
Episode #148: Leptin Resistance and The Rebound Effect
Feb 04, 2025
Summary
Have you ever lost a few pounds, felt great, and then found yourself slowly slipping back into old habits? It’s not just you—it’s your brain’s survival instincts at play. In this episode, we dive deep into The Rebound Effect, the sneaky cycle that keeps smart, successful women stuck in weight loss limbo. You’ll learn why your body resists change, the hormonal pathways that make weight loss feel harder, and the exact steps to break the cycle for good.
If you’ve ever wondered why losing weight feels easy until it doesn’t—this episode is for you. Buckle up, because we’re not just talking about mindset shifts. We’re getting into the science, the strategy, and the skills that will make lasting weight loss a reality.
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What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
- What The Rebound Effect is and why your brain resists weight loss after early success.
- How your hunger hormones can work against you and what to do about it.
- Why your body fights to stay at a certain weight and how to reset it.
- The compelling, convincing, and convenient reasons your brain gives you to go off plan.
- The exact words to use when your brain tries to talk you into ‘just a little’ indulgence.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Download the full transcript here.
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One of the concepts that has come up time and time again, and I wanted to record a whole episode on this topic is what I'll call the rebound effect. It's when you lose a little bit of weight, maybe a pound, five, 10 or 20, and then you start to notice that you have a lot of thoughts. Maybe thoughts like I'm doing so well, a little bit doesn't matter. It's okay to be flexible a little bit going off plan. Just a little bit is okay. I've already lost weight this week. I've already hit my goal. There's a myriad of thoughts that you might have when you have been having success. On the scale, either this week, this month, or in the last multiple months, and without realizing it, you might find yourself taking tiny little actions that undo some of your successes. There are many, many reasons that we do this, which is what we explore here on the burn stress, lose weight podcast. One of the most common ones, which we're not talking about today is your strategy sucks, so you don't actually want to do it. But the other reason this is what we're exploring today is because there is a very, very important part of your brain that does not actually want you to lose weight. Today on the podcast. We're actually going to be covering the physiology of what is leading to this effect, the hormone pathways that become dysregulated that's contributing to this. And then, of course, my process for how I recommend walking out of it. I'm going to be completely honest at the start of this episode.
Today's topic is not always going to feel easy to put into practice. It will be challenging. That's the entire purpose of why this can sometimes be really challenging. Why you might've experienced losing weight, but then gaining it back. Why that happens. So often too smart, resourceful, amazingly confident women, where you're hitting goals in so many areas of your life. Why is it that with weight loss specifically, we have this rebound effect. So if any part of this episode calls to you, if anything that I'm sharing with you feels like this is you, I just want you to know, I want to validate your experience. If this has been challenging, it's because it is challenging. And that's okay. So I want you to buckle up for today's podcast episode and just decide right now that you're willing to accept the challenge. Hey, unstoppable friend. You're listening to the Burn Stress, Lose Weight podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Priyanka Venugopal, a physician turned a stress and weight loss coach for professional working moms and the founder of the Burn Stress, Lose Weight, Feel Unstoppable small group coaching program. This podcast is going to inspire change at the root for you on and off the scale. I've lost a little over 60 pounds while being a busy physician mom with two young kids and an unpredictable schedule. And along my journey, which was full of many, many imperfect moments, I have learned how to skip past the fads and the gimmicks. I am on this mission now to share with you how you can have real strategy and mindset skills to really have more of the life you want that you have worked so hard for. Let's get into it. I'm going to start by painting a picture around what this shows. up like in your typical life. So maybe Monday through Friday, you have been really, I want to put this in air quotes, really good. You have been following the plan. You've been eating when you're hungry. You're stopping when you're not, you're eating high quality foods. You've taken a break from processed ultra refined foods, which we've talked about in so many other episodes of this. podcast, you are really focusing on taking care of your gut. You're feeling really great. And you're seeing results on the scale, right? When you follow the plan and you are doing amazing with following the plan, you might notice by Friday, you see the scale come down and then very normally on Friday afternoon or Saturday night, or maybe Sunday, your brain offers you some new thoughts, thoughts like we're doing so well. Or we already hit our goal this week, or we deserve to have a little bit of a break or a little bit doesn't matter. And when you aren't really conscious of these very autopilot thoughts that your brain offers to you, it's really normal that you might find yourself undoing those wins from the week. You might find yourself doing this again and again and again. So let me just start by saying that this is not a personal weakness of yours. This is not a sign from the universe around your capabilities of hitting your goal. Wait for your body. This is not the probability of your success this year. And it means very, very little about your discipline. It also means nothing is not a sign from the universe that this is just something that you uniquely struggle with, that only you have a hard time with.
