The fundamentals of successful longterm weightloss for everyone.

Well i am sorry that my attempt to address the critic at the top of the thread put people off.

It would be a shame if people decided to not take on board what i wrote in my first post because of how they didn't like the way i responded to one poster. I jsut reread my first response and couldn't even find anything that you could object to but she wrote back and again becuase her post persists in failing to show comprehension of my initial post, i got frustrated.

So human failing again. We don't have to like people to accept that they are right or make good points. I'm not asking you to like me.

I have proposed a bunch of things that are not commonly known, either in solo or as a package and which will make long term weightloss successful and much easier. If people aren't interested in ideas that will give them more success or to help them make it easier, that's sad for them.

CAITWIN,

Being such a long post which i've only partially edited, this has got a bit messy. That will probably cause more problems but i'm worn out now.

Finally someone willing to engage with the content of my original post in a serious way. Thank for that at least.

So let me try to engage with your points.

You said: "The main thing I wanted to share is that the OP mentions she's never seen a book discuss the "deep and unexplored" emotional and mental preparation that may be needed before actually beginning a weight loss effort. There's actually quite a rich literature on the emotional and mental aspects of not only unhealthy eating patterns, but also the emotional impact of trying to lose weight, and the experience of being hindered by thoughts and emotions that need to be addressed if success is to be achieved.

Me: I am aware that there is a lot of literature on the psychology and emotional aspects of weightloss. Ihave read a few. And i've read a great deal about most matters of psychology since about 1997. I've done CBT myself, mindfulness i understnad what DBT is. I know what the DSM is all about. I had psychodynamica therapy for three years. I've worked in an eating disorders clinic. And so on and so forth. Most psychology books on the subject do not talk about the effects on hormones or biochemistry. Not that i've been able to find anyway.

I don't think i said anything anywhere about delaying weightloss. I just know that many people cannot "just start" when they want. They try and fail. I can't and i know many others can't either. It's not about delaying. Its about not being able. The reasons that make one not able is the thing that's never discussed. The difficulty is partly not a matter of conscious thought. Its about appetite and physiology. There seems to be stuff going on in our bodies below consciousness that makes it hard to just start and keep going as soon as you think its a good idea.

+++You mention Dr. Salis. Her work has not gotten much attention here in the U.S. but neither was it really earth-shattering (I say "was" because it's been some years since she was publicizing her book or doing youtube interviews). I'm not a huge fan of either set-point theory, which she espouses, or her "famine reaction" concept, but I'd be open to reading more about it - it's just that most of her online stuff, and her book, is centered on personal stories and anecdotal evidence. I always enjoy reading that sort of thing, but it doesn't satisfy my deeper need to see what has actually shaped her theories.

There is a lot of personal anecdote in her book but the guts of the famine reaction stuff is not personal anecdote and its scientific jargon either. Its a very good explanation of how it works. I think the reason for that is to make it appealing to a lay audience. She didn't write it to appeal to scientists. A lot of the best books i've read about diet tend to fail to reach wide audience because they are rather dense and intelligent and this type of book is not appealing to people who like light reading or have trouble reading anything at all. One example of that is The End of Overeating written by the former head of the WHO - who like me is not a diet scientist or professional but he has the credibility of being a public figure. And unlike a lot of doctors who are out there to dazzle people with quasi science to make money, she doesn't need to. Her writing comes across as completely honest to me. I believe she is the real deal type of scientist and should be given more credit by dieters like you and me. She understand the science so well, so thoroughly and and obviously believes in her discoveries and theories hence she can explain very well in words that do not rely on a lot of jargon and so on. And she is talking about her own work. Its not second hand stuff by and large that she is writing about. Even if you think you don't agree iwth her i would strongly recommend her books. Her second book has a wonderful expose of the hunger and satiety rating systems which is used by other intuitive eating experts. I don't go for intuitive eating myself but this system is a very practical and useful tool for everyone. I think everyone should learn how to use it. I would contrast her writing style with that of the authors of The Science of Low Carb. (I am not saying they are charletans but they are clearly writing for doctors and readers educated enough to be able to understand the technical stuff so lay readers could easily be dazzled by the tech stuff while to me who is also a lay reader it also seemed to have a few gaps or credibility in it. While for me i could understand enough but it also left with my plenty of doubts as there seemed to be a fair bit glossing over things in their book).

