Biggest loser and starvation mode

Whambam087 · February 2014

I am confused...I have seen posts from people claiming their only eating 1200 calories and exercising like crazy and not losing any weight. Then you have the most recent biggest loser contestant Rachel who claims to have eaten 1600 calories a day while exercising for hours everyday. Well she definitely lost weight by exercising and eating less. And she accomplished this in such a short time period of time too. How come eating less and exercising more worked for her and not some other people on here?

DrWhoodles · February 2014

Two words: "People lie"

yarwell · February 2014

Good question. There is a scientific paper about Biggest Loser which from memory suggested they ate around 1300 calories and exercised to the tune of 2000, but my memory may be letting me down.

titanium96 · February 2014

.....honesty.....

Allterrain_Lady · February 2014

Two words: "People lie"

Something like that, indeed. That Rachel girl seemed really happy to look kind of sick...

10manda86 · February 2014

Australia Biggest loser the other night a contestant stated that they are on 1000 calories... a trainer told his team he wanted each of them to burn 600 calories in that session- minimum! thats only 400 calories a day to live off, not taking into account BMR... its insane!!!

Whambam087 · February 2014

Two words: "People lie"

So you're saying people are underestimating the amount of calories they're eating and burning and if they really were eating that little and moving that much they would lose...

kapoorvilla · February 2014

Everybody is so Different. I have a slower than average metabolism according to testing done at the Bariatric center. I eat 1200 calories and exercise 6 days a week 2 1/2 to 3 hours for past few months. I out lined my workout in detail in other posts, I have finally started seeing movement on scale and clothing size after long stand still.

My lost started in 2006 @ 386 and I lost a little over 100 on my own mostly through diet and not consistent exercise. Then I had gastric sleeve was disappointed to see only 70 pounds has gone after 13 months. My doctor said I did not see as big as lost as others because I had already made so many lifestyle changes in eatting the calorie difference was not as huge as his other patients who had not made those changes prior to surgery.

I felt like exercise was the only frontier left to make big changes so I started getting serious there in October. At first I eat more calories because exercise makes you hungry. Now for the past several weeks I am staying at 1200 and it is woking, I am losing again but slowly. I don't think there is anyway possible to make my body loose fast like that. I do an hour cardio and spend the rest of the time strength training to the tune of 100,000 lbs a day.

Said all that to say drastic measures do not work for all of us.

yarwell · February 2014

Australia Biggest loser the other night a contestant stated that they are on 1000 calories... a trainer told his team he wanted each of them to burn 600 calories in that session- minimum! thats only 400 calories a day to live off, not taking into account BMR... its insane!!!

you appear to be ignoring the average 560,000 calories of fat they were carrying. In the absence of adequate food intake they live off that.

Their TDEE is about 3000 - 4000 kcal/day and they are told to eat at least 70% of their BMR using the equation 21.6 kcal/kg·d × FFM (kilograms) + 370 kcal/d. On average this means eating at least 1400.

Momto4minions · February 2014

I also think many times, people are posting they are not dropping weight when they are at the last 10-20 lbs. these seem to creep off so much more slowly, in my experience.

Sometimes, you have to maintain for a long time to kind of trick your body into being ready to drop those last few pounds. Also, when you have lost a lot of weight and get down to only a little to drop, your body composition has changed a lot. This means your calories required and burnt on exercise are different. Many people keep on the exact same diet since it worked up until this point, without realizing that they physically are not the same person.

If you have more fat, you can safely do a higher deficit, since your body has fat stores to pull from. When you get lean, often you have to feed your body more than you did to get the response to exercise, muscle building, and diet.

Our bodies can be complex. i am not a dietician. I am just saying what I have experienced in the past.

but, everyone is different.

sarafischbach9 · February 2014

Everyone is different. We all hit plateaus. Some people on here might be complaining that they are not losing when they are not just giving their bodies time. I have lost weight before and am doing it again and there is always a period of time ( 1-2 weeks where I do not lose weight or only lose 1 lb for those two weeks ). And then I begin losing again. For some reason, that is something my body does and it always picks up weight loss soon after. Sometimes I have to increase my calories a little for me to lose weight again.

Some people simply ruin their metabolism by eating too little and exercising like crazy. Other people are fine and continue to lose. Sometimes it is different each time you lose weight.

I used to have an eating disorder. I went from 700 calories a day to 1600 in a couple weeks and only gained water weight. After the initial water weight, I began to LOSE weight again because of my increased metabolism. I had to increase my calories to over 2000 a day ( more like 2200 ) to gain weight while my weight was in my 90s ( I am just under 5'4 )

Other people might not be recording their intakes accurately. Sometimes they might forget to add a few snacks they munched on during the day and all those snacks add up. Or they underestimated their portion size. Other times they might just be retaining water from PMS, too much sodium, or simply the water just is staying in the body.

A lot of people experience plateaus, but like I said I think a lot of people on here might just be going through a slow phase and their weight loss will pick up again soon.

savithny · February 2014

Actually, they've done studies on Biggest Loser contestants re: metabolic slowing.