I promise you, this is something that affects all of us, when your body is losing weight, when you're burning fat, this is a very, very normal phenomenon. And I want to get into exactly why let's get into the science of this, the physiology, why does this happen? And the reason I really love to do this on this podcast, where I put on my physician hat and really walk through some of these hormone pathways with you is because when you can objectively understand what is happening in your brain and your body, it's so much easier, and it feels so much more powerful to take specific steps to address those actual issues. So at this point in the story, you have hit your goal for this week. Maybe you're down a pound, or you've hit your goal for the month, you're down five, or you're, you've hit your goal for the last multiple months, maybe you're down 20. And now you hear a highly, highly practiced, very habituated part of your primitive brain trying to offer you a story. And this part of your brain is. hormonally driven, it is simply trying to ensure your survival. I know that sounds crazy, but I want you to just stick with me. The fat stored on your body as much as you might have thoughts about it is literally the most precious resource that you have. And this stored energy is simply keeping resource for later when you might not have access to food or energy. This is because all human brains are calibrated for survival. It doesn't know that you have a Whole Foods down the road or an Uber Eats at your fingertips. When we weren't paying close enough attention for the past many years and likely decades, our very normally calibrated brain for survival started calling the shots and creating certain habits, particularly as you trudge through the most challenging seasons of your life, maybe school, professional school, in my case, residency and early attending life. Maybe having that first kid and then the second kid, and then wanting to make a name for yourself, be valued in your family or community. Your brain simply used food to feel better. To take a break from the stresses of your life, not just for fuel for your body, but to actually create little moments of joy, connection, and take a break from life stress. In those challenging and stressful seasons, your brain craved the highest dopamine hit foods, usually foods that were highly processed, ultra refined, that gave your brain the most endorphin release and were the quickest to grab. And so your brain learned some habits, that eating some foods, taking little snacks and licks and nibbles, simply gave you a break. It gave you a little boost of energy and in very little and some big moments, it was the most reliable way that you took care of yourself that you got to break from life stresses and that you create little moments of joy. When we repeat this behavior in little moments, day after day, when you eat more food than your body actually needs, it does exactly what it was designed to do. It stores that food for later. Now remember, your primitive brain doesn't actually realize that you're surrounded by grocery stores and Instacart and DoorDash. So every time you ate and snacked and nibbled a little bit here, a little bit there, more than your body actually needed, it did its very normal job of storing it for later in the form of fat. There are two very specific physiologic processes that I wanted to highlight so we understand why we ever have the rebound effect that so many of us experience. Process number one. Based on the types of foods that you have been eating or eating more food than your body actually needs, you might've developed some insulin and leptin resistance. Now, while there are hundreds and thousands of hormones that are playing a role in your body wellness, in your ability to lose weight and gain weight, your signaling to your brain, some of the most common hormones are insulin, leptin, and ghrelin. Leptin resistance is an important pathway. It doesn't really get very much airtime, but it is something that's super important to understand so we can understand why our brain creates a lot of compelling reasons to go off track. I want to say just one little caveat here. You might sometimes consider yourself as healthy simply because you're vegan or vegetarian. I know I used to do this. a lot. I think I'm eating pretty healthy. I'm vegetarian. I can't be eating that bad. But if you take a fine tooth comb over your nutrition and you really take a look at where processed foods and ultra refined foods have made their way into your kitchen, you might find how some of these nutritional decisions are actually impacting your hormone health. Here is why this matters. Leptin is a hormone that is primarily produced by