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After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight

• dempseye 10y ago
  > The difficulty in keeping weight off reflects biology, not a pathological lack of willpower affecting two-thirds of the U.S.A. Fifty years ago, two-thirds of the USA were not obese. Biology has not changed in that time. What has?
  • SerLava 10y ago
    >Biology has not changed in that time. Oh, yeah it has. Changes in food and environment have modified our biologies. The effects of food energy overexposure are semi-permanent.
  • wmeredith 10y ago
    Well, not willpower. The human condition is pretty steady. The industrialized food chain, on the other hand, has changed dramatically.
  • gnur 10y ago
    Easy access to cheap calories.
  • rayiner 10y ago
    Impulse control is fundamentally biological, so obviously a "lack of willpower" can't be the explanation.
  • padobson 10y ago
    The agriculture, restaurant, and food industry. Quite a bit, actually.
  • amelius 10y ago
    Intake of refined sugars. The amount of time spent sitting at a desk.
    • bb85 10y ago
      That doesn't explain how someone can just let it happen to the point of suffering of it every day without taking simple measures to reverse it. Most of the time the difference between steady gaining or losing weight is a few hundred calories a day. That's far from a lifestyle change. When moving around becomes difficult, when dating becomes harder, when the aches and pain start... there's gotta be more to it than just a lot of sugar in your everyday stuff. I always wonder (for other drugs too), if they're a way to slowly remove yourself from situations, or whatever it is, that make you uncomfortable. A way to permanently disqualify yourself from the race, because the idea of running (no pun intended) makes you anxious?
      • emodendroket 10y ago
        The food industry has a significant number of people employed whose whole job is to make you think foods are healthier than they are and get you to eat more of them. I mean it's not by accident that almost every food in the supermarket ended up with some health claims on the box (my favorite examples of this are, like, "natural" eggs and "gluten-free" meats). That's assuming you're buying your own food; if you're eating in a restaurant or something you don't even really know what you are consuming.
        • bb85 10y ago
          Interesting, so I guess it's an education problem? I guess just like real-talk sex-ed went against the interest of big-church, teaching some basics when it comes to nutrition would hurt a lot of big-food...
          • emodendroket 10y ago
            I don't think it's just that, although many have found it suspect that the dairy industry gave a lot of funding that helped the development of the original food pyramid with dairy as a core food group. To me it's more like the current environment, to borrow a programming term, makes it difficult to "fall into the pit of success." The NYT ran a great article on this a few years ago: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary-science-of-junk-food.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/magazine/the-extraordinary...
  • simonbarker87 10y ago
    Fat cells never go away once you've got them. Fat cells also really don't want to be empty. When you loose weight the fat is broken up in to H2O and CO2 (you literally breath and pee fat away) but the fat cell generally holds onto the water for a while and then, along with a load of other fat cells, will expel that water in one go(which is why you tend to keep a stable weight for a few days and then find you've lost 1 or 2 lbs "overnight"). It's called the Woosh effect I think? Problem is that the body doesn't want to get rid of that fat cell because "hey, it might be handy one day to store extra energy when we can't eat for a few days because the baboons ate everything" and so it's fairly easy to top that cell back up with fat in the future. With regards to the slow metabolism refereced in the article (I skimmed it) this is tied to leptin levels which needs to be topped up with "refeed days" every now and then just to kick start you metabolism again. A refeed day is basically a day where you eat a lot of carbs and keep your protein and fat as they usually are on the normal diet days. Very broadly speaking (and short cutting lots of science and variations), it is easier for a previously fat person to get fat again than it is for a skinny person to get fat in the first place.
    • garyrob 10y ago
      You are supplying potentially very interesting information... could you please point to sources?
      • simonbarker87 10y ago
        No specific sources for my official comment, this is knowledge I've accumulated from 4 years of lifting weights and tracking calories. Places I learn from along the way: http://strengtheory.com http://strengtheory.com - Greg knows his stuff http://fitness.reddit.com http://fitness.reddit.com - has gone downhill since becoming a default sub but they are looking at changing that, still good bodybuilding.com is pretty good to be honest once you get over the hard sell of supplements, Jim Stoppani has a PhD and was a researcher at Yale I believe "The mathematics of weight loss" TED talk by Ruben Meerman is pretty solid from memory Elliott Hulse is a YouTuber (so take some of the stuff with a pinch of salt) but pretty good.
    • 10y ago
  • jazzyk 10y ago
    The food has changed a lot - as other commenters have pointed out. But our lifestyles have changed a lot, too. Most people in sub/urban areas spend 1-2 mins walking to/from their cars and the rest of their waking hours (12+ hours) sitting/eating.
  • pjc50 10y ago
    See HN passim "The Sugar Conspiracy" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444941 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11444941
  • scld 10y ago
    1) How do you know biology hasn't changed? The human gut microbiome has changed wildly over the past 50 to 100 years due to changes in modern diet. 2) Another point, the article is talking about the biology of people who have already been obese and then lost the weight. Given that people have more disposable income and obesity trends have risen, the inability to lose weight only after you first become obese would help explain why things like childhood obesity have negative impacts for the rest of a person's life.
    • tamana 10y ago
      Environment (available food type and quantity) has changed massively. We have the same potential as before, expressed diffeently now.
  • Zach_the_Lizard 10y ago
    >Fifty years ago, two-thirds of the USA were not obese. Biology has not changed in that time. What has? Other commentators have mentioned the food aspect, but there are significant lifestyle changes since the 50s. The rise of the suburbs greatly reduced the amount of walking for many Americans to basically just walking to a car in the morning and walking from a car in the evening, with maybe some walking back and forth to a bathroom or water cooler in between. Contrast that to the past where most American cities were laid out with public transit in mind (including LA; it used to boast a larger rail system than NYC). This meant burning more calories just to exist. I myself moved from the land of sprawl to a walkable urban city and I lost quite a bit of weight since most, but not all, of my trips were on foot, bike, or public transit. Very few trips were undertaken in a car. I then moved to NYC and get even more activity, though that's counterbalanced by the delicious food everywhere. You'll notice that most walkable urban areas tend to be slimmer than sprawling areas, all else being equal.