See here:
http://press.endocrine.org/doi/abs/10.1210/jc.2012-1444?papetoc=&
Metabolic Slowing with Massive Weight Loss despite Preservation of Fat-Free Mass
Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism
97(7) July , 2012
Results (from abstract):
At baseline, participants were severely obese (×± sd; body mass index 49.4 ± 9.4 kg/m2) with 49 ± 5% body fat. At wk 30, more than one third of initial body weight was lost (−38 ± 9%) and consisted of 17 ± 8% from FFM and 83 ± 8% from fat. RMR declined out of proportion to the decrease in body mass, demonstrating a substantial metabolic adaptation (−244 ± 231 and −504 ± 171 kcal/d at wk 6 and 30, respectively, P < 0.01). Energy expenditure attributed to physical activity increased by 10.2 ± 5.1 kcal/kg·d at wk 6 and 6.0 ± 4.1 kcal/kg·d at wk 30 (P < 0.001 vs. zero).

Conclusion:
Despite relative preservation of FFM, exercise did not prevent dramatic slowing of resting metabolism out of proportion to weight loss. This metabolic adaptation may persist during weight maintenance and predispose to weight regain unless high levels of physical activity or caloric restriction are maintained.

cheripugh1 · February 2014

I do not agree with those saying honesty although some do lie or simple have no idea that the numbers they are using are wrong. I honestly believe that it is simply, people are different... why does one person eat everything under the Sun and aren't overly active yet are thin as a rail and others watch everything that goes in and exercises and GAINS and/or is obese? We are different. When you have an extreme amount to lose you will drop wt. fast, as you thin down it becomes harder, at least for most people... in this Rachael's case as she saw progress, she went crazy and burned like a wild fire, not sure if she can keep the loss but hopefully she will keep at a decent wt.

right now, for me, I can sit on my butt and eat 1200 calories and lose about 1 lb. a wk. a good wk. 1 1/2 lbs. BUT if any of those meals are high in sodium I can actually GAIN without going over my 1200... that is just how it works out for many of us.

PunkyDucky · February 2014

Two words: "People lie"

Something like that, indeed. That Rachel girl seemed really happy to look kind of sick...

''

Yeah she was happy bc she won $250,000 LOL

The_Enginerd · February 2014

I do not agree with those saying honesty although some do lie or simple have no idea that the numbers they are using are wrong. I honestly believe that it is simply, people are different... why does one person eat everything under the Sun and aren't overly active yet are thin as a rail and others watch everything that goes in and exercises and GAINS and/or is obese? We are different. When you have an extreme amount to lose you will drop wt. fast, as you thin down it becomes harder, at least for most people... in this Rachael's case as she saw progress, she went crazy and burned like a wild fire, not sure if she can keep the loss but hopefully she will keep at a decent wt.

right now, for me, I can sit on my butt and eat 1200 calories and lose about 1 lb. a wk. a good wk. 1 1/2 lbs. BUT if any of those meals are high in sodium I can actually GAIN without going over my 1200... that is just how it works out for many of us.

Those people that "eat everything under the Sun and aren't overly active yet are thin as a rail" actually don't each much if you follow them throughout the day. In 99% of the cases of people not losing when they claim they are eating low calories, they are eating more than they think through underestimating portions or not being honest with themselves. Experiments done with doubly labelled water bear this out. The others have medical problems affecting their metabolism, but this is not the case in the VAST majority of cases.

The weight gain from sodium is water weight. It has no bearing on fat loss or long term weight loss.

billt568 · February 2014

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJM199212313272701

People on low calorie diets who dont lose weight lie. Calories in, calories out. NEJM article above...

"The main finding of this study is that failure to lose weight despite a self-reported low caloric intake can be explained by substantial misreporting of food intake and physical activity"

erickirb · February 2014

Two words: "People lie"

This or people don't measure and weigh what they actually are eating and end up eating 20-50% more than they think they are eating

bkyoun · February 2014

http://www.acaloriecounter.com/blog/why-am-i-not-losing-weight/

RunMyOregonBunsOff · February 2014

I think they don't really show it on the show but they have one cheat/rest day a week that might have balanced it out some. I think I remember a reference to that one season.

Roadie2000 · February 2014

Could be a lot of different things. It's possible they are underestimating their calorie intake and/or their calories burned. They are both pretty easy to screw up, not everyone measures every single thing they put in their mouth, and calories burned while working out (especially weight lifting) is not a very precise estimate. There's also water retention.

Metabolism is a very complex thing. The BMR they give you on this site clearly says it is just a guess and should be used as a guide only. And after you've been on a diet for a while your metabolism should slow down a bit (in theory). There are also other medical reasons that might make it harder for some people to lose weight. So everything someone is doing might look good on paper, but due to a large margin of error their body might be doing something completely different.

And in my theory, the foods you eat will effect your body differently. I think it's a little more complicated than calories in = calories out. If you get most of your calories from lean proteins and veggies I believe you will lose weight quicker than if you eat mostly carbs. Mainly because you'll generally be able to eat more with veggies than processed carbs and it will keep your metabolism. But also in the way your body metabolizes carbs. (This is my theory and I'm no expert, I've probably read it somewhere, if anyone disagrees with it that's fine but I'm not going to argue about a personal theory.)

kapoorvilla · February 2014

Roadie my personal experience of loosing 172 pounds thus far tells me there is a lot of truth in your post. The math just does not hold true in every case. Input error (lack of measuring and logging) certainly is a factor. Other factors include medical factors, body changes related to age, stresses, climate, and so forth. I have close family members who have huge appetites and lead lives void of any consistent exercise program or sport. They remain thin. I know one such person that says "I can't buy a pound." So it least to some that feels like a curse. People do have very different metabolic rates my sister and I was measured by a baratric center at the same time her's was in normal range, mine was below normal. She loses faster even with me being a consistent exerciser and her not. You just got to work with what you got!

Biggest loser and starvation mode

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