Today's NYT article Re Metabolism/Maintaining
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Lo__
Posts: 42 Member
UPDATE: Apparently this was already posted! Still leaving this up because I'm interested in hearing from people with a more positive weight loss maintenance story than mine 
Has anyone read this yet:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html?_r=1&referer=https://t.co/z6hKErVNCE
I feel like I've always known the results of this study and what I was fighting against. It rings so true to me. Every time I've lost weight I've gained more back and every time I lose it's more difficult. Most recently I went from 250 to 195 in 2013 and a year and a half later it was all back. Now, 6 months later, I've gained another 30. And it's not for lack of effort! I may not have been perfect but I definitely was not overeating and I was making a general effort to keep it off. It was as though my body wanted to get back to where it was, like this article is saying. And now that I'm trying to lose again it's been an insane battle over each little pound. Can't help but feel a little discouraged about this long term.
Would love to hear someone else's thoughts, especially if you've lost and have managed to maintain.
Has anyone read this yet:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html?_r=1&referer=https://t.co/z6hKErVNCE
I feel like I've always known the results of this study and what I was fighting against. It rings so true to me. Every time I've lost weight I've gained more back and every time I lose it's more difficult. Most recently I went from 250 to 195 in 2013 and a year and a half later it was all back. Now, 6 months later, I've gained another 30. And it's not for lack of effort! I may not have been perfect but I definitely was not overeating and I was making a general effort to keep it off. It was as though my body wanted to get back to where it was, like this article is saying. And now that I'm trying to lose again it's been an insane battle over each little pound. Can't help but feel a little discouraged about this long term.
Would love to hear someone else's thoughts, especially if you've lost and have managed to maintain.
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I'm guessing you missed the other 9001 times this has been posted today and subsequently ripped on.1
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There are numerous threads about it.1
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well I can say I have been on my weight loss journey for almost 4 total years now and I have only gained back like 5 lbs(since being on MFP and its been almost 2 years here) which could have been water weight that stuck with me, but I lost that in the last 3 weeks. I was stuck in a 6+ month plateau too. I still have some weight to lose but I havent really gained anything back since joining,sure Im losing the weight slower than most people,but Im losing again. once you start a lifestyle you have to stick with it. if for me it means logging and weighing my food the rest of my life, I will do that.
Its not hard to eat more than you think when you are active more and get hungry.I have done it in the past,before I joined MFP(the first 2 years) and gained half my weight I lost back which is why I came here.The thing is once you lose the weight you have to learn to eat at maintenance because if you eat over maintenance then you will most likely gain the weight back.its a lifestyle change that you have to stick with the rest of your life if you want to keep the weight off.you may not have to weigh and log the rest of your life but you have to be mindful about how much you eat.0 -
Wait...are we taking a study on the possibility of metabolic damage in individuals who engaged in ridiculous levels of calorie restriction during periods of intense physical activity to the degree of risking their health on The Biggest Loser and extrapolating that to the general dieting public to say that anyone who loses weight at a moderate rate through reasonable calorie restriction will permanently jack up their metabolism???
...seems legit.6 -
CharlieBeansmomTracey wrote: »well I can say I have been on my weight loss journey for almost 4 total years now and I have only gained back like 5 lbs(since being on MFP and its been almost 2 years here) which could have been water weight that stuck with me, but I lost that in the last 3 weeks. I was stuck in a 6+ month plateau too. I still have some weight to lose but I havent really gained anything back since joining,sure Im losing the weight slower than most people,but Im losing again. once you start a lifestyle you have to stick with it. if for me it means logging and weighing my food the rest of my life, I will do that.
Its not hard to eat more than you think when you are active more and get hungry.I have done it in the past,before I joined MFP(the first 2 years) and gained half my weight I lost back which is why I came here.The thing is once you lose the weight you have to learn to eat at maintenance because if you eat over maintenance then you will most likely gain the weight back.its a lifestyle change that you have to stick with the rest of your life if you want to keep the weight off.you may not have to weigh and log the rest of your life but you have to be mindful about how much you eat.
Thanks for this. I guess that's what I hadn't realized. I assumed my gained weight had always been a result of really overeating, so once I lost the weight I thought it would be enough to what I thought of in my mind as "eat like a normal person." Which doesn't mean restaurant servings but doesn't mean counting and weighing every calorie either. In the past it was simply enough to eat healthy in a general way to lose weight, it's only now at age 29 and after losing a lot and then regaining even more that I'm measuring every gram and counting every macro, and even still it's a struggle. And needless to say the weight I lost in the past did not stay off, despite the fact that I cook for my husband and I almost every night and he hasn't gained any weight and he drinks beer regularly and I don't (while I've gained back 50 plus 30 for a total of 80!) Something just feels wrong with me sometimes, I don't know.