    • neffy 10y ago
      I think this is it. Cars. The Fitbit general population statistics - which I would presume is a self-selected group of at least activity interested people, are quite scary in terms of the large number of people in the <5,000 steps bracket, and the relatively few in the > 10,000 bracket. 10,000+ steps is a normal day walking around London for me, to from work etc. but if I'm driving I may not even get up to 3,000.
  • yabatopia 10y ago
    Often forgotten is the incredible increase in drug consumption. Popular drugs like painkillers or antidepressants can have a significant effect on body weight. For the pharmaceutical industry it's like having a cake and eating it too: develop new drugs to fight weight gain, weight gain that can be caused by other drugs.
  • npsimons 10y ago
    > Fifty years ago, two-thirds of the USA were not obese. Biology has not changed in that time. What has? I wish more people would ask this question. It's extremely innocent and straightforward, and replies to it are incredibly revealing of the respondents' understanding of biology . . .
  • dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Fifty years ago, two-thirds of the USA were not obese. 2/3 are not obese now. (2/3 are overweight, including about 1/3 that are obese.) > Biology has not changed in that time. Assumes facts not in evidence, but lets assume that's true. > What has? Well, the sharp uptick in obesity (which pretty much drives the overweight including obese upward trend, the overweight-but-not-obese proportion has stayed pretty flat) starts in the late 1970s, immediately following the peak in real hourly wages. Given that (ironically, given that richer countries have higher rates of obesity than poor countries) individual obesity in the United States is correlated with poor economic status, its not entirely implausible that there's a significant economic contribution to the obesity epidemic.
• blfr 10y ago
  Boxers and other people doing martial arts competitively have always known this. There has been a "walking around weight" concept since I can remember. Maintaining lower or, even more importantly in that context, higher weight takes concentrated effort. BTW it's a really weird post-Christian belief that there is some you apart from your body and it can do things against your will.
  • emodendroket 10y ago
    http://biblehub.com/matthew/26-41.htm http://biblehub.com/matthew/26-41.htm Is it?
  • varelse 10y ago
    Extending the Christian motif and treating obesity as a sin, one could consider the extra work needed to keep off the weight as penance, no? I'm smelling a new California quack religion(tm) already.
    • pjc50 10y ago
      It's called 'weightwatchers', and it allocates sin points to food as a simplified form of calorie counting. Participants go to confessional weigh-ins weekly.
      • varelse 10y ago
        So add penance points for daily exercise milestones as measured by a fitness tracker and it'll be the next thing(tm), no?
  • pjc50 10y ago
    there is some you apart from your body I wouldn't describe it as 'weird' but a lot of people find it unsettling that it's generally understood that the 'I' that makes conscious plans is a fairly thin layer on top of (poorly understood) consciousness, and that much of what humans do is subconscious conditioned behaviour. Below the brain is a set of autonomous systems and homeostatic mechanisms, like the leptin one mentioned in the article regulating hunger.
• cheez 10y ago
  I can give personal, anecdotal experience as to why this happens and a chart from Withings will illustrate perfectly. I know what I have to do now, and I'm fighting like hell to make it happen. http://i.imgur.com/LR1wbH8.png http://i.imgur.com/LR1wbH8.png
• bb85 10y ago
  I wonder why, when we talk about obesity, there is this tendency to use language that removes responsibility from the person, or at least move it from their mind to their "body", as if they were different entities. I think obese people fit the definition of addicts. Most of the time, other addictions are fought by pushing awareness on the person, forcing them to recognize they have a problem and that they need to change. I don't hear much "you were born this way" or "that's just what your body wants" for other drugs. Is it because other drugs are always viewed negatively, whereas food is a pillar of life under normal circumstances? Maybe it has to do with the very high prevalence of obesity, and the echo chamber being big enough that deflection and denial are harder to combat?
  • gnur 10y ago
    It seems like the piece actually takes away some of the responsibility of the person. If your resting metabolism burns 400 calories per day less, you can eat exactly the same as someone else and slowly gain a lot of weight. I really don't think there is anyone to blame in that case.
    • bb85 10y ago
      That doesn't explain it though, as how much you weight and how happy you are with it should influence how you eat. Obviously a kid and an adult, a sedentary female and an international athletes have different needs. When you have tooth problems, you go through a lot to have it fixed. When your hair looks bad you get a haircut. Some obese people change their lifestyle and lose that weight. So what about those who can't? Is it too hard because of whatever predisposition (or, as other comments point out, having a huge industry putting tasty things in front of them), or do they just feel better being big?
      • dempseye 10y ago
        > how much you weight and how happy you are with it should influence how you eat. I'm pretty sure constant hunger would trump those considerations for you and most people.
• Kenji 10y ago
  Does that mean that formerly fat people who lost weight and eat little to keep a low weight with their slower metabolism live longer because their body has less energy throughput?
• gnur 10y ago
  This is a truly horrifying piece of information. It basically amounts to that going on a diet will make it harder to stay at the weight you had before your diet.
  • tim333 10y ago
    Severe dieting has long been know to do that. Mild dieting combined with exercise seems to work better. We're a bit lacking in quantification on that though. It was interesting to get some numbers from the article.
    • TillE 10y ago
      Yeah, this is what I'm curious about. All the weight loss diets described in the article seem quite extreme, some even dangerously so. Maintaining something like a 200-400 calorie deficit will lose you weight slowly but surely, and maybe hopefully not cause extreme changes in metabolism?
      • tim333 10y ago
        Yeah, I'm trying to lose weight like that so I hope so. People say doing some weights to keep up muscle mass helps and it probably does though there doesn't seem much good data on how much does what.
• varelse 10y ago
  Extreme diligence seems to be the only way to fight this. If I stop exercising, the pounds pack on within weeks. If I insure I burn at least 3000 calories a day (usually much more), I can maintain my weight indefinitely. But I walk to work and I exercise for 1-2 hours daily. Most people cannot or will not do this. Add in the extreme carbohydrate and fat-laden diets most readily available to America and it's a perfect storm for our Wall-E future, no? When I cook at home, I can avoid this by eating a little bit of meat/tofu/tempeh/etc with a pile of greens, but restaurant fare is a little bit of vegetables, a small slab of meat, and a super-size portion of some fancy grain of the week if not just white rice. Sigh...
