As we enter a new year armed with resolutions to improve our lives, there’s a good chance we’ll also be carrying something less helpful: extra kilos. At least half a kilogram, to be precise.

“Weight creep” doesn’t have to be inevitable. Here’s what’s behind this sneaky annual occurrence and some practical steps to prevent it.

Small gains add up

Adults tend to gain weight progressively as they age and typically gain an average of 0.5 to 1kg every year.

While this doesn’t seem like much each year, it amounts to 5kg over a decade. The slow-but-steady nature of weight creep is why many of us won’t notice the extra weight gained until we’re in our fifties.

Why do we gain weight?

Subtle, gradual lifestyle shifts as we progress through life and age-related biological changes cause us to gain weight. Our:

• activity levels decline. Longer work hours and family commitments can see us become more sedentary and have less time for exercise, which means we burn fewer calories
• diets worsen. With frenetic work and family schedules, we sometimes turn to pre-packaged and fast foods. These processed and discretionary foods are loaded with hidden sugars, salts and unhealthy fats. A better financial position later in life can also result in more dining out, which is associated with a higher total energy intake
• sleep decreases. Busy lives and screen use can mean we don’t get enough sleep. This disturbs our body’s energy balance, increasing our feelings of hunger, triggering cravings and decreasing our energy

• stress increases. Financial, relationship and work-related stress increases our body’s production of cortisol, triggering food cravings and promoting fat storage
• metabolism slows. Around the age of 40, our muscle mass naturally declines, and our body fat starts increasing. Muscle mass helps determine our metabolic rate, so when our muscle mass decreases, our bodies start to burn fewer calories at rest.

We also tend to gain a small amount of weight during festive periods – times filled with calorie-rich foods and drinks, when exercise and sleep are often overlooked. One study of Australian adults found participants gained 0.5 kilograms on average over the Christmas/New Year period and an average of 0.25 kilograms around Easter.

Why we need to prevent weight creep

It’s important to prevent weight creep for two key reasons:

1. Weight creep resets our body’s set point

Set-point theory suggests we each have a predetermined weight or set point. Our body works to keep our weight around this set point, adjusting our biological systems to regulate how much we eat, how we store fat and expend energy.

When we gain weight, our set point resets to the new, higher weight. Our body adapts to protect this new weight, making it challenging to lose the weight we’ve gained.

But it’s also possible to lower your set point if you lose weight gradually and with an interval weight loss approach. Specifically, losing weight in small manageable chunks you can sustain – periods of weight loss, followed by periods of weight maintenance, and so on, until you achieve your goal weight.

2. Weight creep can lead to obesity and health issues

Undetected and unmanaged weight creep can result in obesity which can increase our risk of heart disease, strokes, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and several types of cancers (including breast, colorectal, oesophageal, kidney, gallbladder, uterine, pancreatic and liver).

A large study examined the link between weight gain from early to middle adulthood and health outcomes later in life, following people for around 15 years. It found those who gained 2.5 to 10kg over this period had an increased incidence of type 2 diabetes, heart disease, strokes, obesity-related cancer and death compared to participants who had maintained a stable weight.

Fortunately, there are steps we can take to build lasting habits that will make weight creep a thing of the past.

7 practical steps to prevent weight creep

1. Eat from big to small

Aim to consume most of your food earlier in the day and taper your meal sizes to ensure dinner is the smallest meal you eat.

A low-calorie or small breakfast leads to increased feelings of hunger, specifically appetite for sweets, across the course of the day.

We burn the calories from a meal 2.5 times more efficiently in the morning than in the evening. So emphasising breakfast over dinner is also good for weight management.

2. Use chopsticks, a teaspoon or an oyster fork

Sit at the table for dinner and use different utensils to encourage eating more slowly.

This gives your brain time to recognise and adapt to signals from your stomach telling you you’re full.

3. Eat the full rainbow

Fill your plate with vegetables and fruits of different colours first to support eating a high-fibre, nutrient-dense diet that will keep you feeling full and satisfied.

Meals also need to be balanced and include a source of protein, wholegrain carbohydrates and healthy fat to meet our dietary needs – for example, eggs on wholegrain toast with avocado.

4. Reach for nature first

Retrain your brain to rely on nature’s treats – fresh vegetables, fruit, honey, nuts and seeds. In their natural state, these foods release the same pleasure response in the brain as ultra-processed and fast foods, helping you avoid unnecessary calories, sugar, salt and unhealthy fats.

5. Choose to move

Look for ways to incorporate incidental activity into your daily routine – such as taking the stairs instead of the lift – and boost your exercise by challenging yourself to try a new activity.

Just be sure to include variety, as doing the same activities every day often results in boredom and avoidance.

6. Prioritise sleep

Set yourself a goal of getting a minimum of seven hours of uninterrupted sleep each night, and help yourself achieve it by avoiding screens for an hour or two before bed.