the fat cells in your body. And it plays a critical role in the energy balance, specifically focusing on hunger and satiety and metabolism. It helps signal to your brain, specifically the hypothalamus, which is a part of your brain that controls many regulatory processes that you've eaten or gotten enough food. It's basically telling your brain we are satiated. We're good. We can stop now. And when your brain perceives satiety, it knows that it can stop eating. But over time, when you have been overeating in little moments for many years, or if your nutrition has a lot of processed and ultra refined foods, your body physiology is actually affected. The hormone pathways that guide natural hunger and satiety are actually affected. Again, this doesn't happen overnight or because you eat one cookie, right? This is little habits that have developed over years and over years, leptin and insulin resistance can develop. With leptin resistance, this means that even if you have eaten and consumed enough food for your body, your brain doesn't actually perceive that you're satiated. So you might start feeling hungry all the time, or you might feel like you're hungry, even though you've gotten enough food. And this makes overeating even more likely, which further contributes to more leptin resistance. Process number two, overeating, snacking, and of course, eating the processed foods is contributing to weight gain. And this leptin resistance, but there's another process that's happening here. Over time, as you slowly start to gain weight, your internal body set point, which is like a thermometer for your weight also starts to creep up. Now, what is your internal body set point? If you've never heard of this, it is basically a weight range that your brain perceives as normal. This body set point is influenced by genetics, by the types of food you eat, you've guessed it, processed and ultra refined foods. Absolutely affect your internal body set point. It is impacted by chronic stress. So seriously, yes, stress is deeply impacting your hormone health and your ability to lose weight and your body set point. It is impacted by a lack of proper sleep. And of course, sedentary lifestyle, but here's the problem. The way that our body has a really strong regulatory mechanism for things like our body temperature and our blood pressure and our heart rate, it has not developed a very sophisticated regulatory mechanism for our weight.
So over time, because of certain habits that we've been talking about on this episode, your internal body set point starts to increase. Maybe at one time, a long time ago, you were 120 and then it slowly crept up to 130 and then 140 and then 150. For me, my slow creep up got me to 200. And the unfortunate piece of this part of the process is that our brain When we have this low creep up over time starts to perceive that this is the normal range that we should stay at. For example, let's use a thermometer and your body temperature as an example. When your body feels cold, when you get cold, your brain senses that your temperature has dropped. And when it does this, you shiver. Your body shivers to try to warm you up. It shunts blood to your visceral organs, which is why your extremities get cold, your fingertips get cold, because there are strong regulatory mechanisms here to try to warm, warm you up, to get you back to your body's internal temperature that it considers normal. But the unfortunate truth with our internal body set point when it comes to our weight is we do not have such sophisticated regulatory mechanisms. So as your body weight crept up over time, again, through different habits, through the types of foods that we've been eating, it starts to perceive that this is the new normal. Our primitive brain is thinking the more that we store, the better. It's not considering that this might be physically uncomfortable for you, or that it might be contributing to other health problems or that you are not feeling comfortable in your skin or in your clothes. Your primitive brain is not thinking about any of these things as it allows its internal body set point to increase. So why does this level of detail matter? Why did I want to get into these two different processes, leptin resistance and an increasing internal body set point is because I want you to foresee how much. Sense it makes how hard your brain is going to fight to maintain a higher weight. So coming back to the story, when you lose that pound this week or multiple pounds this month, or maybe you've lost 10 or 20 pounds and you're feeling like you're almost at your goal. At some point along the way, your brain is going to say, what is going on? What is she doing? Is she okay? It will take