  • IndianAstronaut 10y ago
    How do you manage the 1 to 2 hours of daily exercise with a programmer lifestyle(assuming you are a programmer)?
    • SeanBoocock 10y ago
      Not the OP but the way I achieve that is by getting up at 5:30AM and running for 60+ minutes. I wasn't always such a morning person but routine exercise was important for me and so I adjusted my lifestyle to match.
      • Declanomous 10y ago
        I could never force myself to get up that early to run. Instead, I started going to the Y at 6 am to play pickup basketball for an hour or two. It was a lot easier for me to sustain. I'm not a morning person, and it was really helpful to know there were a bunch of guys who were counting on me to show up so they could play. I have trouble running in general though. I'm very competitive, and I find it much easier to exercise if I'm playing a sport. That being said, I am the kind of person who generally has to try to actively maintain weight. I exercise for health benefits other than weight loss. Most casual or semi-casual rec sports are very friendly to people who are trying to lose weight though. Gyms and rec sports are probably two of the most welcoming places I've ever been. It can be almost cult-like at times.
• koolba 10y ago
  From the article (emphasis mine): > Mr. Cahill was one of the worst off. As he regained more than 100 pounds, his metabolism slowed so much that, just to maintain his current weight of 295 pounds, he now has to eat 800 calories a day less than a typical man his size. Anything more turns to fat. Presenting the numbers like this seems intentionally confusing. Casually reading this seems like he's eating 800 calories a day and still gaining weight. What they're really saying is that he's eat $AVG_295_LB_MAN_CALORIES - 800 per day. That's probably around 4000 calories a day.
  • dempseye 10y ago
    Using the USDA supertracker here (https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/bwp/ https://www.supertracker.usda.gov/bwp/) with the following data/assumptions: Weight: 295 lbs Age: 46 Height: 5 feet 10 inches (average height for US male) Work activity: sedentary Leisure activity: sedentary The normal maintenance calories come out at 3117. Less 800 is 2317. That is still enough to eat well and feel full, in my experience.
    • belltaco 10y ago
      >That is still enough to eat well and feel full, in my experience. That's because your hormone levels aren't crazily out of whack like the individual you reference. If your hormone levels were changed to reflect the person that lost weight, I doubt you'd say that.
      • dempseye 10y ago
        Perhaps that is true. I have also experienced that if I eat total shit, my hunger is boundless. Whereas if I eat well, my hunger tops out at around where it needs to be to maintain a healthy weight. It is not obvious why this should be the case.
        • Declanomous 10y ago
          I've had the same experience. My family has a history of heart disease, and for a long while I tried to follow a heart healthy diet. I was always starving, and I had difficulty concentrating. I actually managed to gain weight as well. A year into this experiment I gave up and started eating foods that I felt help me concentrate the best: red meat, dairy, potatoes, butter, starchy vegetables, deli meats, etc. I suddenly felt much better. I found it much easier to maintain a healthy weight, and I had much more energy throughout the day. I spoke with my internist and a cardiologist, and they were more than ok with the change. My BMI is exactly where it should be, my cholesterol and blood pressure are incredibly low, and I exercise all the time. I don't want to give the impression that everyone should start eating "unhealthy" foods, but at the very least the foods I'm eating are much healthier than the sugar-laden foods that are prevalent in the average diet. For what it's worth, my cardiologist, believes "bad" cholesterol is damaging in the absence of "good" cholesterol. His wife, who is a dietitian, disagrees with him entirely.
• EventHorizon 10y ago
  I am curious if this same effect is also seen in those who lost weight via a calorie restricted diet without exercise. It could be plausible that the extreme exercise regimen alone causes the body to become more efficient.
• bmh_ca 10y ago
  There are at least three equilibriums that are apparently of relevance, based on what I have read. These are: 1. the hunger cycle - the hormones emitted during hunger 2. the metabolic cycle - the neuropeptide y's and other such unmemorable names, near the decision making part of the brain 3. the hydrocarbon cycle – the hormones emitted as a result of fat cells that are not flush with hydrocarbons Diets address number 1. Number 2 and 3 are the more relevant for long-term success, but not enough is understood about them. Here's a TED talk with some illumination: https://www.ted.com/talks/sandra_aamodt_why_dieting_doesn_t_usually_work?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/sandra_aamodt_why_dieting_doesn_t_... Research about weight control and loss is further conflated by profit-oriented companies that derive their primary income from "diet cycles". That said, the failure of dieting is not new information: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/Dieting-Does-Not-Work-UCLA-Researchers-7832 http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/Dieting-Does-Not-Work-UCLA... The only known sure way to achieve substantial long-term weight loss is hyper-diligence in portion control and metabolic stimulation. Few can do it. One of the unknowns is whether fasting survives long-term trends, such as the "5-2 fast" https://thefastdiet.co.uk/ https://thefastdiet.co.uk/ All to say, the long-term results of the biggest loser accord with the latest research in weight control and loss.
• nicolas_t 10y ago
  And I'm in the second week of the Fast 5/2 diet. Not very encouraging to read this. Problem though is that I have to diet, my triglycerides are off the chart, my LDL cholesterol too and my fasting blood sugar are at the limit.... Hope I can keep my weight off somehow later.
  • yoodenvranx 10y ago
    Just start to write down every single calorie (and perhaps the macros) you consume during the day. This way it is pretty easy to see if you are on the right track. Most people re-gain weight after a diet because they fall back into their old habits. For this reason I don't like the idea of "making a diet". It kind of implies that you suffer for 8 weeks to lose some weight and then you can start eating unhealthy again because your diet is over. Forget your idea of "diet" and do a permanent change in your eating habits. If you do it slow you will not suffer that much and the effect will be permanent.
    • nicolas_t 10y ago
      Oh you're absolutely right. A big part of the problem I've identified is that often enough I eat not because I'm hungry but because I'm stressed. And in that case, I tend to eat chocolates. It's not a coincidence that I started to become overweight (by roughly 40 pounds) when my startup failed.
