Is Maintenance Really Impossible?
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I feel you. I have been fluctuating up and down 30 pounds my whole life (since I was about 16). Every time I lose focus, I gain it back. When I try to diet, I feel like I am starving the entire time. I'm starting to think that if I don't feel hungry, I've probably eaten too much. Even with a lower carb high protein diet, I feel hungry. Good luck to you. Maintaining is just as difficult as losing.0
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I lost 50+ pounds (through Medifast) but I have been off their prepackaged meals for almost a year now and actually lost weight even while I was eating regular food again! I know I can never go back to eating like I used to, and I have committed to being more active, and I LIKE these changes, I wouldn't want to return to constantly overindulging and sitting around all day!
Well, part of the above statement is right and wrong. First, it's GREAT that you are committed to being more active and eating less. You are absolutely RIGHT that you can never go back to overindulging and sitting around all day if you expect to maintain your weight. You do, however, need to learn how to eat a healthy amount of calories to maintain your weight, you can not eat and/or exercise yourself into a calorie deficit for the rest of your life.
I have basically been maintaining for over a year. I am up a few pounds after having a major surgery and going on vacation, but I am still within 5 pounds of my lowest weight which is basically a fluctuation and all of my clothes still fit. Maintenance is possible.0 -
People lose the weight doing stupid insane crash diets, lose a bunch of muscle mass, stop starving themselves and then gain it back as almost all fat.
QFT
If you're "dieting", like there's an end game, you're probably in for disappointment.0 -
People gain weight back because they lost it doing things they can't sustain... like drinking Slim Fast.
In order to maintain your weight loss, you have to do what got you to your goal in the first place - eat what you need to and burn what you can.0 -
Everywhere I look I am confronted by statistics saying anybody who loses a significant amount of weight WILL gain it back, there is almost no doubt. They said 99% of people who diet will regain all the lost weight and then some...
The key word, DIET. You are making adjustments and creating a program to maintain a LIFESTYLE. When dieting, you are doing things to help get the weight off, not thinking about the long term.
When making a lifestyle change, you are working hard to develop a healthy manageable way of living that is realistic to last a lifetime.0 -
Everywhere I look I am confronted by statistics saying anybody who loses a significant amount of weight WILL gain it back, there is almost no doubt. They said 99% of people who diet will regain all the lost weight and then some....
True. That's why you should never diet. The whole concept of "diet" is flawed. The whole idea of making a temporary change to achieve permanent results is madness. As a matter of fact, many credit the diet industry with being the cause of the obesity epidemic. That's right: DIETING IS THE ROOT CAUSE OF OBESITY in America. (http://www.intuitiveeating.org/content/warning-dieting-causes-weight-gain-short-video-evelyn-tribole-ms-rd)
A new body is the result of a new lifestyle. That does not happen fast. And a new lifestyle is not temporary. It can be summed up in the mantra "Never do anything to lose weight that you are not willing to do for the rest of your life."
One of the more sensible approaches I have seen is this: Calculate the maintenance calories of the fit, trim person that you want to be, and eat that every day until you shrink down to match that calorie level. Simple. By the time your body matches that calorie level, maintenance is almost a guaranteed success. You have been doing maintenance the whole time you were losing! You are now a pro at maintenance! No adjustment needed! (Hint: The maintenance calories for the fit, healthy person you want to be is nowhere near 1200 calories!)
Just like there will always be people trying the latest "get rich quick" scheme, making a bit of money maybe but eventually losing their shirt on some scam or another, there will always be people in a hurry to get skinny fast. But the ones who succeed in weight loss and fitness are the slow-and-steady ones. The ones who know that they can't save money for a couple months and then give up.... and still expect to retire well... they need to save a little every day, every week, every month, every year. Real weight loss is not sexy, and it is not spectacular. It is slow. It is steady. It is consistent. It requires patience. It does not try to speed things up with shakes or pills. It is sensible. And in the end, it wins the race.0 -
It all depends, it's a matter of habit, circumstance, and mindset.