That's not to say I'm not going to keep trying, although I wish a lifetime of this kind of sustained effort could be placed elsewhere tbh.0 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »Wait...are we taking a study on the possibility of metabolic damage in individuals who engaged in ridiculous levels of calorie restriction during periods of intense physical activity to the degree of risking their health on The Biggest Loser and extrapolating that to the general dieting public to say that anyone who loses weight at a moderate rate through reasonable calorie restriction will permanently jack up their metabolism???
...seems legit.
I'm curious if this study applies to a person who has actively lost a lot of weight on their own, whether their ability to maintain a 50 - 100 pound loss is hindered by a metabolism that's been lowered significantly for the purpose of losing weight. I know the idea of a "second fat" and a "third fat" etc is pretty common knowledge. It's well known that most people who lose a lot of weight not only gain it back but gain more back. That's been my experience and at 29 I know it's not just an age thing.
Answering you out of respect but feel free not to contribute if you're not interested!1 -
If this thread is really upsetting to people I can try to figure out how to take it down. I was just curious to hear from people who had a different experience than I did and were actually able to keep the weight off. That article hit at one of my fears, which is that this is going to be an uphill battle for the rest of my days. I don't know anyone personally who has been able to keep a lot of weight off but I want to believe it is possible to do without it consuming your every waking thought. The idea that it's more difficult to maintain your weight if you've once been significantly overweight than if you've never been overweight is an interesting one and the article does mention that that's a new and important finding outside of Biggest Loser.0
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If this thread is really upsetting to people I can try to figure out how to take it down. I was just curious to hear from people who had a different experience than I did and were actually able to keep the weight off. That article hit at one of my fears, which is that this is going to be an uphill battle for the rest of my days. I don't know anyone personally who has been able to keep a lot of weight off but I want to believe it is possible to do without it consuming your every waking thought. The idea that it's more difficult to maintain your weight if you've once been significantly overweight than if you've never been overweight is an interesting one and the article does mention that that's a new and important finding outside of Biggest Loser.
This article is out there and it is probably better not to ignore it, but I think it is looking at a very limited data set of people that used a very extreme form of weight loss.
Look at all the people on this site that have lost a lot of weight and maintained for many years, many of them saying they even eat more now than they used to because of increased activity. Focus on the positive outcomes from people in real life situations.2 -
If this thread is really upsetting to people I can try to figure out how to take it down. I was just curious to hear from people who had a different experience than I did and were actually able to keep the weight off. That article hit at one of my fears, which is that this is going to be an uphill battle for the rest of my days. I don't know anyone personally who has been able to keep a lot of weight off but I want to believe it is possible to do without it consuming your every waking thought. The idea that it's more difficult to maintain your weight if you've once been significantly overweight than if you've never been overweight is an interesting one and the article does mention that that's a new and important finding outside of Biggest Loser.
General publications like NYT tend to over-dramatize the conclusions of studies and insinuate that they have far-reaching implications that the study never mentions. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem like the study they are reporting on is available to be looked at yet.
The majority of the folks in the forums who have been posting for a long time are people who lost a bunch of weight and are keeping it off. If you look at the other threads re this article, you'll find lots of posts on how this really only seems to apply to these specific people who lost a ton of weight really fast by starving themselves and exercising for hours a day.
Personally, I think maintenance is hard because people eat in a way they aren't happy with to lose the weight, and then go back to eating the way they used to eat once they hit goal and gain it all back. Using the time you are losing weight to find a way to eat that satisfies you at an appropriate calorie level is in my opinion the most important thing you can do. Just my opinion though 7 -
Carlos_421 wrote: »Wait...are we taking a study on the possibility of metabolic damage in individuals who engaged in ridiculous levels of calorie restriction during periods of intense physical activity to the degree of risking their health on The Biggest Loser and extrapolating that to the general dieting public to say that anyone who loses weight at a moderate rate through reasonable calorie restriction will permanently jack up their metabolism???
...seems legit.
I'm curious if this study applies to a person who has actively lost a lot of weight on their own, whether their ability to maintain a 50 - 100 pound loss is hindered by a metabolism that's been lowered significantly for the purpose of losing weight. I know the idea of a "second fat" and a "third fat" etc is pretty common knowledge. It's well known that most people who lose a lot of weight not only gain it back but gain more back. That's been my experience and at 29 I know it's not just an age thing.
Answering you out of respect but feel free not to contribute if you're not interested!