  • ck2 10y ago
    Not sure what "Fast 5/2" is but if you are losing more than a pound a week (maybe two) it's going to be impossible maintain it because it won't feel natural and your calorie craving is going to rush right back. Those poor people were manipulated into losing a pound PER DAY which is insane. I cannot even fathom that. Take your time, schedule a year, and see what you can do. Be patient and persistent. Change your lifestyle/habits, try to keep busy instead of eating. Worked for me. Not easy but doable.
    • nicolas_t 10y ago
      Thanks for the encouragement! Very much appreciated! Fast 5/2 is basically intermittent fasting with two days/week below 600 calories (which I find surprisingly easy to do) and the rest eating normally (but I'm also refraining from eating chocolates/biscuits/cakes and anything overly sweet). So far, I've lost 3 pounds in a week and an half which I think is an healthy rate.
• yoodenvranx 10y ago
  There was an article on /r/science 1 or 2 weeks ago which stated that the body needs about a year after the weight-loss to accept the new weight as normal. Before that normalization is done it is very easy to regain the initial weight, after the normalization it gets easier.
  • emodendroket 10y ago
    This article says this is six years later.
• bluedino 10y ago
  While these people are on the show, they are living in house with other contestants. You can't just order a pizza and sit on the couch with TV cameras and your co-stars watching you. They're forced to exercise for hours. If you're at home you're not going to wake up at the crack of dawn and do a 5 mile run and then do weights. They're forced to eat right. Food selection is limited. There's no cheese and donuts and fast-food. It's no wonder that it's impossible for them to keep this up. They just go back to normal which is 'being lazy'.
  • mfoy_ 10y ago
    Did you even read the article or are you just jumping on the /r/fatpeoplehate bandwagon? The takeaway is that we need to focus on prevention, don't get obese in the first place. Once you're obese, the deck is really stacked against you.
• DenisM 10y ago
  I encourage everyone to read the "physiology" chapter at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adipose_tissue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adipose_tissue TLDR: Blood sugar spikes above certain level are toxic, so the body responds with an emergency action of stashing the sugar wherever possible, including muscle, liver, and fat tissue. The former two are rather limited in their capacity, while the latter is unlimited. Ongoing elevated levels of sugars in the bloodstream is an ongoing cleanup job for the fat cells, and they never get aground to release the accumulated energy back into circulation. At the "hardware" level, that's all there is to obesity - overabundance of quick carbs (sugars, flour, starch).
  • gypsy_boots 10y ago
    Which is similarly why a diet high in carbohydrates can lead to your body storing more fat. It's easier for your body to turn the carbohydrates into energy than it is to turn the fat into energy. So when it gets both, it stores the fat for leaner times (less energy abundance) and turns the carbs into glucose for energy. It seems like the more we learn about high fat low carb diets, the more it seems that our body was built to use fat as its main energy source.
    • great_kraken 10y ago
      Indeed. A basic understanding of the science is all you need. However, the main narrative is that the body is a simply a black box that obeys solely the laws of thermodynamics.
• sp332 10y ago
  Practicing weight maintenance before going on a diet helps to keep the weight off after a diet. Many people who struggle with their weight "yo-yo" as they go on various short-term diets, losing and regaining weight and never learning how to maintain a specific level.
• solarengineer 10y ago
  I have followed "The Perfect Ten Diet" and began swimming. Within a year, I went from a size 40 jeans to a size 33. I think I'm now a size 32. I haven't weighed myself yet. I'm a lacto vegetarian (butter, cheese and curd, no milk). I think that barring health reasons (e.g. Thyroid issues), it should be possible for an individual to eat healthier and shed excess weight. But it also comes down to "How badly do you want it?"
• vinceguidry 10y ago
  I managed to lose 40 pounds last year, using intermittent fasting. That impressed people, but what's impressed me is how easy it was to keep it off. I expected to have to do a lot more work than I have, I really seemed to have found a new 'set point', where I can simply let my body self-regulate eating and I won't gain weight. Sometimes it even goes down. I think a person's state of mind plays a huge role. I used IF because it seemed the easiest way to incorporate a sustained caloric deficit into my lifestyle. The knob of "how many times a day I'm eating" was far easier to tweak than "what I'm eating" or "how much I eat when I'm eating." I'm just really fucking lazy and found that over time, skipping meals works with my laziness. With IF, I can eat what I want, as much as I want, just only once a day. I used to be really strict about once a day, now I'll have a snack here and there, sometimes I'll even have what amounts to a light meal outside of my main one. Getting adjusted was a pain, but I'd alleviate it by eating small amounts outside of the 'window' and trust that I'd cheat less over time. Which I more or less did. Ultimately I feel it's not really worth it to try to fight your body too hard. If your system perceives a shock, it will defend itself. But humans seem hard-wired for big, dramatic gestures, and so they'll do grievous damage to their metabolic systems like crash dieting simply because they can't trust themselves to maintain a safer, more sustainable course of action like simply "eating less and exercising more." I think a lot of people think of the idea of "sustained lifestyle change" and balk. Like they can never eat ice cream again or something.
  • rickdale 10y ago
    I'll concur with this. I have been practicing one meal/day for almost 3 years now. I think it took my body over a year to really adjust to all the benefits. Now I realize I have some big eating days, some small eating days, I mostly crave healthy stuff and I let the rest take care of itself.
    • richmt 10y ago
      What about feeling tired/lethargic during the time in which you fast? Also, can your body really efficiently utilize all of the micro/macro nutrients it needs in a day when it's handed them all at once? I agree that IF can be a good little mental trick for a quick cut, but I'm skeptical on one meal a day for a life time and if there's any negative effects that could come up.
• parsnipsumthing 10y ago
  It's worth noting that the amounts by which their metabolism was lowered are not as shocking as they seem at first. The 300 calories a day difference in calories burned is very limiting if your BMR is 1800. But for some of these contestants their BMR, even at the lower weights, might be 2000 calories per day. And if they do moderate exercise, they can burn up to 1000 calories more than this. If you are expending 3000 calories per day then a 300 calorie difference is minimal.