into account that you're trying to drop weight and it does not perceive this as a good thing. This is when it will absolutely ramp up a lot of mental chatter. A lot of stories will come into your mind. You'll notice an uptick in your urges and cravings. Way more justifications will come into your consciousness to take you off plan, to take a little detour. And remember in those moments, those stories will feel very, very, very justified. This is what creates an. Ultimate rebound effect. Now, the truth is your brain over so many years has learned something. It's learned that food is a safe way. And it's a reliable way to take a break from the challenging season of your life to have little moments of connection and joy. Your brain has simply learned that food is a reliable way to do this. And by proxy, your brain has also subconsciously learned that. It's hard to have breaks without food. This is what leads to the very, very compelling, but I call three C story, a compelling, convincing, and convenient story to take you off track, to keep your status quo, to keep your internal body set point as high as possible. This survival mechanism. And remember all of our human brains are calibrated for survival is simply a very, very tricky and sneaky way to take your foot off the gas. So this is not a discipline problem or a capability problem or anything about your potential for success and losing weight. This is actually really addressable. And in my experience, when you don't really address the three C stories that your brain comes up with, you will find yourself on a very, very frustrating rollercoaster ride.
I also want to say one more caveat here. I think it is essential that you do know how to take your foot off the gas, how to be flexible, how to take a break from your weight loss or your body goal is really important to have that skillset. But I have often said that that in my opinion is an advanced skill before you learn how to take your foot off the gas, before you learn how to introduce flexibility and take breaks from your goal. I think the first much more important skillset is to create an incredible. Redible amount of self trust that you can keep your foot on the gas, even when you hit an obstacle, even when you experience a three C story, because when you learn how to overcome that moment, your confidence, your self confidence in hitting your goal is going to skyrocket. The other caveat here, this episode is like full of caveats, but I'm just here for it. So I hope that you're picking up what I'm putting down. The other caveat here is your plan cannot suck. You actually have to learn how to treat yourself really well in your weight loss journey. You have to know how to feel satisfied, how to not be hungry all the time, make sure that you're getting enough high quality nutrition, guilt free rest, play and movement, because it is near impossible to do the steps I'm about to share with you. If your plan sucks, I hope that you're laughing with me because I have talked with hundreds of women who wants to lose weight. They have a personal body goal, but so many times. The plan is ridiculous. I know this because I did it myself. So ask me how I know it's because I have done it myself. I've done the hundred calorie oatmeal packets and forcing myself to eat cottage cheese even when I hated it. I have been the person that felt guilty when I took breaks, felt worried about being hungry, worried that I was going to hit some personal Points allotment that I wouldn't be allowed to eat food later. I never actually planned for fun or rest. So of course my brain stole it. Of course I went off track, right? This way of losing weight when you have a plan or a strategy that just is terrible is never, ever going to create the self trust you need to do the steps I'm about to share with you. So this is why making strategic decisions is essential in hitting your goal. Making key decisions around high quality nutrition, guilt free rest play in movement is going to train your brain that you are in fact, completely taken care of even being a busy professional woman with kids and with time responsibilities and all kinds of things on your to do list. There has to be a level of self trust that you are going to take care of yourself and you don't need food or alcohol to take the break for you. This is the very first domino that really helps knock down all the dominoes because another part of your brain is going to start to realize Oh, when I do the steps, which I'm about to tell you in just a minute, she's taking care of me. It's not a lie. It's not a platitude. It's for real. So the invitation here is that you have to put an effort for this to work, because if you don't, no one else will.