The point is that taking a sample size of 14 people who all were put through the most extreme of regimens in an unhealthy program does not provide reliable information to be used by the general public.
Thus it should have never been reported in the NYT.3 -
As I said on another thread for the same topic:
This only appears to cover crash dieters like those on The Biggest Loser or the 550 calories a day study. I'm curious about what happens to leptin levels when people lose weight gradually. I've been doing so for a year, and am LESS hungry than I was when I started, rather than more.
I'm only hungry right before meals and have eliminated my afternoon snack.0 -
UPDATE: Apparently this was already posted! Still leaving this up because I'm interested in hearing from people with a more positive weight loss maintenance story than mine
Has anyone read this yet:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html?_r=1&referer=https://t.co/z6hKErVNCE
I feel like I've always known the results of this study and what I was fighting against. It rings so true to me. Every time I've lost weight I've gained more back and every time I lose it's more difficult. Most recently I went from 250 to 195 in 2013 and a year and a half later it was all back. Now, 6 months later, I've gained another 30. And it's not for lack of effort! I may not have been perfect but I definitely was not overeating and I was making a general effort to keep it off. It was as though my body wanted to get back to where it was, like this article is saying. And now that I'm trying to lose again it's been an insane battle over each little pound. Can't help but feel a little discouraged about this long term.
Would love to hear someone else's thoughts, especially if you've lost and have managed to maintain.
My little n=1, been maintaining 3 years and my real life experiences match up pretty spot to my TDEE/MFP numbers. My metabolism hasn't done anything magical since I lost the weight
Maintenance is hard, but I've found it to be more in the mental realm and not so much physically.0 -
ReaderGirl3 wrote: »UPDATE: Apparently this was already posted! Still leaving this up because I'm interested in hearing from people with a more positive weight loss maintenance story than mine
Has anyone read this yet:
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html?_r=1&referer=https://t.co/z6hKErVNCE
I feel like I've always known the results of this study and what I was fighting against. It rings so true to me. Every time I've lost weight I've gained more back and every time I lose it's more difficult. Most recently I went from 250 to 195 in 2013 and a year and a half later it was all back. Now, 6 months later, I've gained another 30. And it's not for lack of effort! I may not have been perfect but I definitely was not overeating and I was making a general effort to keep it off. It was as though my body wanted to get back to where it was, like this article is saying. And now that I'm trying to lose again it's been an insane battle over each little pound. Can't help but feel a little discouraged about this long term.
Would love to hear someone else's thoughts, especially if you've lost and have managed to maintain.
My little n=1, been maintaining 3 years and my real life experiences match up pretty spot to my TDEE/MFP numbers. My metabolism hasn't done anything magical since I lost the weight
Maintenance is hard, but I've found it to be more in the mental realm and not so much physically.
I've been maintaining for a year, and this is my experience too. I am not hungry on maintenance calories, and I've seen no reason to think my BMR has declined beyond what it normally would be at this weight.0 -
The 4th paragraph is the kicker
Mr. Cahill left the show’s stage in Hollywood and flew directly to New York to start a triumphal tour of the talk shows, chatting with Jay Leno, Regis Philbin and Joy Behar. As he heard from fans all over the world, his elation knew no bounds.
But in the years since, more than 100 pounds have crept back
Cahill lost 239 pounds in 7 months - an extreme pace - in an artificial environment, and when he was removed from that artificial environment and the spotlight was turned off, the weight came back. Who could possibly be surprised by this?
The reported cases are extreme cases. The frustrating thing about the article is that people who don't know better might think that a reasonable, rational approach to diet and exercise is pointless. They will be convinced their cause is lost because the Times reported that a celebrity weight loser who lost weight in a fake environment with fake incentives didn't keep the weight off.
That's a shame.
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The thing that gets me is all the comments on the article.
All the obese people who are essentially taking that information as proof they "can't" lose weight. It's giving them permission to throw their hands in the air and give up, because according to the article they'll gain it all back anyway.
The study sucks IMO. It needs to be compared to a group that lost the same amounts of weight over a number of years, not a number of months.
No *kitten* these people gained it back after the biggest loser. They didn't learn how to make a lifestyle change. They went on a show and came back to their normal lives, and ended up back at their prior weight. Why is this surprising?7 -
Yup there is such a thing as adaptive thermogenesis (there have been studies that show that people who have been obese for years and then lose a bunch of weight have a slower metabolism than "normal weight" folks who have maintained that weight. I feel bad for these contestants and hope they can turn it around. Extended crash dieting is terribly unhealthy. Don't do it!0
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