• Hockenbrizzle 10y ago
  Man this is so frustrating because I have a family member who is like this. I would really like to help them, but they just don't seem to get it. I think the problem is that these people want instant results. That's not how the body works. If you want to become a runner, you start running often and because you love it. You don't force yourself to start doing intense, one-and-done sessions in an attempt to get to your goal and then go back to your old lifestyle once you achieve it. You have to learn to play the long game and be patient. I really believe that if these folks worked on a farm for several years, it would do much more to help them with their weight problems than these TV shows do.
  • emodendroket 10y ago
    I don't know how you got that from this article.
  • eclipxe 10y ago
    Did you even read the article before commenting?
  • URSpider94 10y ago
    Did you even read the article? One of the winners is literally a farmer.
    • Hockenbrizzle 10y ago
      Yes, sorry my comment was extremely useless. I did read the article but did not see the image showing Rudy Pauls the farmer, my mistake. My comment was very off topic, so I won't try and clarify it here.
• KKKKkkkk1 10y ago
  Extreme weight loss indicates that your weight has high variance. A history of being overweight shows that its mean is high.
• sageabilly 10y ago
  The results of this study, while interesting, seem flawed to me because losing 200+lbs in only 8 months' time is ridiculously fast. I would be more interested in a study following people who lost weight very slowly and steadily over time, and curious about their metabolisms and recidivism rates. I've lost 100lbs over the last three years and have had zero issue (so far, not saying I won't ever) with keeping at this weight. I maintained the same weight, +/- 3lbs, for most of 2015 without counting calories or following a diet. In December 2015, I decided I was ready to start intentionally losing more weight, so I tracked calories and lost an additional 15lbs over the course of three months. My experience with losing weight and maintaining weight loss are completely different than the results of the study in the OP, and I am curious how much of that difference can be chalked up to how long it took me to lose that weight. Studies like the one in the OP are fascinating to me because no one seems to go "Hey, your body achieved homeostasis at 450lbs (maintaining that homeostasis for however many years the person was at that weight) and it probably royally screwed with everything dropping half your body weight in 8 month's time." It seems obvious to me that at that point the body is in full blown crisis mode trying to get back to the homeostasis it had developed previously. Eight months is not a long enough time to adapt to a new homeostasis, not to mention whether or not the body is freaking out because it's "starving" and dropping fat stores at such a high rate.
  • wobbleblob 10y ago
    Maybe there's something different about the metabolism of people who manage to reach a weight of 450lbs in the first place. Without exercise and watching what you eat, almost everyone will gain weight, but most people never get anywhere close to the 300lbs+ range.
    • sageabilly 10y ago
      Maybe! I was 305 at my heaviest, but I was also a serious powerlifter and was at the gym 10-15 hours a week lifting, plus training for competitions. I often wonder if having that strength base made it easier, in some ways, to drop the weight than if I had been totally sedentary and had to start from zero with regards to exercising.
• js2 10y ago
  In the other direction, see the documentary "Why Are Thin People Not Fat" where a group of thin volunteers are overfed by about double their normal calories for 4 weeks: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7838668.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7838668.stm http://youtu.be/U1hbPXooB1U http://youtu.be/U1hbPXooB1U They all easily return to their starting weight, and at least one volunteer gains muscle but not fat. The body is amazing at maintaining homeostasis. Here's an nytimes article from 2011 that discusses much the same thing as the article submitted: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-...
  • kilroy123 10y ago
    There's a lot of research being done right now, that suggests your gut microbiome has a lot to do with it. Very interesting stuff. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gut-bacteria-help-make-us-fat-and-thin/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-gut-bacteria-h...
    • js2 10y ago
      Yup, also see this recent research that bariatric surgery causes changes to the gut microbiome which account for some of the weight loss: http://www.livescience.com/51739-bariatric-surgery-gut-bacteria.html http://www.livescience.com/51739-bariatric-surgery-gut-bacte...
  • pessimizer 10y ago
    Thanks for this; it was completely new to me.
  • 49para 10y ago
    4 weeks may also not be enough time to wreck your insulin/grehlin/etc sensitivity
• mrfusion 10y ago
  It's weird I was allowed to submit this if it was already submitted. Maybe a bug?
  • GFischer 10y ago
    If you submit it and it was already submitted recently, it counts as an upvote (probably the case here).
    • detaro 10y ago
      No, since it created a submission for them, which it doesn't if it recognizes the dupe.
      • GFischer 10y ago
        Ah, ok, I stand corrected.
  • detaro 10y ago
    You submitted a different URL, the HN dupe check does exact URL matches and doesn't ignore query parameters (since some pages rely on them). Even if it did, shortened URLs etc would still trick it, so you have to check manually.
• kefka 10y ago
  Well, I'd say that the endocrine reason sounds like a valid one. I can at least be counted in that group. Last December, I was diagnosed with T2 diabetes. After talking with a researcher about this (have worked with diabetes research school locally due to job), I came across a few things: 1. Damage is done to the pancreas at 140mg/dL 2. Too long at 140mg/dL or above can cause permanent damage to the pancreas. 3. Early estimates indicate that 110mg/dL is a lower limit of beginning damage to the pancreas Ok. There's a lot of moving parts in food. Nutritionists will tell you all sorts of bunkum, other than mineral assays and tests have discovered. But there's a simple way here: keep blood sugar under 140mg/dL, no matter what. Is that possible? To keep your blood sugar under 140mg/dL? Yes. The answer is "Don't eat foods that raise your blood sugar above 140mg/dL". That's interestingly easy. What it amounts to, is cutting out sugars and carbohydrates out of your diet, and extensively testing when you come across foods you're unsure of. My research shows that all the standard sugars are bad for me (Sucrose, glucose, fructose, lactose). I spike, and then fall. It also depends on what I'm eating with them. In those cases the rise and fall are longer. Some complex carbohydrates I can handle. Potatoes are a nope, as are bread products. But spaghetti squash works with me well. I can handle it nicely, with a very low rise and fall. I also end up eating a lot of fats, protein, and veggies. But I don't crave sugar at all. I've always liked meats, and this gives me the ability to continue that.