I too liked all the changes I was able to make and lose 80pounds, but that did not sustain me throughout the last 6 or so months when I weight went up/down due to stress and me over eating and being underactive. I slowly put back on 10pounds and said as long as I do no more than that and can bring it down.
Then I exceeded that 10pounds and now am looking at having gained 20 of those pounds back.
Just real life cases I know: my sister loss about 60, gained most, about 40 of those back. Friend gained back 80pounds, more than what she initially loss. Another friend (on MFP) gained back all(+some) of their weight.
It is hard, you have to renew your determination everyday. I thought the changes I had made over a 1 1/2yrs. period were sustainable but I guess they were not fool proof. I liked exercise b/c it was a novelty to me, but now it's a chore.
I liked eating healthier, now I run like the plague away from most healthy foods.
This is just my story, I obviously have not gained everything back, so some good habits are still in tact, but I have 19yrs. of bad habits vs. 2-3yrs. of good habits, so you tell me which might overthrow which.
I make no excuses, choices are my own, but weight loss is a beast. Maintaining is a beast of its own.
Injury, depression, stress got the best of me, and I solved my problems with food, which added to the problems, irony.0 -
Everywhere I look I am confronted by statistics saying anybody who loses a significant amount of weight WILL gain it back, there is almost no doubt. They said 99% of people who diet will regain all the lost weight and then some...
I can understand that some people are naturally larger, and maybe just don't have the right genetics to maintain any significant loss...
It would also make sense that, if somebody went on a diet, lost the weight, then went back to eating like they did before the weight would return.
Maybe if you struggled with a binge eating disorder or some sort of physical condition long term success would be limited...
But none of this applies to me, I have always been a little chubby due to never learning about healthy eating or exercise habits, but when I moved out I gained a large amount of weight because I was always at home, never cooked, and straight up binged on junk, especially when I was depressed.
I lost 50+ pounds (through Medifast) but I have been off their prepackaged meals for almost a year now and actually lost weight even while I was eating regular food again! I know I can never go back to eating like I used to, and I have committed to being more active, and I LIKE these changes, I wouldn't want to return to constantly overindulging and sitting around all day!
What circumstances would cause the weight to return? Am I doomed? Is there anybody who has kept weight off for over 5 years, or is that completely impossible, as statistical evidence seems to suggest?
Of course, with age comes some weight gain but I am only 19 I still have a while to go, right?
It is just a terrifying thing to hear over and over when I have worked so hard to get where I am today.
I haven't gained an ounce in over three years. But I'm not at maintenance yet. I follow a lower carb plan, so when I'm on maintenance, I will continue just as I am now, only I will set my macros just a little higher. Instead of keeping my carbs between 70 to 100, I will just let them drift up toward 150 (150 grams of carb is the upper limit for maintaining your weight loss, when you are a lower carb person). I will continue with my exercise at least at the level that I have now. The reason why people regain is because they stop recording their food, go back to their old ways of eating, and they stop exercising as much. I made a permanent dietary change three years ago (no added sugar, no processed food). I missed it at first (and I never ate a lot of sweets or junk food) but now I don't at all since I feel so much better for focusing on nourishing my body very well. That is the only way I could ever stick to a weight loss plan---by paying attention to nutrition and health (and sugary foods and junk foods just don't fit in that plan). People say, "Oh come on, you've lost a LOT of weight, one piece of cake isn't going to hurt anything!" or "You mean you will never have a cookie again?" I tell them that I COULD have a piece of cake if I wanted one but I likely would not enjoy it as I am not accustomed to eating sugar anymore and it would taste too sweet to me. As for cookies, I will probably allow myself to eat a FEW Christmas cookies on Christmas this year. But it will be one day's indulgence only. Since I have blood sugar issues, and been hypertensive in the past, I will not reverse months of hard work because I cannot discipline my eating. NOT gonna happen.0 -
Maintenance is possible if we change the word from "diet" to "nutrition"... if we stop comparing ourselves to the standards of others; even small changes and daily effort can become the healthier lifestyle behavior.
I believe it's doable, if you want it bad enough.
