bummer. good luck keeping it off.

realitybytez
realitybytez Posts: 28
edited October 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/health/biological-changes-thwart-weight-loss-efforts-study-finds.html



Study Shows Why It’s Hard to Keep Weight Off
By GINA KOLATA
Published: October 26, 2011

For years, studies of obesity have found that soon after fat people lost weight, their metabolism slowed and they experienced hormonal changes that increased their appetites. Scientists hypothesized that these biological changes could explain why most obese dieters quickly gained back much of what they had so painfully lost.

But now a group of Australian researchers have taken those investigations a step further to see if the changes persist over a longer time frame. They recruited healthy people who were either overweight or obese and put them on a highly restricted diet that led them to lose at least 10 percent of their body weight. They then kept them on a diet to maintain that weight loss. A year later, the researchers found that the participants’ metabolism and hormone levels had not returned to the levels before the study started.

...

Dr. Stephen Bloom, an obesity researcher at Hammersmith Hospital in London, said the study needed to be repeated under more rigorous conditions, but added, “It is showing something I believe in deeply — it is very hard to lose weight.” And the reason, he said, is that “your hormones work against you.”

...

Replies

  • lilRicki
    lilRicki Posts: 4,555 Member
    awesome...:sad:
  • FairyMiss
    FairyMiss Posts: 1,812 Member
    bah so we are all screwed eh?
  • jacksonpt
    jacksonpt Posts: 10,413 Member
    wait, am I misreading something?

    They took a bunch of fat people, put them on a diet so they lost a bunch of weight. They then kept them on the diet and found that their metabolisms hadn't gone back to the way they were before the study (i.e. pre-diet)? Isn't that a good thing?

    Just goes to show that people shouldn't be dieting, they should be changing their habits/lifestyle.
  • juliapurpletoes
    juliapurpletoes Posts: 951 Member
    I say that researchers can run all the studies they want...blame it all on hormones or whatever......BUT

    In the end, YOU have the control to say NO to overeating, emotional eating or what ever else you want to blame your demise on!

    So take that researchers! HA! :bigsmile:
  • MrsCon40
    MrsCon40 Posts: 2,351 Member
    ... They recruited healthy people who were either overweight or obese and put them on a **highly restricted diet** that led them to lose at least 10 percent of their body weight...

    Oh good grief.

    All together now - DIETS DON'T WORK

    This is not a revelation.

    Now you can go back to your pursuit of health and fitness.

    *head desk*
  • joejccva71
    joejccva71 Posts: 2,985 Member
    /sigh

    Cmon...really?
  • anubis609
    anubis609 Posts: 3,966 Member
    Wait, you mean your body stabilizes itself internally to readjust to a lower calorie intake? No way.

    There's absolutely no other way to increase metabolism other than to just stop losing weight?
  • EmBlazes
    EmBlazes Posts: 374 Member
    Doesn't really explain whether exercise helps to minimise the effect though?? More information needed!! :smile:
  • Sherie13
    Sherie13 Posts: 250 Member
    Did anyone read the article? These people were on at 500 to 550 calorie a day diet and lost 14% body fat in 10 weeks! That's not healthy! Of course their hormones were screwed up. Make sense that they gained it all back!
  • ShannonMpls
    ShannonMpls Posts: 1,936 Member
    "The dieters then spent 10 weeks on a very low calorie regimen of 500 to 550 calories a day..."

    Completely SHOCKING that this wreaked havoc on their metabolism. Shocking, I say!
  • IronmanPanda
    IronmanPanda Posts: 2,083 Member
    You know what.. **** that. I'm a beast and in 10 years I'm still going to be kicking *kitten*!
    <--- Damn yo, you seen these guns??
  • AlsDonkBoxSquat
    AlsDonkBoxSquat Posts: 6,128 Member
    "The dieters then spent 10 weeks on a very low calorie regimen of 500 to 550 calories a day..."

    Completely SHOCKING that this wreaked havoc on their metabolism. Shocking, I say!

    :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
  • mamijujuphat
    mamijujuphat Posts: 407 Member
    You know what.. **** that. I'm a beast and in 10 years I'm still going to be kicking *kitten*!
    <--- Damn yo, you seen these guns??


    That ^^Beast mode!!! Rawr!!....
  • sofaking6
    sofaking6 Posts: 4,589 Member
    So, totally OT maybe but I was listening to a podcast last night and this researcher was saying how they overfed some mice to make them obese, then they took samples of the bacteria from the obese mice's (meeses'? stomachs and injected them into skinny mice..and the skinny mice instantly became much hungrier and started eating as much as the obese mice ate.

    Anyway it seemed interesting to me :) Carl Zimmer was narrating but I'm not positive where the story is..
  • SueInAz
    SueInAz Posts: 6,592 Member
    Did anyone read the article? These people were on at 500 to 550 calorie a day diet and lost 14% body fat in 10 weeks! That's not healthy! Of course their hormones were screwed up. Make sense that they gained it all back!
    Wait... so maintaining a 500 calorie diet for a long time slows your metabolism?!?!

    I'm not really supposed to be shocked, am I?
  • MinnieInMaine
    MinnieInMaine Posts: 6,400 Member
    Just an FYI, there's another thread about this article:

    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/378969-weight-loss-article
  • SmartFunGorgeous
    SmartFunGorgeous Posts: 699 Member
    I realize people are enjoying bashing this article, but the researchers themselves say that more information is needed. The fact is, though, once the test subjects were on the maintence phase for a year, they weren't maintaining, but were gaining, and their hormone levels had not equalized. Despite the shocking number of 500-550 calories for the duration of the weight loss portion of the trial, a year is a long time for the body not to have stabalized.

    Many people can stay motivated and on track for a while, but they hit a point where something happens in their psyche that prevents them from continuing on, and usually they revert, and this article is making a scientific effort at explaining why that MAY be. It's frightening, but it's also reassuring to know that if you're feeling this way, there may be a logical reason behind it. It doesn't change that fact that in order to overcome it, you'll still need to be extremely disciplined, however.
  • rileysowner
    rileysowner Posts: 8,337 Member
    ... They recruited healthy people who were either overweight or obese and put them on a **highly restricted diet** that led them to lose at least 10 percent of their body weight...

    Oh good grief.

    All together now - DIETS DON'T WORK

    This is not a revelation.

    Now you can go back to your pursuit of health and fitness.

    *head desk*

    Here is the big flaw, "highly restrictive diet." Not so much the diet part, but the highly restrictive part. From all the reading I have done anything highly restrictive will fail in the long run no matter what. It is about moderate modifications and time so that new eating habits can be learned and established not about "highly restrictive."
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