  • atria 10y ago
    ^ This times 1000000. There is so much chicanery and malfeasance in the nutrition and fitness industry. I was diagnosed with T2 diabetes a few years ago. I went to dietitian who prescribed a diet with 60% carbs (I believe its roughly the same as the ADA dietary guidelines). The standard treatment is medication, followed by more medication, then insulin shots. Frustrated, I read everything I could get my hands on, and found two books that I'd highly recommend: 1) Dr. Bernstein's Diabetes Solution, and 2) Think Like a Pancreas by Gary Scheiner. Dr. Bernstein is notable because he was diagnosed with T1 when it was a fatal condition. He survived, became an electrical engineer and ultimately went on to become an MD. He lobbied the AMA to allow patients to have blood glucose meters, when the AMA wanted them to be restricted to doctors offices. I stopped listening to medical practitioners and starting experimenting with the foods I ate, using pairs testing with a glucose monitor. There is no question that a low carb diet is the way to go.
• proglodyte 10y ago
  It seems like exposing your body to colder temperatures is a sure-fire way to increase your metabolism: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/does-global-warming-make-me-look-fat/383509/ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/01/does-glo... May be a little uncomfortable, but way better than screwing up your metabolism via extreme dieting. I'm consistently perplexed as to why the ice-vest-under-the-clothes weight loss method hasn't taken off yet.
  • HardDaysKnight 10y ago
    Interesting. I read in Body By Science (McGuff) that drinking two liters of ice water a day will force your body to burn an additional 125 calories to maintain core temperature. I know that since I've been following the weight-lifting protocol advocated by McGuff that my ability (and desire!) to sleep without covers, and skip wearing a coat in cooler weather, has increased.
    • ck2 10y ago
      cold, heavy breathing, all silliness because you won't be able to maintain the lifestyle find changes you can live with to shave 400-500 calories per day and each week you'll lose one pound which is a reasonable method that can be maintained
• deleted 10y ago
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• cableshaft 10y ago
  I really need to lose weight, my heaviness has started to lead to other health problems, but I find that whenever I try to eat significantly less, I have difficulty concentrating on heavy mental tasks (i.e. programming, my job). The constant feeling of hunger distracts me, or my mind just drifts, until I get some food in me again. I never see any of these articles even acknowledge this as an issue, either as if no one else has this problem, or no one else who is dieting has a job that requires so much brain power. Since there's other programmers here, I was curious if other people have noticed something similar, and how they addressed it. My current plan is not so much to limit my eating (beyond some mild calorie restriction) and instead force myself to exercise more often, but I'd like to be a bit more aggressive with my diet if possible.
  • falcolas 10y ago
    Yes, I've noticed it as well. Operating at a caloric deficiency caused me mood and concentration issues - which makes sense: stored fat takes time to convert back into usable calories, so you'll be operating with less raw fuel most of the time. It's not fun.
  • nkassis 10y ago
    I found that exercise helped me with energy and concentration level. Even while eating less. When I sometimes slip and reduce my exercise time for periods of weeks (say I don't feel like riding my bike indoor in the middle of winter) I start to get tired again and lack focus.
  • antisthenes 10y ago
    You should try eating smaller portions. You will usually find that eating slower will satiate you with less food and over time you'll start eating less. That being said, I have not experienced the same symptoms as a result of hunger - I find the feeling a minor annoyance at best, certainly much lower than other environmental factors that usually impede concentration (temperature, noise, lighting). Certainly the individual responses to feeling of hunger vary from person to person.
  • pessimizer 10y ago
    This may sound counter-intuitive, but intermittent fasting might help. I've always done a 4/3 (four days eating normally, three days eating at 20-25% of a normal intake) when I wanted to lose weight, and I've come to believe that the benefits come solely from 1) that even with the slight overeating that comes on days when you eat (probably 20%) it ends up being equivalent to an overall 20% calorie reduction and 2) it teaches you how to operate better and feel better when you're hungry, simply because it ceases to be an uncommon experience. You're hungry at least a couple of times a week, and you get used to not doing anything about it, and you know it will be over soon. I have to admit that personally, being hungry has always made me perform better - it adds a desperation element that works for me. It does make me testy and impatient, though, and that testiness starts to fade once I'm in my 2nd or 3rd week of 4/3. The everyday irritation of calorie restriction just doesn't work for me; I can't last more than a week or two at my best. My average period of doing 4/3 is about 3 months. It's a fairly easy way to drop about 25 lbs.
• kazinator 10y ago
  > A study of Season 8’s contestants has yielded surprising new discoveries about the physiology of obesity No it didn't. Just another example of junk science. > Now burns 800 fewer calories a day than would be expected for a man his size. "Expected for a man of his size" is a fiction. What they are insinuating here is that the rapid weight loss did long term damage to his metabolism. But to confirm that, you have to have data on what is burn rate was when he was previously at his current 295 weight. (Which he must have reached at some point in his life long before the participation of Biggest Loser, on his way to becoming 400-something). Comparing to what can be "expected" based on plugging 295 into some model is not adequate. Maybe he previously also burned hundreds of calories less than what can be expected of someone of his weight. Maybe it's been like that most of his life!
  • kenjackson 10y ago
    And that may well be why he was heavy to begin with.
• andthat 10y ago
  I wonder if it would be possible to ramp down like 10% in calories one year at a time instead of binge dieting like this. We are always looking for quick fixes.
  • citeguised 10y ago
    You could of course. It's just easier to cut 50% for a couple of months than 10% for years because the results come faster, and so does the motivation to keep it up. Also, counting calories is not really an exact science, so you want to make sure you stay way below your daily goal, just in case the lunch had 300 calories more than you calculated. This is much easier with lower calorie-goals. For me a good pace was 1 kg a week, which I could do by sticking to 2000 calories. Most weeks it lost only 0.5 kg but there's still some progress. Luckily, maintaining my weight works just fine with a daily intake of ~3000 cal. Regarding quick-fixes: You still have to keep tracking your intake long after you reached your goal of course, otherwise the old eating habits will come back slowly but surely. I think this is where most "diets" fail: They hold your hand for a few months, when you need them to do so for the rest of your life.