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I lost 50kg (~100lbs) in 1993 and yet, here I am again, 20 years later needing to lose 66kg (~145lbs). I swore I'd never let myself gain weight again - and I didn't, for about 7 years. Then it slowly began to creep back ...life got in the way. Divorce, moving cities, being a single parent, having no money, going to university, starting a new and stressful job with erratic work hours, finding and marrying my now husband, being generally happy, all contributed to my allowing the weight to creep back on. Then I woke up.
Some habits have stayed with me from that initial weight loss (good and bad, depending on your POV), i haven't eaten butter on bread, drunk anything other than diet soft drinks or had sugar in my tea and coffee. Unfortunately, the habit of counting calories, of being vigilant and staying active didn't stay with me. I think if the changes happen slowly you're much less likely to recognise the danger signs. Lastly, moderation sucks. Id love to be ale to scarf down huge amounts of chips and not get fat but that doesn't appear to be my lot in life. So be it.
The cost of being thin may be eternal vigilance?0 -
Of course maintenance is possible. I've been maintaining a 100lb loss for over a year. My weight fluctuates a little but that's normal. Maintenance is not easy. You have to put the same effort into it as you did losing. I still log my food, try to healthy and workout at least 5 days a week.0
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If you are on a "diet" and never changed the way you eat...yes, when you stop the "diet" you will go back. I've been down over 150 lbs. for over 5 yrs, now I'm losing more. I have to pat myself on the back, I have changed a little at a time, over time. If you had told Me 5 yrs. ago that I would have changed so much, AND NOT miss it, I would have told you NO Way.
Things I have Changed: No Alcohol; No Coffee (maybe a cup per month); No Dairy (but I do not trip if I eat a piece of cheese); No Sodas at all; No Meats; 70-75% fresh fruits and veggies; I Fresh Juice everyday (and love it!); I eat raw nuts and seeds; GREEN TEA, this stuff covers-up for a lot of stuff, LOVE IT!!!
The only reason I don't call Myself a Vegetarian or Vegan is because I may eat a slice of cheese once a week, also, labels lock Me in, and I don't want to feel restricted or beat Myself up if I eat some butter...Again, YES, Wt Loss can LAST a Lifetime if you are SERIOUS about your Health. That is why I never ever consider leaving MFP...logging is a major part of My Lifestyle, accountability!0 -
You can have some "junk" and maintain. Problem for most is that they just go back to consuming more than they burn.I don't think we are doomed if we treat this as a lifestyle change and don't go back to eating junk when we reach our goal.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
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Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition0 -
I know my weight has always fluctuated around +/- 10 lbs over time. But I am okay with that as long as I stay around my goal weight...whatever that ultimately ends up being. If I start getting up too much, I will cut back as I am now.
This exactly. When I turned 15 or 16, I started gaining weight like mad and realized then and there that weight would be an issue for me if I didn't make a concious effort to keep it under control. I am now 41, and I can tell you that I have worked my whole life to maintain my weighht. As mentioned above, the key is not letting it get too out of control. My weight has fluctuated over the years, up and down by as much as 20 lbs. When I start to notice that I am losing control, I just force myself back on track. I believe this is normal for most people who have to work to control their weight. But it is worth the effort.0 -
I know my weight has always fluctuated around +/- 10 lbs over time. But I am okay with that as long as I stay around my goal weight...whatever that ultimately ends up being. If I start getting up too much, I will cut back as I am now.
This has been my experience as well.
I have stayed around the 190lb mark for over 20 years now with the odd variation where it has gone up to over 200lbs (usually due to periods of high stress) when I have simply dieted back down painlessly.
I have been ripped at 170lbs but my body hated it and my set point seems to be about 185 - 190 and moving from that either up or down seems difficult.0 -
Running takes it's toll though, so consider other forms of cardio that are less impact too.It is possible. I've been able to maintain my weight. Then again my maintenance is 3000 calories a day. If I eat 2000 I'll start dropping like 2lbs a week which I don't want. Running everyday really makes maintenance easy.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition0 -
bump0
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All the people I know in my life who've had major weight loss end up looking rather like they did at the start in a few years. So while not IMPOSSIBLE, you're right in that it's almost guaranteed statistically. Yes, even if you call it a "lifestyle change".0
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I've personally been at this for 30 years now and have had my highest weight at 215lbs from starting at 124lbs. (out of high school) stay normally around 180lbs-190lbs for about 25 out of those 30 years. So it's not impossible. It takes consistency, discipline and IMO a LOVE of doing it that way.
