies are stimulated to turn into more fat cells, increasing the number of fat cells as a result. So we really have two mechanisms that increase our weight. We can enlarge our existing fat cells, and we can add more fat cells, but we cannot get rid of them."
What this means is that, when we start losing weight, we will have to battle more fat cells than we’d had before we gained the weight we want to lose. This is one reason why yo-yo dieting can set us up for failure.*
Overall, the best way to lose weight and keep it off is to fully commit to a healthy lifestyle. If we look at weight loss from this theory, then losing weight, then gaining weight, then losing again, and then gaining weight back again has the potential to create more of an uphill battle each time we start again**. This concept becomes more important when we look at fad diets, because research has shown that fad diets not only prevent us from succeeding long-term, we will more than likely gain more weight than when we started out, making it that much harder to get back on track.
*When looking at the time difference in gaining and losing weight, other factors go into fat burning as well, such as nutrition, exercise effort, and, some experts say, genes.
**The research mentioned here does not imply that we should be discouraged to try again if we fall behind in our weight loss goals. This article is simply to point out the value in consistency.
From the personal training staff: John Rutan, Don Moore, JB Baier, Victoria Young, Allison Worley, Julie O’Connor, Michelle Dwyer, Brendi Middleton, Mike Stuchl, Lois Johnson, Rachelle Jensen, and Byron Goff. Questions about personal training? Visit our website or email John Rutan at
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