Two doctors dispel 4 myths to weight loss

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  • Pawsforme
    Pawsforme Posts: 645 Member
    edited September 2016
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    I don't believe in a set point in that if you consistently eat 250 calories a day (relatively random number) more or less than you need that your body will put up a huge resistance to losing/gaining weight. But . . . homeostasis is a thing. So I'm not convinced that smallish changes (say food or activity increase/decrease that results in 50-100 calories per day difference) will amount up over time to weight loss or gain. Both those numbers are rather random, but the greater point is that I tend to believe it takes more than just a small but consistent change to result in weight loss or gain for most people. Of course we might all define what constitutes a "small change" differently. A 30 minute daily walk was mentioned above. If done consistently and if it's a vigorous walk I would call it more than a small change. And we've all probably heard the story (or rumor!) of a person who gave up soda and lost lots of weight from that single dietary change. But I always tend to believe those people were consuming hundreds of calories a day from soda.
  • Alluminati
    Alluminati Posts: 6,208 Member
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    Two doctors walk into a bar...
  • 85Cardinals
    85Cardinals Posts: 733 Member
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    It's just clickbait, not really worth all the scrutiny and rigor it's getting here.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,055 Member
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    85Cardinals wrote: »
    It's just clickbait, not really worth all the scrutiny and rigor it's getting here.

    Rigor? In the MFP debate forum?

    Now that's funny.
  • CattOfTheGarage
    CattOfTheGarage Posts: 2,750 Member
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    amusedmonkey wrote: »
    stevencloser wrote: »
    elsinora wrote: »
    stevencloser wrote: »
    About 2 and 3:

    That's because what they're linking to is based on percentage of weight lost. "Success" was determined by "lost 10% of their bodyweight". So someone who lost 9% and gained nothing back would be a "failure" while someone who lost 20% and regained 10% within the study time would be a success...

    It's a bit of a reductive suggestion of the science, in the sense that these were in controlled group's of obese patients, not just a range of people that only need to lose just a few pounds and some people 100 pounds. It also doesn't say that losing 20% and regaining would be a success - the study cites long term weight loss management — i.e. stablising, not putting back on.

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3780395/

    If you're going by that, the slow group was best.

    "No significant group differences were found in weight regain between 6 and 18 months (2.6, 1.8, and 1.3 kg, respectively, ps < 0.9). "

    And staying at more than 10% loss sustained was the factor for "success".

    "The FAST and MODERATE groups were 5.1 and 2.7 times more likely to achieve 10% weight losses at 18 months than the SLOW group."

    No *kitten*. If I go at 300 km/h on the autobahn instead of 100, I'm more likely to be at an arbitrary place after an arbitrary time. Says nothing about whether it's the better way to get to the place.

    Not to mention that the "fast" group was basically losing 1.2 or so pounds a week on average, not what most would classify as fast for someone who is obese. That's not the kind of "fast" most people here advocate against.

    That's interesting. So they're saying that, for rates of weight loss within the range we would call "slow and steady", faster works better. Possibly because it's more motivating to see the faster results?

    But nobody on mfp advises against any of these rates of loss. The advice to slow down gets given to people who are trying to lose 2lb a week or more. Or to people who are very close to goal, but that is a different situation.

    Newspapers oversimplifying science. Go figure.

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