If people find weight maintenance being a job or chore that has to be done and they don't particular care to do it, then the tendency to regain is more than likely.
A.C.E. Certified Personal and Group Fitness Trainer
IDEA Fitness member
Kickboxing Certified Instructor
Been in fitness for 28+ years and have studied kinesiology and nutrition0 -
I think I'm going to keep the weight off now because I lost it eating in a way that works for me. In the past I have followed someone else's idea of how I should eat, I think that that is harder to sustain.0
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People lose the weight doing stupid insane crash diets, lose a bunch of muscle mass, stop starving themselves and then gain it back as almost all fat.
QFT
If you're "dieting", like there's an end game, you're probably in for disappointment.
Definitely true for some, but it doesn't seem like anyone has mentioned yet that a thin person who has never been fat is not hormonally the same as a dieted-down thin person. All those fat cells you gained are still there, begging to be re-fed. So yes, you do have to work harder to stay thin if you were once fat.0 -
just copying an old post of mine.
While I'm not keen on the entire set - point theory, I do think genetic inheritance plays a very important part in the body returning to a "comfortable" weight. I really think weight is due to a combination of both genes and environment. After reading articles like the following I can't help but wonder if dieting is just too hard for some. My thinking (at the moment ) leans towards the possibility that people who relapse are just tired of the struggle to maintain the constant vigilance. Maybe it's due to a shifting of values where remaining thin is no longer a top priority in life, or counting calories and thinking about food becomes too time consuming and starts taking away from someone's life instead of adding to it. It's nice to be free from analyzing your options every time you eat something, to be able to eat something because that's what you "want", and not what you "should" have.
I'm sure there are many reasons, just throwing some possibilities out there.
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May 8, 2007
Genes Take Charge, and Diets Fall by the Wayside
By GINA KOLATA
Correction Appended
It was 1959. Jules Hirsch, a research physician at Rockefeller University, had gotten curious about weight loss in the obese. He was about to start a simple experiment that would change forever the way scientists think about fat.
Obese people, he knew, had huge fat cells, stuffed with glistening yellow fat. What happened to those cells when people lost weight, he wondered. Did they shrink or did they go away? He decided to find out.
It seemed straightforward. Dr. Hirsch found eight people who had been fat since childhood or adolescence and who agreed to live at the Rockefeller University Hospital for eight months while scientists would control their diets, make them lose weight and then examine their fat cells.
The study was rigorous and demanding. It began with an agonizing four weeks of a maintenance diet that assessed the subjects’ metabolism and caloric needs. Then the diet began. The only food permitted was a liquid formula providing 600 calories a day, a regimen that guaranteed they would lose weight. Finally, the subjects spent another four weeks on a diet that maintained them at their new weights, 100 pounds lower than their initial weights, on average.
Dr. Hirsch answered his original question — the subjects’ fat cells had shrunk and were now normal in size. And everyone, including Dr. Hirsch, assumed that the subjects would leave the hospital permanently thinner.
That did not happen. Instead, Dr. Hirsch says, “they all regained.” He was horrified. The study subjects certainly wanted to be thin, so what went wrong? Maybe, he thought, they had some deep-seated psychological need to be fat.
So Dr. Hirsch and his colleagues, including Dr. Rudolph L. Leibel, who is now at Columbia University, repeated the experiment and repeated it again. Every time the result was the same. The weight, so painstakingly lost, came right back. But since this was a research study, the investigators were also measuring metabolic changes, psychiatric conditions, body temperature and pulse. And that led them to a surprising conclusion: fat people who lost large amounts of weight might look like someone who was never fat, but they were very different. In fact, by every metabolic measurement, they seemed like people who were starving.
