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Study Shows Why It’s Hard to Keep Weight Off
- rottencupcakes 15y agoIt's hard for me to take something like this seriously. If, after losing weight, these people are driven to consume more calories than their bodies are expending, they need to do something to compensate for that, plain and simple. It could be exercise or it could be gaining muscle mass (and maintaining muscle mass requires more caloric intake than maintaining fat). It's an absurdity to believe that these people should be able to lose weight, then simply go back to being sedentary and eating what they want to eat and expect to keep it off.
- weirdcat 15y agoNote that for a year the subjects were on a "maintenance diet", which most probably was intended to limit their calorie intake to match their daily energy expenditure, and still gained some of the weight back.
- nandemo 15y ago> Note that for a year the subjects were on a "maintenance diet" I believe a more exact wording would be: "the subjects were asked to keep a maintenance diet, and they reported doing so". Without reading the article (which is not freely available), it's hard to see how they verified the subjects actually kept the diet for 1 year.
- nodata 15y ago> If, after losing weight, these people are driven to consume more calories than their bodies are expending, they need to do something to compensate for that, plain and simple. We already know this is the case. The article addresses why this is difficult.
- buddylw 15y agoThis goes back to the flawed notion that calorie restriction is an effective weight loss tool. The root of this problem is not that you are eating too much. Eating too much is an effect, not a cause. The root of the problem is that you want to eat too much. A healthy person with a healthy metabolism does not want to eat more than their bodies need. It is true that you will loose weight if you restrict calories, but if you don't fix the root problem you are fighting a very old (leptin resistant) part of the brain that wants its fat back. We evolved an extremely complex and precise energy regulation mechanism over millions of years (just like all other organisms on earth). So the big question is, what is breaking this system? The answer (I believe) is rooted in high-calorie low nutrient junk-foods that are now ubiquitous (mainly sugar and grain based foods). The emphasis here is low nutrient by the way, not high calorie. I dare anyone to gain weight on meat and vegetables alone. If it's even possible, it's not easy to do. Over a year I lost 60 lbs (27kg) eating fatty meats and butter drenched vegetables and outside of the first two weeks or so, I NEVER starved myself and always ate till I was full. I feel truly sorry for those that struggle with obesity and try starving themselves and exercising as I did for the first 25 years of my life.
- silencio 15y agoWere you originally eating unhealthily before you lost weight eating that way? I am REALLY struggling with losing weight at the moment, and it's baffling as to why. Exercise - 3x/week 2 hours minimum cardio+weights and pilates, dance. I lost a lot of body fat and I'm in normal ranges for my age, but I'm just gaining a disturbing amount of weight via muscle mass to the point that simple BMI calculations think I'm obese. Food - My new doctor and personal trainer were both confused at my heaviness after finding out what I normally ate in a two-week timespan. Whole grains across the board (brown rice, beans, my favorite quinoa), half my meals were salads with little to no dressing/sauce (and that was usually just sriracha or a little vinaigrette), almost always water or green tea for drinking, small portions spread out with a little fruit across the day. My only guilty pleasures were the occasional piece of dark chocolate and a glass or two of wine/beer in a week. All the meat and seafood I ate were cooked pretty healthily, and things like butter are only touched when we have guests over. The only time I deviated from any of this was for rare situations, like my birthday lunch at The French Laundry :) Nobody could come up with a great diet solution for me that wasn't "eat less" or "exercise more", given that "eat less" would be sub-2000 calories for a moderately active person and "exercise more" would be quite painful and make me less likely to work out. I tried eating less for a short while anyway, and nearly passed out in the middle of a street. I can't possibly find a healthier way of eating than what I do now, and the people I talk to only wish their clients/patients would eat like I did. And yet here I am, looking fat, am still fat in some areas, weighing enough to be obese, running <10 minute miles, and still struggling with my weight despite being in pretty good shape. :(