Dr Salis is a sciencist who was writing for laypeople about research that she had done personally in a difficult field. You may not be excited by her ideas but if you had read her books you might not find it so be easy to write her off. I found her explanation very convincing. What you may read on the internet is most likely a summarised version and therefore may not be as convincing. But her book includes discussion of other wonderful ideas that were new to me. For instance a guy in melbourne who'd done a study on the variety of foods we should. So i gained three very useful ideas from her two books. That said, when she talked about some more old fashioned ideas, i let those wash over becuase i have found them to be less than useful, eg low fat, exercise. But those ideas were the dominant ideas at the time.

Anyway Dr Salis is still a credible professional in her field because she still works for Australian Universities as a researcher, is an educator for medical doctors who these days have to do a lot more work with diet than their own studies prepared them for and I think still runs her own research projects.

Whether or not you buy her research is another question but her credentials can't be in question. Her work was ground breaking at hte time and has obviously led to many flow on studies.

I did acknowledge in my post above that the set-point theory is contentious so i guess that could be understood as making the notion not quite a fundamental - but basically i've said this one was a bit iffy. I know of no contention over any of the others. However, i must say i have found the idea very helpful. HOw i have found it helpful is this: It means i don't expect to be able to lose one pound of body weight month after month after month endlessly without negative consequences. I understand that and have found it to be helpful that pauses from time to time in a diet are good becuase they reset the metabolism to a faster speed. This won't be clear to anyone who is not already familiar with the subject of set-point and metabolism but i expect you may know what i'm talking about. So my hope was that others would be interested enough to find out more about it by reading what Dr Salis has to say about it in her book. So i stress again that i have found this to be an incredibly useful understanding of the way weight loss works over time in terms of metabolism. NOt many authors seem to discuss metabolism in a credible way with regards to weightloss but it is an issue becuase from time to time people come on here and post about being cold now that they are thin and how hot they used to be when fat. I know from my experience as a hypothyroid person that this is about metabolism. I do not htink many dieters on this site at all understand anything much about metabolsim or bother looking into it.

Of course we see the occasion reference to some money grabbing quack about metabolism busting diets. Yeah Right!

With regards to the register. Does it do any reserach about why people fail at weightloss. That's my point there. We don't know if what people say makes them successful if we do not know if these factors are also part of the programs of people who also fail. And of course that is anecdotal evidence too isn't it - the stuff on the weightloss register. But nevermind, i am not against anecdote but if you leave out the flip side i just wonder really if its the full story. I don't think so.


Finally, I will say that your statements like this: "I suspect that the people who object most loudly to what i'm saying are the people who are not doing what i'm recommending. ie the ones who exercise a lot who have never been terribly overweight for long periods, who don't have years of failed attempts behind them and so on." bother me quite a bit. I may be wrong, but this seems to indicate that your mind is already made up, and that your way is "The Way" for anyone who has had long-term struggles with weight loss. I don't feel that is a realistic or useful stance, but like I said, maybe I have the context wrong.

What i say here is a reflection on what i see that happens on the forum. If you are new to this forum, you may not see that there is a fairly large bunch of people who have a set motto or some such thing on a few particular topics which they spout in a completely unhelpful way over and over again on the forum. Its about those people who I am thinking when i wrote those words and i think that the person at top seems to be in that mould. I cannot tell you how many times i have seen posters write someting like "what it all boils down to CICO" And do you know what? That is not particularly helpful to most people. Slogans require fleshing out. And CICO is just referred to on this forum as a slogan so often. That is what my first point is aimed at.

And as i just said, people who find what i say useful tend to request friendship adn do not start fighting me on the forum. I would like it if they would ask for more info but they don't do that either terribly often. There is certainly more to know. And i can give people short cuts to understanding if they want to ask me. I mean i can explain things further or suggest books or links or videos or answer questions or show them how to apply it in practice.

SideSteel wrote: »

The weight loss registry allows you to key in to common characteristics of people who were successful at maintaining weight loss. If exercise is a common characteristic then you might be able to conclude that it is helpful in that regard.