Before the diet began, the fat subjects’ metabolism was normal — the number of calories burned per square meter of body surface was no different from that of people who had never been fat. But when they lost weight, they were burning as much as 24 percent fewer calories per square meter of their surface area than the calories consumed by those who were naturally thin.
The Rockefeller subjects also had a psychiatric syndrome, called semi-starvation neurosis, which had been noticed before in people of normal weight who had been starved. They dreamed of food, they fantasized about food or about breaking their diet. They were anxious and depressed; some had thoughts of suicide. They secreted food in their rooms. And they binged.
The Rockefeller researchers explained their observations in one of their papers: “It is entirely possible that weight reduction, instead of resulting in a normal state for obese patients, results in an abnormal state resembling that of starved nonobese individuals.”
Eventually, more than 50 people lived at the hospital and lost weight, and every one had physical and psychological signs of starvation. There were a very few who did not get fat again, but they made staying thin their life’s work, becoming Weight Watchers lecturers, for example, and, always, counting calories and maintaining themselves in a permanent state of starvation.
“Did those who stayed thin simply have more willpower?” Dr. Hirsch asked. “In a funny way, they did.”
One way to interpret Dr. Hirsch and Dr. Leibel’s studies would be to propose that once a person got fat, the body would adjust, making it hopeless to lose weight and keep it off. The issue was important, because if getting fat was the problem, there might be a solution to the obesity epidemic: convince people that any weight gain was a step toward an irreversible condition that they most definitely did not want to have.
But another group of studies showed that that hypothesis, too, was wrong.
It began with studies that were the inspiration of Dr. Ethan Sims at the University of Vermont, who asked what would happen if thin people who had never had a weight problem deliberately got fat.
His subjects were prisoners at a nearby state prison who volunteered to gain weight. With great difficulty, they succeeded, increasing their weight by 20 percent to 25 percent. But it took them four to six months, eating as much as they could every day. Some consumed 10,000 calories a day, an amount so incredible that it would be hard to believe, were it not for the fact that there were attendants present at each meal who dutifully recorded everything the men ate.
Once the men were fat, their metabolisms increased by 50 percent. They needed more than 2,700 calories per square meter of their body surface to stay fat but needed just 1,800 calories per square meter to maintain their normal weight.
When the study ended, the prisoners had no trouble losing weight. Within months, they were back to normal and effortlessly stayed there.
The implications were clear. There is a reason that fat people cannot stay thin after they diet and that thin people cannot stay fat when they force themselves to gain weight. The body’s metabolism speeds up or slows down to keep weight within a narrow range. Gain weight and the metabolism can as much as double; lose weight and it can slow to half its original speed.
That, of course, was contrary to what every scientist had thought, and Dr. Sims knew it, as did Dr. Hirsch.
The message never really got out to the nation’s dieters, but a few research scientists were intrigued and asked the next question about body weight: Is body weight inherited, or is obesity more of an inadvertent, almost unconscious response to a society where food is cheap, abundant and tempting? An extra 100 calories a day will pile on 10 pounds in a year, public health messages often say. In five years, that is 50 pounds.
The assumption was that environment determined weight, but Dr. Albert Stunkard of the University of Pennsylvania wondered if that was true and, if so, to what extent. It was the early 1980s, long before obesity became what one social scientist called a moral panic, but a time when those questions of nature versus nurture were very much on Dr. Stunkard’s mind.
He found the perfect tool for investigating the nature-nurture question — a Danish registry of adoptees developed to understand whether schizophrenia was inherited. It included meticulous medical records of every Danish adoption between 1927 and 1947, including the names of the adoptees’ biological parents, and the heights and weights of the adoptees, their biological parents and their adoptive parents.
Dr. Stunkard ended up with 540 adults whose average age was 40. They had been adopted when they were very young — 55 percent had been adopted in the first month of life and 90 percent were adopted in the first year of life. His conclusions, published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 1986, were unequivocal. The adoptees were as fat as their biological parents, and how fat they were had no relation to how fat their adoptive parents were.
