"it takes the body one year to adapt to a new weight"

tmoneyag99 · May 2018

https://youtube.com/watch?v=HmtbL4j9_hw

So I just watched the above video and this was in the comments below the video:

As a personal trainer, i don’t think it’s her fault for going on the show. She thought that this was the answer to lose weight. Everyone wants to lose weight fast, but in reality, fast weight loss isn’t permanent. Your body takes a FULL YEAR to acclimate to your new body, and even then the more weight you lose, longer it takes to get your body used to it. This show should be renamed “Biggest Eating Disorder”. It encourages throwing up and starvation as the answer to health. How foolish.

Does anyone know how accurate this is and where we can find legit research to support it? If this is the truth then this is a huge piece of information that supports the idea that slower is better and provides a little "Why" logic behind it.

CarvedTones · May 2018

Take a look at this site:
http://www.nwcr.ws/

they do depend on people being honest, but they collect information from people who lose and keep the loss from coming back for at least a year. Stats I have seen in studies are not very encouraging; only 8-15% of people who lose a lot of weight keep it off. I am committed to becoming one of them. After losing over 60, I have been maintaining and slowly losing a few more (because maintenance is scary; making a bigger cushion) for a little over 2 months. It does not feel natural yet. It feels really good, but I am still tracking every morsel and probably will be for the indefinite future.

tmoneyag99 · May 2018

CarvedTones wrote: »

Take a look at this site:
http://www.nwcr.ws/

they do depend on people being honest, but they collect information from people who lose and keep the loss from coming back for at least a year. Stats I have seen in studies are not very encouraging; only 8-15% of people who lose a lot of weight keep it off. I am committed to becoming one of them. After losing over 60, I have been maintaining and slowly losing a few more (because maintenance is scary; making a bigger cushion) for a little over 2 months. It does not feel natural yet. It feels really good, but I am still tracking every morsel and probably will be for the indefinite future.

I wonder if I count. I lost 30lbs before, and kept it of for 7 years.

CarvedTones · May 2018

tmoneyag99 wrote: »

CarvedTones wrote: »

Take a look at this site:
http://www.nwcr.ws/

they do depend on people being honest, but they collect information from people who lose and keep the loss from coming back for at least a year. Stats I have seen in studies are not very encouraging; only 8-15% of people who lose a lot of weight keep it off. I am committed to becoming one of them. After losing over 60, I have been maintaining and slowly losing a few more (because maintenance is scary; making a bigger cushion) for a little over 2 months. It does not feel natural yet. It feels really good, but I am still tracking every morsel and probably will be for the indefinite future.

I wonder if I count. I lost 30lbs before, and kept it of for 7 years.

Yes. Their qualifier is at least 30 pounds and at least a year.

firef1y72 · May 2018

I've been maintaining a 140lb loss for 9months now, but at least 120lb of that I've kept off for well over a year do I count

CarvedTones · May 2018

firef1y72 wrote: »

I've been maintaining a 140lb loss for 9months now, but at least 120lb of that I've kept off for well over a year do I count

Not sure. Go to the site and there is a link to sign up and another to ask questions.

Francl27 · May 2018

Yeah not for me. I'm still hungry 4 years later (and after regaining 20 lbs).

GottaBurnEmAll · May 2018

It took me about two years. I gained back ten pounds, and have lost five of it in the process.

I seem to no longer struggle with the binge-type behavior that plagued me. It was at its worst in the first year once I got to my lowest weight, and the binge-type cycles spaced out over time gradually until they just finally recently in the last few months seem to have stopped.

I found I had to balance my macros and find a sweet spot for satiety and also learn to better balance calorie intake and activity to get to this place, though. It was a process of trial and error.

lorrpb · May 2018

If you've lost 30 lbs and kept it off for a year you qualify. So if you lost 50 and kept at least 30 off it still qualifies based on my understanding, You have to complete a short application to be accepted into the study. They send you a few surveys per year. You don't pay them and they don't pay you.

rheddmobile · May 2018

As far as the original question is concerned, it's my understanding that they did a follow up study on contestants as much as six years later and found that they still had a severely messed up metabolism and in fact, far from adjusting after one year, they seemed to get worse.

