Beyond Calories: How Your Body Defends Its Weight Set Point

Your body maintains a biological “set point” for weight, beyond calories, through powerful hormonal and neural feedback loops that make it resist weight loss at every level.

Your body's weight set point getty

Most people think of weight loss as a math problem: calories in versus calories out. In reality, your body sees it as a survival threat. When calorie intake falls or body fat decreases, biological defenses activate to preserve energy stores, increase hunger, and restore the lost weight. These systems evolved to protect you during famine and are not tuned to resist modern abundance. Understanding how they work explains why weight loss so often slows, plateaus, or rebounds despite consistent effort.

This article is part of a five-part Forbes Health series exploring the biological s