The scientists summarized it in their paper: “The two major findings of this study were that there was a clear relation between the body-mass index of biologic parents and the weight class of adoptees, suggesting that genetic influences are important determinants of body fatness; and that there was no relation between the body-mass index of adoptive parents and the weight class of adoptees, suggesting that childhood family environment alone has little or no effect.”
In other words, being fat was an inherited condition.
Dr. Stunkard also pointed out the implications: “Current efforts to prevent obesity are directed toward all children (and their parents) almost indiscriminately. Yet if family environment alone has no role in obesity, efforts now directed toward persons with little genetic risk of the disorder could be refocused on the smaller number who are more vulnerable. Such persons can already be identified with some assurance: 80 percent of the offspring of two obese parents become obese, as compared with no more than 14 percent of the offspring of two parents of normal weight.”
A few years later, in 1990, Dr. Stunkard published another study in The New England Journal of Medicine, using another classic method of geneticists: investigating twins. This time, he used the Swedish Twin Registry, studying its 93 pairs of identical twins who were reared apart, 154 pairs of identical twins who were reared together, 218 pairs of fraternal twins who were reared apart, and 208 pairs of fraternal twins who were reared together.
The identical twins had nearly identical body mass indexes, whether they had been reared apart or together. There was more variation in the body mass indexes of the fraternal twins, who, like any siblings, share some, but not all, genes.
The researchers concluded that 70 percent of the variation in peoples’ weights may be accounted for by inheritance, a figure that means that weight is more strongly inherited than nearly any other condition, including mental illness, breast cancer or heart disease.
The results did not mean that people are completely helpless to control their weight, Dr. Stunkard said. But, he said, it did mean that those who tend to be fat will have to constantly battle their genetic inheritance if they want to reach and maintain a significantly lower weight.
The findings also provided evidence for a phenomenon that scientists like Dr. Hirsch and Dr. Leibel were certain was true — each person has a comfortable weight range to which the body gravitates. The range might span 10 or 20 pounds: someone might be able to weigh 120 to 140 pounds without too much effort. Going much above or much below the natural weight range is difficult, however; the body resists by increasing or decreasing the appetite and changing the metabolism to push the weight back to the range it seeks.
The message is so at odds with the popular conception of weight loss — the mantra that all a person has to do is eat less and exercise more — that Dr. Jeffrey Friedman, an obesity researcher at the Rockefeller University, tried to come up with an analogy that would convey what science has found about the powerful biological controls over body weight.
He published it in the journal Science in 2003 and still cites it:
“Those who doubt the power of basic drives, however, might note that although one can hold one’s breath, this conscious act is soon overcome by the compulsion to breathe,” Dr. Friedman wrote. “The feeling of hunger is intense and, if not as potent as the drive to breathe, is probably no less powerful than the drive to drink when one is thirsty. This is the feeling the obese must resist after they have lost a significant amount of weight.”
This is an excerpt from Gina Kolata’s new book, “Rethinking Thin: The New Science of Weight Loss — and the Myths and Realities of Dieting” (Farrar, Straus & Giroux).
Correction: May 12, 2007
An article in Science Times on Tuesday about the role of genes in weight gain misstated the publication date for an article in the journal Science describing the biological controls over body weight. The article was published in 2003, not 2000.
Lots of comments after this article at the New York Times if you're interested - most not as depressing as this article and a few by readers that are maintaining a large loss of weight.
You'll probably just need to remain vigilant and aware.
Just to note, I didn't read the whole thing, but I can note at least on problem with the initial study, which may or may not have been continued in the future ones. That problem is they used a vlcd (600 calories) to get the weight loss. That will have severe negative effects on many hormones that is long lasting (the last study I saw on that found they had not returned to normal after a year). What is needed is a far less aggressive approach being studied. For example, we have no idea from the information given what would happen with a person who eats at the BMR for their goal weight which would be lower than their fat weight BMR. The reasons that approach was likely not taken were things like how long such weight loss would take (generally a study won't have the funding needed for a multi-year clinical study), the amount of drop outs a slow weight loss like that would produce, and possible some others. Frankly, working from data determined from a 600 calorie diet simply shows that VLCDs will not produce long term sustainable weightloss. They say nothing about other methods.0 -
People lose the weight doing stupid insane crash diets, lose a bunch of muscle mass, stop starving themselves and then gain it back as almost all fat.