CarvedTones · May 2018

I binged when I was heavy and I still worry every now and then when something trips the desire to. I have avoided it pretty well so far; I allow the food but log it and stop short of going over (much; sometimes I roll things into the next day). It is more tempting now that I am far enough below my limit (my goal was my upper limit) that a binge or two wouldn't put me over it. But allowing the behavior would be a much bigger problem than having the event or two. I think having the absolute upper limit will help. Right now, I am trying to stay in a range of 5 to 10 pounds below the limit.

PokeyBug · May 2018

I don't know if it takes the body a year to adapt to a new weight, but I think it will take *me* a very long time to psychologically adapt to my new eating habits. The only thing that keeps me on track some days is the knowledge that my biggest weakness -- sugary stuff -- is off limits, because it literally causes me severe joint pain.

Avidkeo · May 2018

I work in a hospital and about this time last year the Drs went to a conference where one of the leading researchers into weightloss in NZ was speaking. She also said that only around 5% of people who lose weight keep it off longer than a year. That was a pretty scary thing to hear at the time - I was 6 months into a year long goal of exercising regularly for a year. I am determined to be on of the 5% yet the last few months have really shown just how hard it really is to keep it off.

So yeah, another example where slow and steady weight loss is key. you are changing habits of a lifetime. I have noticed a lot of my worse habits have changed, but boy is it easy to slide back.

PAV8888 · May 2018

I think that there exist a few categories of people when it comes to "needing to lose weight".

I am more familiar with the "has been quite overweight, obese, or morbidly obese for a big chunk of his life" category.

There exist at least one study that showed no difference in terms of "long term" success as to whether the weight loss was slow or fast.

The fast group received follow up nutritional counselling appointments and had access to support groups during the time period that the slow group was still losing.

Last I checked, my counselling appointment budget was running on empty.

I think it very likely that, when it comes to the category "has been quite overweight, obese, or morbidly obese for a big chunk of his life", there exists a behavioral and/or psychological component that has to be mitigated for in order to achieve and maintain weight loss.

I used to think that people were funny when they were talking about emotional eating. I wasn't eating emotionally. I just wanted a couple of tubs of Haagen Dazs after having to deal with annoying people all day!

In my opinion an extended time period of weight loss can only help by giving us the time to explore and internalize our new coping strategies.

Plus there are physiological issues with going too fast (i.e. having too large of a deficit) including changes to hormones and neurotransmitters.

Plus... it's not like we get to "stop dieting" when we get to 'goal'; not if we want to keep it off.

Maxxitt · May 2018

PAV8888 wrote: »

I think that there exist a few categories of people when it comes to "needing to lose weight".

I am more familiar with the "has been quite overweight, obese, or morbidly obese for a big chunk of his life" category.

There exist at least one study that showed no difference in terms of "long term" success as to whether the weight loss was slow or fast.

The fast group received follow up nutritional counselling appointments and had access to support groups during the time period that the slow group was still losing.

Last I checked, my counselling appointment budget was running on empty.

I think it very likely that, when it comes to the category "has been quite overweight, obese, or morbidly obese for a big chunk of his life", there exists a behavioral and/or psychological component that has to be mitigated for in order to achieve and maintain weight loss.

I used to think that people were funny when they were talking about emotional eating. I wasn't eating emotionally. I just wanted a couple of tubs of Haagen Dazs after having to deal with annoying people all day!

In my opinion an extended time period of weight loss can only help by giving us the time to explore and internalize our new coping strategies.

Plus there are physiological issues with going too fast (i.e. having too large of a deficit) including changes to hormones and neurotransmitters.

Plus... it's not like we get to "stop dieting" when we get to 'goal'; not if we want to keep it off.

^^you can call it "dieting" or not, but the maintenance piece is the most challenging.

PokeyBug · May 2018

PAV8888 wrote: »

Plus... it's not like we get to "stop dieting" when we get to 'goal'; not if we want to keep it off.