• jlos 10y ago
  Isolating a few of the variables would help clarify some of the questions this study raises: 1) Amount of excess weight / median weight. E.g. Does the effect of the bodies homeostasis change as a person gets more severely overweight? 2) Speed of weight loss. Does loosing 1lb/day/week/month affect the bodies homeostasis differently? 3) Types of foods affect on homeostasis. Do substances like sugar have a worse effect than others? Does a diet high in something like vegetables tend towards a healthier homeostasis? 4) Amount of time for homeostatic change. Does being 100lbs overweight for a year or 5 years make a difference? >> And with his report from Dr. Hall’s group showing just how much his metabolism had slowed, he stopped blaming himself for his weight gain. Its critical to help people struggling with weight loss to deal not only with the nutritional challenges, but also psychological issues behind weight loss (guilt, depression, helplessness). However, presenting the problem as a binary (purely biological vs purely will) may actually not be the best approach. The individuals still played a part in their initial weight gain. The repeated dietary decisions leading to obesity are obviously complicated by family history, misinformation, failure to realize the full consequences, and other factors both within and outside the control of the person. And neither does the person's complicity, to whatever extent, in gaining weight mean they should receive any less sympathy or help. I say this because of the persistence of the myth that weight gain can be easily undone with just a few weeks/months of discipline, a myth perpetuated by shows like The Big Loser. Weight gain is an insidious danger that can have long lasting implications and be very difficult to extricate oneself from. That point seems quite clear from the research but never addressed in the article.
• rnovak 10y ago
  Now, here's my opinion, and I know it might be wrong. Anyone, please feel free to correct me, but: Everything I've read suggests that 1lb muscle requires about 50 calories a day to maintain. The workout programs these contestants are using are focused solely on cardio, or very heavily focused on cardio. If as part of the 239lb weight loss, Mr Cahill lost 8lbs-10lbs of muscle (and never regained it), there's your entire 400-500 calorie difference right there. Like I said, I could totally be wrong, but over the last year I lost 93lbs (as of today), but my measured BMR is actually higher than it should be (and higher than it was when I started). I attribute that difference to my focus on lifting weights more than cardio.
  • rayiner 10y ago
    Muscle burning 50 calories a day is a myth. Gaining 20 pounds of muscle adds 80-100 calories to your RMR for a typical person: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/16/health/la-he-fitness-muscle-myth-20110516 http://articles.latimes.com/2011/may/16/health/la-he-fitness....
    • itchyouch 10y ago
      Yep. It's muscle recovery that is very calorically expensive. Those who have lifted or lift can probably attest to that crazy post workout appetite.
    • rnovak 10y ago
      Thanks for the correction. I will point out that the article does indicate that there is some type of difference, so I would still think that such a loss would have some sort of impact (though obviously not ~400-500 calories worth).
  • TearsInTheRain 10y ago
    They mentioned that they have a lower metabolic rate than someone of the same size. I doubt they have less muscle than the average person at their weight
    • 10y ago
• chris_wot 10y ago
  Whilst all of the contestants needed to lose weight, I am concerned with the premise of this show. It has many good qualities: exercise and a balanced diet is very important. However, I note the following: "Mr. Cahill knew he could not maintain his finale weight of 191 pounds. He was so mentally and physically exhausted he barely moved for two weeks after his publicity tour ended." This cannot be healthy. My concern is that the weight gain has occurred over the person's lifetime, yet they can lose up to 30 pounds in a week. The New York Post, which I realise is not a terribly reliable source, reports that the show has frequent injuries and many contestants have had serious side effects. One contestant started losing her hair. Another showed possible signs of kidney failure. Yet another has president issues with short-term memory loss. When I first saw this show advertised for the Australian version I thought it looked amazing, even inspirational. Then I saw the weigh-ins and the show's mechanism used to judge contestants. It was for week-to-week weight loss. If you gained even a small amount of weight, there was a real danger of being evicted from the show. It's already known that yo-yo diets are incredibly dangerous. So I would like to know what the doctors on the show were doing - they must be aware that what they are doing is not medically recommended. They have a moral and ethical duty to ensure their charged live a healthy lifestyle, not an extreme one that the contestant goes through. I also wonder if the contestants are give enough information to consent to the regime the show puts them under. I think it's telling (and frankly, I don't think it should protect a doctor!) that the contestants must sign the following waiver: "No warranty, representation or guarantee has been made as to the qualifications or credentials of the medical professionals who examine me or perform any procedures on me in connection with my participation in the series, or their ability to diagnose medical conditions that may affect my fitness to participate in the series". Are these really doctors? If they are, then this should in way reduce their liability for poor medical advice, nor the show's. My final concern is a bit more out of left field. This show is a data driven show. They record their calorific intake, blood pressure, time and means excercised, weight loss, psychological studies are taken... You name it, they do it. And it's done under a very controlled environment. The show is basically a medical study, albeit not one with a control group or published in a scientific journal, or ine that publishes their full results. Yet a study it is: whilst the methodology and transparency are flawed, their are plenty of studies that exhibit the same characteristics. The difference is that in a normal medical study at a university the study would need to be approved by an ethics committee and follow certain parameters. The Biggest Loser* does not. Which means that I seriously wonder what level of liability - both personal and corporate - the producers of this show are letting themselves in for. They may have legal disclaimers, but if even one contestant can prove corrosion or a lack of informed consent as to what they were agreeing to, then those waivers would be worthless. This show, frankly, is a huge concern.
• russtrotter 10y ago
  I get it: low-carb, hi-fat works for people and high-carb, low-fat works for people. Let's just get that off the table, but can we, for the love of the sustainable planet, have a hi-fat person give their testimony on how they did it with plant foods instead of just feeding the "mmmmmm more bacon, burgers, chicken and cheese!" mentality?
• dclowd9901 10y ago
  This jibes pretty well with my experience. Used to weigh about 220 at my peak, and I was eating a lot those days. Cut back, drank less, exercised more (running). Lost about 45 pounds. However, at that point, I was running about 1000 calories a day, sometimes less (a big reason I think The Martian is bullshit). I was not starving. My body wasn't starving. You can (and many people should) subsist on far less than the recommended daily allowance of calories. If I eat a typical 2000 calorie diet, I will not just gain weight, but I will gain weight at a rate of about a pound or two a month. I've currently gained back about 10 pounds of what I lost, so I'm going to have to turn on the afterburners again, but we really need to change the dialogue of what a standard of consumption and health is. It's very simple: if your body has a slow metabolism, you have to eat a lot less than most people.