I actually agree with a good chunk of your post. Totally disagree with your stance on exercise. Yes a calorie deficit is going to primarily drive changes in weight but activity is a part of that equation.

You also have to consider that the common rebuttals against exercise conclude (falsely, ie Taubes) that exercise increases appetite and causes people to eat more and additionally uses the "free living conditions" argument. Since we are dealing with a population of people (here on MFP) who track caloric intake, exercise can indeed become a method of enhancing the calorie deficit. Exercise and it's effect on appetite is likely variable from person to person and probably depends on exercise modality too. I can tell you from a coaching perspective that I regularly and successfully use exercise volume as a variable to increase energy demands which allows people to eat more food (compared to cutting calories further to create the deficit) which allows improved diet adherence. And whether or not you lean on additional exercise to further create the deficit is going to come down to individual factors.


See below for starters.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19175510
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3848645/

Sorry not to reply to this earlier. I missed it.

Anyway here goes.

As pointed out elsewhere, my logic is while many on the registry may say that exercise helps them lose weight and miantain it long term, this does not take into account all the people who were exercising their backsides off and quit or ultimately failed. I suspect the number of people who have tried losing weight by relying on exercise but failed is greater than the number of successes. I suggest that for whatever reason people have quit the exercise and with that have quit the whole project. Not being able to sustain the exericse is the reason for their failure and the reason i bleieve its better not to rely on it for weightloss and to not include into your plan until you have learnt how to lose weight without it.

As i do'nt know Taubes argument, i can't really consider it. I don't enough about it from the little you've said. Certainly i have noticed that when i do alot of exercise i do need to eat more. And when i stop doing the exercise in continue to eat more for sometime. My body demands it. Its clear to me that part of the reason for this is becuase the metabolism is faster now because there's more muscle. But this stuff is what freaks people out and its not really easy or straightforward to adjust to eating less when you stop exercising.

But for expert opinion on the question of exercise, i have direct your attention to the following. I cannot remember or repeate or even do much justice to their arguments since there are quite a few but they were reasonably convincing to me, although the main reason i now realise that exercise is a problem is from my own personal experience.

Anyway refer to: Youtube BBC tv series The Men Who Made us Thin which follows The Men Who Made us Fat.
Second DR Michael Mosley Exercise also on You Tube
A diet book by Dr George Blair West.

Look at all these and then argue the case with me if still feel they are wrong.

Also you might tell in which book Taubes is talking about exercise because i haven't seen it but i can say that his views were not part of my reasoning since i was unaware of them.

In my experience doing exercise to eat more only seems necessary when you are quite slim already because by that stage the daily calories are quite low. But until that stage you can eat quite a bit and easily lose weight with a fairly modest calorie deficit.

This I understand (because i don't have first hand experience with it) is more difficult with people who have diabetes or even pre-diabetes because weightloss seems to be slower.

But my main point, what is the point of exercise if the necessity for doing becomes the reason you fail the whole thing because you can't keep it up. For people who are able to keep up with through thick and thin, clearly its worked for them but I contend these people are a tiny minority. I'm not talking about the average person here. I'm talking about people who have weight problems and are trying to lose it. For these people the massive majority are unable to keep up the exercise interminably. I even recall one woman on another forum who did running for two years. She lost a ton of weight and had the surgery scars to show for it after skin removal. Then one day she disappeared off the forum. But i found her blog and on it, she talked about having injured her food with tendonitis and was unable to run. She was frantic because she could not stop eating. She was unable to immediately adjust her calorie intake to her new circumstances. I wasn't around for long enough to know where this story ended but with the injury she had, I could see she wouldn't be running again any time soon.

Most people do not get as far as she did but one time her injury was pretty much my story. I had been doing triathlon. I had lost all my weight and i used to go running every day. and or cycling and swimming. I usually did more htan an hour of exercise every day. I loved it. And then i pulled a ligament and had to stop running. I also got a job. The combination of these two factors caused me to have to quit with all my exercise and so before too long i was fat again. It was years before i was able to have anohter bash but it was even longer, much longer before i realised that exercise was the problem.