7. Weigh yourself regularly

Getting into the habit of weighing yourself weekly is a guaranteed way to help avoid the kilos creeping up on us. Aim to weigh yourself on the same day, at the same time and in the same environment each week and use the best quality scales you can afford.

At the Boden Group, Charles Perkins Centre, we are studying the science of obesity and running clinical trials for weight loss. You can register here to express your interest.

Nick Fuller, Clinical Trials Director, Department of Endocrinology, RPA Hospital, University of Sydney

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Would you give up your sense of smell to keep your hair? What about your phone?

A 2022 US study compared smell to other senses (sight and hearing) and personally prized commodities (including money, a pet or hair) to see what people valued more.

The researchers found smell was viewed as much less important than sight and hearing, and valued less than many commodities. For example, half the women surveyed said they’d choose to keep their hair over sense of smell.

Smell often goes under the radar as one of the least valued senses. But it is one of the first sensory systems vertebrates developed and is linked to your mental health, memory and more.

Here are five fascinating facts about your olfactory system.

1. Smell is linked to memory and emotion

Why can the waft of fresh baking trigger joyful childhood memories? And why might a certain perfume jolt you back to a painful breakup?

Smell is directly linked to both your memory and emotions. This connection was first established by American psychologist Donald Laird in 1935 (although French novelist Marcel Proust had already made it famous in his reverie about the scent of madeleines baking.)

Odours are first captured by special olfactory nerve cells inside your nose. These cells extend upwards from the roof of your nose towards the smell-processing centre of your brain, called the olfactory bulb.

From the olfactory bulb they form direct connection with the brain’s limbic system. This includes the amygdala, where emotions are generated, and the hippocampus, where memories are created.

Other senses – such as sight and hearing – aren’t directly connected to the lymbic system.

One 2004 study used functional magnetic resonance imaging to demonstrate odours trigger a much stronger emotional and memory response in the brain than a visual cue.

2. Your sense of smell constantly regenerates

You can lose your ability to smell due to injury or infection – for example during and after a COVID infection. This is known as olfactory dysfunction. In most cases it’s temporary, returning to normal within a few weeks.

This is because every few months your olfactory nerve cells die and are replaced by new cells.

We’re not entirely sure how this occurs, but it likely involves your nose’s stem cells, the olfactory bulb and other cells in the olfactory nerves.

Other areas of your nervous system – including your brain and spinal cord – cannot regenerate and repair after an injury.

Constant regeneration may be a protective mechanism, as the olfactory nerves are vulnerable to damage caused by the external environment, including toxins (such as cigarette smoke), chemicals and pathogens (such as the flu virus).

But following a COVID infection some people might continue to experience a loss of smell. Studies suggest the virus and a long-term immune response damages the cells that allow the olfactory system to regenerate.

3. Smell is linked to mental health

Around 5% of the global population suffer from anosmia – total loss of smell. An estimated 15-20% suffer partial loss, known as hyposmia.

Given smell loss is often a primary and long-term symptom of COVID, these numbers are likely to be higher since the pandemic.

Yet in Australia, the prevalence of olfactory dysfunction remains surprisingly understudied.

Losing your sense of smell is shown to impact your personal and social relationships. For example, it can mean you miss out on shared eating experiences, or cause changes in sexual desire and behaviour.

In older people, declining ability to smell is associated with a higher risk of depression and even death, although we still don’t know why.

4. Loss of smell can help identify neurodegenerative diseases

Partial or full loss of smell is often an early indicator for a range of neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

Patients frequently report losing their sense of smell years before any symptoms show in body or brain function. However many people are not aware they are losing their sense of smell.

There are ways you can determine if you have smell loss and to what extent. You may be able to visit a formal smell testing centre or do a self-test at home, which assesses your ability to identify household items like coffee, wine or soap.

5. You can train your nose back into smelling

“Smell training” is emerging as a promising experimental treatment option for olfactory dysfunction. For people experiencing smell loss after COVID, it’s been show to improve the ability to detect and differentiate odours.

Smell training (or “olfactory training”) was first tested in 2009 in a German psychology study. It involves sniffing robust odours — such as floral, citrus, aromatic or fruity scents — at least twice a day for 10—20 seconds at a time, usually over a 3—6 month period.

Participants are asked to focus on the memory of the smell while sniffing and recall information about the odour and its intensity. This is believed to help reorganise the nerve connections in the brain, although the exact mechanism behind it is unclear.

Some studies recommend using a single set of scents, while others recommend switching to a new set of odours after a certain amount of time. However both methods show significant improvement in smelling.

This training has also been shown to alleviate depressive symptoms and improve cognitive decline both in older adults and those suffering from dementia.

Just like physiotherapy after a physical injury, olfactory training is thought to act like rehabilitation for your sense of smell. It retrains the nerves in your nose and the connections it forms within the brain, allowing you to correctly detect, process and interpret odours.

Lynn Nazareth, Research Scientist in Olfactory Biology, CSIRO

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.