PAV8888 wrote: »

Missing (though both unknown and unknowable) aspect is degree of neurotransmitter and hormone perturbation taking place right now... and whether intensity of bounce back can be modified by your actions.

I.e. trying to mitigate as opposed to power through the situation.

My pet theory is that hormones are... insidious and subconscious. And when they block the replenishment of the well you describe the action takes place below the level of one's awareness.

I've failed multiple times in my life to control the "rebound" as I would think have most of us who find ourselves participating in this forum.

And even though most of the failures happened before I was truly aware of what I should expect in no way should you think that I believe that going slow is a surefire way to succeed (I do believe it increases your chances; but not that it is a certainty)

I've failed at least once doing exactly that (going slow) and went through "a full normal rebound"... thankfully though it was a 155 --> 150 --> 157 deal as opposed to past 260 --> 235 --> 280 type deals.

Here are some other aspects for you to consider.

Concentric onions. Fall back positions. Health gains. Success in failure. Rear guard action. Bleep... if I haven't been drinking maybe I should have!

So here is the ultimate defeatist argument for going slow.

Factoid: You achieve the most health gains by reducing your starting weight what is it by 10%? 20%. You don't need to reduce 100% to have the majority of health benefits! Sure, it is beyond nice... but most/major/initial health gains are in the first 20%.

And, the rider? The longer you maintain that loss... the better off your health outcomes!

So let's assume that we are all destined to regain all our weight plus a rebound percentage.
We are buying into the ultimate defeatist argument: No obese person can permanently lose their weight!
We have conceded the fight.

But we still want to optimize our outcome during this defeat!

So how do we maximize time at lower than 80% of original weight during this 10 year cycle (5 year, 20 year, 30 year, 3 years, put your numbers).

Losing from obese to normal in a year and then rebounding back the next and repeating 5 times over the next 10 years? Or spending 9 years going from obese to normal and then giving up and going back up again over the next few months?

One leaves you 5 years at non obese weight (health gain) and 5 years at obese weight or gaining (no health benefit--probably the opposite. The other leaves you with 9 years of health gains... and 1 years of negatives.

9 is better than 5!

There are other benefits to be found in slow hamsters.
You are consolidating health gains.
You are increasing athletic ability.
You are embedding modified behaviours and making them your everyday reality increasing your chances of continuing.

You no longer have a "lose weight" "maintain weight" mindset... you have a "I watch what I eat and how I move and set myself in a trajectory that will help me approach my goals" mindset.

Yikes... somebody come and take me away!!!!

@psychod787 did manage to lose lots and fast and control the regain. With some cost and with a LOT of effort. He is one of the very few people who I have ever heard manage to fight with intense hunger for a good 2 years while engaging in controlled regain and strength training and actually reach an equilibrium. And now that I think of it, he should be part of this group, though he is sort of obnoxious and grumpy--not nice and fuzzy, and touchy feely like me!

---BTW: I do **not** truly believe that regain is inevitable.
--But I definitely believe that there exists a time component when moving the goal posts to what will become one's new normal--else it doesn't get to become the new normal.