I think that many of us are under the impression that we do get to stop watching what we eat and making sure we exercise when we get to goal. I know I was for a good chunk of my life, but that stupid weight kept coming back!

amusedmonkey · May 2018

I'm losing weight very slowly and still have a lot to lose (because I like to take extended maintenance breaks - up to a whole year at one point). I basically lose a bit, maintain, lose a bit, maintain some more. I regained some weight twice due to circumstances I wasn't prepared to deal with, but never to square one, so I effectively kept off 60 or so pounds for more than 4 years. I'm up to a 90 lbs lost now after my last gain with 60-70 more to go.

From my experience, weight maintenance exists in some funny limbo that not many people are mentally ready for. You're not really dieting, but you can't let go of the control. You're vigilant, but what you used to track changes (weight, measurements...etc) no longer show a progress bar. At least with dieting, you are in "on" mode, and you know you are restricting. When maintaining, you need to keep that trigger in some odd semi-on semi-off position. When you feel hungry sometimes during dieting, it feels natural because you know you're restricting calories it's okay for hunger to happen. When you feel hungry sometimes during maintenance, you panic. This is your life, are you going to spend your life hungry? This doesn't feel normal! AAAAAAAAAAAAA! When you started as heavy as I was, your maintenance is what used to be dieting when you were heavier and can be as much as half the calories you used to eat, so that makes things even harder.

For the reasons above and many others, I found my first few maintenance breaks mentally challenging. It got easier as I took more of them and redefined what "normal life" is for me. No wonder people can't keep weight off. They're just not ready for that kind of mental shift. Knowing what to do and actually doing it are two different things. You can't live on willpower without tackling the mental side of it. I don't know if one year is enough for that shift to happen, although maybe I'm just a slow learner.

Avidkeo · May 2018

I think this is a better way of doing it, a bit of a loss, followed by a maintenance period, then more loss. I have inadvertently done this due to an injury, and ended up plateauing for 4 months. It wasn't intentional at all but I learned a lot about myself during those 4 months, and I still have a long way to go mentally before I will keep the weight off. However I have also come a LONG way as well. I no longer binged like I used to but I would also have a few days where I ate more than I should have and felt the guilt associated with that. I am not back into a losing phase, and hope to do this till the end of the year where I will go back to maintaining. be interesting to see how it goes.

TangledThread · May 2018

When I was reaching maintenance two years ago I read an article, and then found the study, that said it takes a year after weight loss to for the hormone levels to adjust.

One study and with not enough people for it to be definitive, but I was able to use the information. The first four months of maintenance were easy. The next six months my hunger dialed up to eleven. I powered through by telling myself it’s hormones and they will settle eventually.

They did. I’m mainting 3lbs higher than I like (woo 3lbs, no big deal but it still makes me grumpy, vain much) but my hunger settled. I still don’t get to eat as much as I would like but I no longer hungrily look at my dog as a potential BBQ.

ITUSGirl51 · May 2018

Six weeks into maintenance after 72 lb loss and I’m still in diet mode. I am hungry a lot. Some days I feel so hungry I tell myself “one day at a time, push through the pain and tomorrow you will feel better.” I always do and am thrilled to wake up the next day feeling great.

I log all my calories and use an Apple Watch to track my calorie burn.

I really hope in a year I don’t have to fight so hard to keep the weight off, but I’m determined to keep fighting.

psychod787 · May 2018

I thought I might chime in here. I am almost a year into so called maintanace. 184 this time last year. 178 as of today. I lost 220lbs relatively quickly. I am now in an intentional gaining cycle. Up about 2-4 lbs since December. Trending about 1.5. My hunger lvl is still high. Satiety is still way off some days. I guess hunger is relative. I think we have a happier zone that is easier to maintain long term. What that zone is really depends on the person. How much they lost, what age they were, how long they carried the weight. I do hope my hormones level off sometime soon. Food is not usually fat from the brain.

"it takes the body one year to adapt to a new weight"

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