QFT
If you're "dieting", like there's an end game, you're probably in for disappointment.
Definitely true for some, but it doesn't seem like anyone has mentioned yet that a thin person who has never been fat is not hormonally the same as a dieted-down thin person. All those fat cells you gained are still there, begging to be re-fed. So yes, you do have to work harder to stay thin if you were once fat.
Yes---controlling the hormones that influence fat gain or loss is the aim of current obesity research. Leptin research is particularly interesting. Our fat cells put out leptin in abundance as we gain in numbers of fat cells or enlarge the ones we have. In normal weight individuals, leptin signals the brain to stop eating and stimulates the burning of calories (thus the normal weight subjects of obesity research, who were unable to maintain deliberate weight gain). What has been discovered is that almost all obese individuals (and virtually all of the morbidly obese) have "leptin resistance" and that leptin resistance precedes and predicts "insulin resistance" if measures are not put into place to reduce leptin resistance.
It was initially thought that obese individuals must lack leptin, but then, when they measured blood levels of leptin, it was discovered that their leptin levels were actually quite high (and that women have levels that are 2 to 3 times that of men at the same body fat levels!). Why these high levels did not curb appetite (or stimulate calorie-burning) was not initially understood. Scientists then began to speak of "leptin resistance". The effect of leptin was somehow being blocked.
The newest fat-produced hormone that obesity researchers are looking at is adiponectin. Adiponectin appears to promote fat-burning as opposed to fat storage. Obese people seem to have a lack of adiponectin as opposed to leptin which they have in abundance but are resistant to its effects. It is known that blood levels of adiponectin will increase when adequate levels of magnesium ions are in the blood (magnesium ions are vital for the transport of ATP to the muscles). Since most Americans are deficient in magnesium (about 85% of the population), it could be part of the picture of rapidly expanding obesity in the population. An analysis of the standard diet reveals that few vegetables are eaten and it is through eating vegetables that magnesium is most easily obtained. There is a lot of magnesium in whole grain but there is also an abundance of phytic acid which blocks its uptake.
I really don't buy the genetic explanation for obesity because neither of my parents were obese as children and young adults but all three of the children in our family became obese as children. In addition, it has been noted by geneticists that the obesity "epidemic" could not be caused by "obesity genes" as the genome simply does not change that quickly.
That leaves only one obvious resort--diet. And in terms of long-term control of obesity, the nutritional components of the diet are at least as important as the number of calories because of the influence of nutrients on the hormonal system. While it is unlikely that there is a direct genetic cause of obesity, there does appear to be a genetic predisposition to the dietary stimulus of inflammation in the body. And body-wide inflammation is intimately involved with the metabolism of fat.
Scientists at Harvard's Joslin Diabetes Research Center have said that fat can be considered to be part of the immune system because adipocytes (fat cells) can be adapted by the body to become macrophages (cells that are part of the immune system). In fact, fat can be thought of as part of the immune system and part of the hormonal system. TNF (tumor necrosis factor, another part of the immune system), is both a cytokine (a mediator produced by macrophages) and an adipokine (a hormone produced by fat cells). TNF and its inflammatory "cousins" wreak havoc with the body's fat-storage-and-reduction mechanisms. TNF interferes with the operation of insulin, and is therefore a major contributor to insulin resistance.
It is unlikely that any drug will be able to be developed that will solve the problem of obesity because, in the opinion of many obesity researchers, the biochemistry of fat metabolism is just too complex to be controlled by any drug or even group of drugs without causing a myriad of undesirable effects. Again, we must look to diet as it seems to have the most direct link to obesity and obesity researchers have heavily implicated sugar, simple carbohydrates, saturated fats (because they contribute to inflammation) and food additives as the major players in the fat-production game, in addition to being behind the epidemic of "food addiction" and morbid obesity. Many of the morbidly obese ONLY eat foods that are loaded with all four of these substances. There is a fifth player--salt--and there is an interplay between all of these elements in obesity. A diet that eliminates or severely restricts all of these is the one most likely to achieve long-term obesity management.