So here's how I recommend walking out of the rebound effect. If you have ever experienced it. And I'm guessing many of you have, because I know I have how to walk out of having the rebound effect. affect your weight loss journey. Let's come back to the story. Maybe you've lost that pound this week, or you've lost multiple pounds this month, or you're almost near your goal weight, wherever you're at, you have lost some weight and now your brain offers you a very, very compelling, convincing, and convenient sentence. You hear yourself thinking you've been so good. Just take a break, just do whatever you can afford to go off plan in this moment. Do not go on autopilot. You have to have a script that you can believably tell yourself to respond to your three C story. Here's an example of what this looks like. First check in with your gut and make sure that you actually feel satisfied. And then you can, with honesty, you respond to that very dramatic story. That's encouraging you to go off plan. Tell yourself something like, I promise I'm taking good care of you. If you're hungry, I promise we will eat. You don't have to worry because we don't have to steal breaks fun anymore. We have a plan for that. We will reassess this exact strategy at the end of the week, but for today we are sticking with it. And then friends do what you planned. Do not change your plan on a whim in the moment because it is the reason that you're having the rebound effect. Now, if this seems rigid. It's because it kind of is, it is actually creating very firm boundaries with the most primitive part of your brain, like the way you would with a toddler. And when you have a strategy that you trust, that is really addressing rest and play and movement. And of course. course, high quality nutrition, responding to that three C story and sticking to what you said, isn't deprivation or restriction. It is simply a very neutral boundary. And over time, what this does is it retrains your brain to really see that you are in fact completely okay with losing weight and lowering your internal body set point. I want to take just a minute because I would be remiss if I did not mention GLP1 agonists here, which are known to help with the mental chatter and some of these three C stories that I'm talking about. GLP1 agonists can absolutely improve the mental chatter that you experience or just cravings to snack and nibble. And yes, it can improve leptin resistance by enhancing the signaling pathways of your brain to receive the signal from leptin. For some women, this can be an extremely helpful tool that addresses what we are talking about today. But before you go and put yourself on medication, Or if you're already on a GLP1 agonist, I really recommend that you do this work alongside, make sure that you love your strategy. Start to hear your three C story, which is very normal because of your survival calibrated brain. Don't make yourself wrong for having urges and cravings and dramatic reasons to go off plan, but remember to thrive, to hit your goal with a lot more power, really decide to put in that effort. Catching that three C story and responding to it, have your script ready and stick to the plan. Like you said, you would now, just like I said, at the start of today's episode, this will not always be easy, but it is simple. And with practice and persistence and allowing there to be imperfect moments and getting back on, like you never left off. Just the act of that and doing it again and again, and again, we'll rewire your brain. You're going to teach your brain that this is possible for you, that old patterns and old habits are breakable. And that's what Unstoppable is really all about what we're doing here on this podcast. What I love doing with my clients in the Unstoppable group is not to just do the work when it's easy, because if that was the case, then we would all already do it, but to lean in from a place of empowerment when it feels a little bit tough. I hope that you enjoyed today's podcast episode and found it both informative and inspiring. And if you did, I would absolutely love it if you could copy the link to this specific episode and share it with a friend or a local Facebook group where you know that other women can benefit from what we are talking about here. And to put the cherry on top of this Already very delicious cake. I would absolutely love it if you could leave an honest rating and a review of this podcast, because it really does help this show become a more findable by other professional women who can benefit, it just takes 10 seconds and it is a huge help to me.
Thank you all my unstoppable friends. I hope you have an amazing week. And I will see you at the next one. Bye. Thanks for spending this time with me on the Burn Stress Lose Weight podcast today. I hope that you are leaving today's podcast episode feeling a little lighter and more inspired than when we started. It turns out that you don't need to have a stress free life to hit your goals on and off the scale. But when you feel more empowered to respond to your real life stresses with true strategy. We will game change how we show up and how we hit our goals. If you want to take what you're learning here on the podcast and put it into real life implementation, it might be time for us to work together in the Burn Stress, Lose Weight, Feel Unstoppable group coaching program, head over to burnstressloseweight.com. And you can learn all of the details, the nuts, the bolts, when the next group is starting and exactly how you can join. Okay, friend, I'll see you next time.