Anyone who has been on a weight loss journey knows how frustrating the process can be. Losing weight often takes months of discipline, careful eating, and regular exercise, yet gaining it back can seem alarmingly easy. A few indulgent meals, some extra calories here and there, and suddenly the scale starts creeping up, making it feel as though all your hard work has been undone overnight. However, this frustrating imbalance is not a flaw in your body – it is actually how your body is designed to function.
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Chennai-based fitness coach with 18 years of experience, Raj Ganpath – founder of the Slow Burn Method, co-founder and head coach at Quad Fitness, and author of Simple, Not Easy – is breaking down why weight loss feels so hard, but on the other hand, weight gain is as simple as eating cake (quite literally!). In an Instagram video shared on June 23, the fitness coach highlights, “You know what’s not fair? It is so hard to lose weight, but it is so easy to gain weight. Why does this happen? Well, because of imbalanced extremes and it is by design.”
“It is much easier to increase consumption”
According to Raj, the principle is fairly straightforward: if you want to lose weight, you need to consume fewer calories than you burn, and if you want to gain weight, you need to eat more calories than your body uses. However, while this sounds simple in theory, it is often much easier to increase your food intake than it is to consistently restrict your diet.
He explains, “Let’s say you’re eating 2,000 calories every day right now. If you have to reduce it by 500 calories, it’s possible, but it’s hard. If you have to reduce it by 1,000 calories, it is extremely hard. You’re going to be depriving yourself. But let’s say you want to increase it by 500 calories. Easy. Just an extra slice of cake. Increase it by 1,000 calories. Still definitely possible. No problem. Clearly, it is much easier to increase consumption than it is to restrict consumption.”
Burning calories is harder
Similarly, when it comes to calories burned, increasing energy expenditure requires consistent exercise and physical effort, which can be difficult to maintain over time. On the other hand, reducing the number of calories you burn simply involves lowering your activity levels – a change that is often far easier to make.
Raj explains, “Let’s say you are burning 2,000 calories every day, including exercise and walking. And you want to reduce that by 500 calories. Easy. Just don’t exercise. Now, let’s say you want to reduce that by 1,000 calories. Still very possible. Don’t exercise, don’t walk, just lie on, watch reels, watch a movie. But if you want to increase the amount of calories you’re burning by 500, it becomes really hard because you have to do this on top of exercise and walking. Now let’s say you have to increase it by 1,000 calories, it becomes almost impossible for most people.”
The fitness coach sums it up, highlighting, “Clearly it is much easier to reduce energy expenditure than it is to increase energy expenditure. Now when you put these two things together it is very clear that for your body it is easy to consume and accumulate energy and hard to expend energy. And this is why it is so hard to lose weight but so easy to gain it.”
Why is the body designed this way?
Raj explains the body’s energy consumption and expenditure through an evolutionary lens. “If it were easy to expend energy and hard to consume and accumulate energy, we would not be alive today. From an evolutionary perspective, your body simply wants to keep you alive. So, by making it easy for you to consume and accumulate energy, it is risking obesity and metabolic disease. But if it made it easy for you to expend energy, it would be risking death, and that is not good news,” he points out.
While this design might not be ideal for those trying to manage their weight, it is simply your body’s survival instinct at work. Raj emphasises that the only way to lose weight and stay healthy in the long term is to work with your body rather than against it. Making small, sustainable changes and staying consistent over time is the key.
Note to readers: This article is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice. It is based on user-generated content from social media. HT.com has not independently verified the claims and does not endorse them.