  • MustardTiger 10y ago
    You are either a very small person, or you are not accurately counting your calories. The reason some people can subsist on less than the recommended caloric intake is that the recommendation is an average. If you are below average in size and/or activity level, then you need a below average amount of calories.
    • dclowd9901 10y ago
      5'11" and 185. It's possible I'm miscounting calories (given how much of a crapshoot the task is), but not by so much that it would matter greatly.
      • MustardTiger 10y ago
        Yes, it is very possible that it would matter greatly. People routinely count their calories at 1/3 of what they are really consuming. Get a scale, weigh your food. It is the only way to get useful accuracy.
        • dclowd9901 10y ago
          I've lost 40 pounds before. I'm not new to how to do it. I know my input is anecdotal but I gave it because apparently it's been backed up by hard evidence.
• mhurron 10y ago
  That sounds socialist and would just stifle the free market. The governments only place is in war and womens vaginas. I may have been in the US too long.
  • zookatron 10y ago
    You forgot the /s
  • cc81 10y ago
    The US government funds tons of public research. (almost all governments are in women's vaginas if you are talking about abortion; there are few who wants to to be completely unregulated)
  • meric 10y ago
    Government regulate women's vaginas when these "things"[1] are in them. [1] http://www.dakotavoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/abortion.jpg http://www.dakotavoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/aborti...
  • dang 10y ago
    We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11613786 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11613786 and marked it off-topic.
• HardDaysKnight 10y ago
  Very little was said about the type of exercise they were doing. I'd guess that most of it was "cardio." Would they have different results if they were involved in more specifically muscle building exercises, i.e, weight lifting (and with adequate rest)? I've been following McGuff's Body By Science protocol for the past 6 months and I believe that with increased muscle my overall health is improving much more than would have resulted from typical long and slow cardio. Has anybody else tried this?
• SovietDissident 10y ago
  "Soon the scale hit 265. Mr. Cahill started weighing and measuring his food again and stepped up his exercise. He got back down to 235 to 240 pounds. But his weight edged up again, to 275, then 295. His slow metabolism is part of the problem, and so are his food cravings. He opens a bag of chips, thinking he will have just a few. “I’d eat five bites. Then I’d black out and eat the whole bag of chips and say, ‘What did I do?’”" The article is light on the details post-TBL, but it sounds like recidivism in terms of diet is probably a major root cause of weight gain. Also, maybe it's hard to tell whether they're doing steady-state cardio or high-intensity interval training (steady-state cardio has been shown to paradoxically cause weight gain in people). In any case, it sounds like they need more guidance and check-ins post-show.
  • 49para 10y ago
    "He opens a bag of chips, thinking he will have just a few." Thats the problem right there. Don't have things like that in your house. Want a snack, try raw carrots or broccoli, by the time you finish binging you would have consumed about 50 calories :)
• ck2 10y ago
  Well of course they did. That show had them losing a POUND PER DAY - that's insane. You'll never be able to maintain that kind of metabolism and calorie burn, it would be a full time job and then some. I spent the last year losing a pound per week and that was challenging enough. I still can't touch more than 2000 calories per day or I will gain weight and I run every morning.
• cowardlydragon 10y ago
  What raises metabolic rate? High intensity interval exercise? Long slow distance? I'm wondering if 2-3 hours of exercise training would be necessary to readjust the metabolism. It's my gut as an athlete... Especially the very high intensity interval training. This comes from sprinters having almost magically low fat in many cases, despite not doing nearly as much aerobic execise as, say, even a recreational marathoner.
• beloch 10y ago
  I'm curious about how the metabolic rate of these former contestants is determined. Are they confined to a lab where their dietary intake and physical activity can be accurately measured for an extended period of time? Probably not. My best guess is that the subjects being studied are asked to keep food and activity journals and then these, plus their weight, is used to calculate their metabolic rate. I've experimented with keeping a food journal in the past, and it's exceptionally difficult to keep track of everything you eat without this extra work impacting your food choices. e.g. The chore of writing stuff down might prevent me from casually snagging a handful of nuts on my way through the kitchen, and consciousness about how it will look in the journal might make me pass on those chips. Even ignoring these problems, it takes a lot of effort to produce even remotely useful data. e.g. "I ate a pear." is actually pretty vague. Breed, size, and ripeness all have a pretty big impact on the nutrients you'll get from that pear. You need to weigh everything as a bare minimum. Also, you need to keep the journal all of the time, because if you keep it for just a week or two that sample likely won't be very representative of your normal habits. Likewise, activities are hard to keep track of. With a fairly standard ergometer (such as a Concept2 rower) you can get a reasonable measure of activity level in a workout. Lifting weights, running, walking, etc. are all much, much vaguer. 30 minutes of "moderate jogging" means different things to different people. Most people are likely to overestimate or habitually pad their activities. So, you have a really vague, spitballed idea of what these people are eating and doing, combined with weight gain. Are their metabolisms really slower than expected, or is there a systematic error common to these people in that, after a period of extreme privation (i.e. the competition) in which some of them lost more than a pound a day, they are now underestimating their food intake and overestimating their activity levels? How much can basal human metabolism really vary anyways? If humans can get by on substantially fewer calories, why don't we all typically do this? Where does all the extra energy normal people inefficiently burn off go?
  • jimrandomh 10y ago
    No, energy expenditure is normally measured by the doubly-labelled water technique. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubly_labeled_water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doubly_labeled_water
  • 10y ago
• npsimons 10y ago
  So, on a show where they have people lose weight in the most unsustainable (read: dramatic) way possible, they are then surprised they don't keep it off? I am shocked. Shocked, I say!
• tzs 10y ago
  Here's a link to the paper: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21538/full http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21538/full
• npsimons 10y ago
  I think the biggest thing we should take away from this study is that losing weight "The Biggest Loser" style is bad for your long term health, not that everyone who loses weight will gain it all back or that weight loss is impossible. In other words, don't follow a "Biggest Loser" style program to lose weight.