Homeostasis, or Set Points

I learned in high school biology that our bodies want to stay the way they are. They are very conservative, and it takes a lot of energy to knock us off our equilibrium. When pushed, the set point will move, but it will fight to get back to where it was.  This is true of respiration and heart rates, of blood sugar levels, of body temperature, and of course, body weight.

Here is a graph of my weight from June through the present. The little dots are my daily actual weights, and the darker line running through them is my weekly average. You can see the points line up, and how they often stay roughly the same for a while.

The horizontal grid lines are two pounds apart, and my digital scale reads in half pound increments, so the daily dots are going to be in similar spots. I've lost just about eight pounds since June. See how the downward trend resumes after the bump up at the beginning of September (my college trip, to Oberlin and Ann Arbor). The October stall would have been completely disheartening if it weren't for taking my averages, which showed very slight declines. My weight was varying in the same range, but over that time gradually the lower range was predominating. Finally the plateau gave way in November, and I lost another two pounds. I bounced up at Thanksgiving, but in this case my homeostasis is working in my favor - I didn't permanently gain that weight.

Now, I've got a little ski jump up, and it's time to have a serious week or two of exercise and mindful eating, to get that line back in control and wrestle down to a new set point.  It feels like I lose in spurts, the body rests in the new set point as if getting used to it for a couple or more weeks, then I can move that set point down again with another new effort.

I am still struggling with the winter doldrums. While I am doing specific exercise efforts, my overall calorie burn for each day is lower than I was seeing most days in the summer. It's as if I'm unconsciously staying as still as possible. I can emerge from my semi-hibernation with an act of will to perform a specific task - walk or gym visit or household chore - but afterwards, the body shuts down onto the couch again.  Just got to try to keep moving as much as possible.