Leptin: the hormone regulating weight

Ritesh Bawri

21 Jan 2026 — 2 min read

Ever wondered why losing weight feels like pushing a boulder uphill? And why keeping it off feels even harder?

Allow me to explain.

Deep inside your fat cells lives a hormone called leptin. Think of it as your body’s fuel gauge. When fat stores are adequate, leptin signals your brain that energy is plentiful.

Appetite decreases. Metabolism hums along. Everything feels balanced.

But here’s where it gets interesting.

When you lose weight, your fat cells shrink. Smaller cells produce less leptin. Your brain interprets this drop as a threat.

Starvation mode activates. Suddenly you’re hungrier than before. Your metabolism slows. Your body temperature drops slightly. Every calorie gets hoarded like gold during a recession.

This isn’t weakness.

This is ancient survival programming working exactly as designed.

For most of human history, food scarcity killed more people than abundance. Your ancestors who survived famine passed down genes that make your body exceptionally good at defending against weight loss.

The problem is that this protective mechanism doesn’t distinguish between intentional dieting and actual starvation.

The relationship gets more complicated with excess weight. When fat cells expand, they produce more leptin. You’d expect this to suppress appetite permanently.

Instead, the brain becomes resistant. Like someone living next to train tracks who stops hearing the noise, your hypothalamus stops responding to leptin’s signals.

High levels circulate in your blood, but the message never gets through. This explains why willpower alone rarely works long term.

You’re not fighting your habits. You’re fighting your biology.

The good news is that leptin sensitivity can improve. Sleep deprivation worsens resistance. So does chronic inflammation.

Addressing these factors helps restore normal signaling. Gradual weight loss preserves leptin levels better than crash dieting. Resistance training maintains metabolic rate when calories drop.

Understanding leptin shifts the conversation from blame to biology.

Your body isn’t broken.

It’s protecting you from a threat that no longer exists. Working with this system rather than against it changes everything about sustainable weight management.

Reach out to me on twitter @rbawri Instagram @riteshbawriofficial and YouTube at www.youtube.com/breatheagain

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