In addition, researchers point to the influence of "phyto-nutrients" (those found in vegetables and fruits) and "good fats" (especially Omega-3 fatty acids, found in fish, leafy green vegetables and some legumes and nuts). Mono-unsaturated fats like that found in nuts, olives and avocados are also very useful in fighting inflammation in the body. And it is best to get these substances in food because the foods that contain these substances also contain other inflammation-fighters. Omega-3s are particularly important as the body is unable to convert other fats into them---they must be obtained from the diet. Fish oil is the most unsaturated of all the fats---it doesn't even solidify in the freezer (you can judge the level of saturation by how cold it has to get before it congeals). People of the past used to get their Omega-3s from eating fish and wild game. Animals that exclusively feed on green vegetation have high levels of Omega 3's in their blood and flesh. Today's livestock are fed diets that yield few if any Omega-3s. Fortunately, nature didn't shortchange us and provides Omega-3s in beans, nuts, seeds and leafy green vegetables. They are all great inflammation fighters. Only problem is that few people eat them unless they are consciously health-intentioned in their eating.
In addition to Omega 3's, phytonutrients contained in fruits and vegetables are powerful inflammation-fighters as well. Carotenoids and flavonoids are some of the most potent. Because of the absence of a variety of the tastes that come from fruits, vegetables, and spices and herbs (which also have anti-inflammatory power) we have become accustomed to the narrow tastes of sugar, fat and salt. There is more bad news in magnesium deficiency because it causes a deficiency of ATP (which causes lethargy).
Anyone can lose weight by ignoring nutrition and just restricting calories. To keep it off, we need to attack the problem at a cellular level.0 -
Yes, like many here have said you can be successful at keeping the weight off. Most of my life I lived to eat and eat I did. Now I eat to live. Treat your weight loss and maintenance like a job, it is a work in progress, a permanent lifestyle change. You have to keep at it...regulate and modify when needed to keeps thing on an even keel.0
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I definitely lost a lot of weight quickly, does this mean I am doomed? I thought by eating small meals throughout the day my metabolism would stay regulated instead of slowing down... But is 50 pounds in a year (maybe even less) a sure sign I will gain it all back?0
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I definitely lost a lot of weight quickly, does this mean I am doomed? I thought by eating small meals throughout the day my metabolism would stay regulated instead of slowing down... But is 50 pounds in a year (maybe even less) a sure sign I will gain it all back?
No--but you must eat very well (this is the most important part--gotta keep those inflammatory hormones dampened with phyto-nutrients) and keep on exercising as much as you can. Your body's hormones should stabilize and the longer you are able to avoid regaining, the less likely you will. It is better to lose a bit slower than you did but you are young so you have that advantage. If you were 40, if would be a tougher go.0 -
I lost 50+ pounds (through Medifast) but I have been off their prepackaged meals for almost a year now and actually lost weight even while I was eating regular food again! I know I can never go back to eating like I used to, and I have committed to being more active, and I LIKE these changes, I wouldn't want to return to constantly overindulging and sitting around all day!
Well, part of the above statement is right and wrong. First, it's GREAT that you are committed to being more active and eating less. You are absolutely RIGHT that you can never go back to overindulging and sitting around all day if you expect to maintain your weight. You do, however, need to learn how to eat a healthy amount of calories to maintain your weight, you can not eat and/or exercise yourself into a calorie deficit for the rest of your life.
I have basically been maintaining for over a year. I am up a few pounds after having a major surgery and going on vacation, but I am still within 5 pounds of my lowest weight which is basically a fluctuation and all of my clothes still fit. Maintenance is possible.
You are correct, and that is my fear, I don't know that I COULD eat 1,500 calories a day without gaining!! Right now my weight fluctuates even when I get up to 1,200 a day... so that's pretty scary.0
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