The Fat Trap

psmd
psmd Posts: 764 Member
edited October 6 in Health and Weight Loss
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html?adxnnl=1&ref=general&src=me&adxnnlx=1325221304-RlkrOtmvLINCyl25j9486g

Really interesting article in NYT yesterday--why it's so hard to keep off weight you've lost.

Replies

  • FiremanSam111
    FiremanSam111 Posts: 118
    From what I've read and heard, when you gain fat, your body will 'fill' fat cells and then make extra ones. When you lose weight, those cells shrink, but they don't disappear. That means it is easy to pile the pounds back on. Bugger.
  • LeanMeanFitnessMachine
    LeanMeanFitnessMachine Posts: 659
    Thanks for sharing! Now we all have a better idea of what obstacles we face.
  • auntiebabs
    auntiebabs Posts: 1,754 Member
    bump
    must read this since the get go I've been scared silly about the maintenance portion of the program... because that what means the most
  • bzjan23
    bzjan23 Posts: 4 Member
    Depends on how you lose the weight to start with. Fad dieting will not work; HCG does not last long - we must have a healthy body and maintain balance. Might have some ideas for you for a transformation.
  • LJCannon
    LJCannon Posts: 3,636 Member
    If this is the same article that I read yesterday, the One Thing that jumped out at me was that they started out with a Very Low Calorie "Optifast Shake" type Diet. Then after they lost the weight, they went back to eating "Normal" Food. In my opinion, it is just more evidence that Fad Diets screw up our bodys.
    :flowerforyou: That is just My Opinion, though.
  • FiremanSam111
    FiremanSam111 Posts: 118
    Thanks for sharing! Now we all have a better idea of what obstacles we face.

    lol... The truth will set you free! That way you can't be lied to by those fat loss 'gurus' Yo-yo dieting is what helps support the fat cell thing. The body starts thinking it's starving, so creates new fat cells to store energy for those times. When the diet fails (and it will) the fat cells suck it all in to store for the next starvation period. That is why we try to lose weight slowly. I can't stand those weight loss ads that say "lose 10 pounds in just a week blah blah (give us your cash) blah".
  • psmd
    psmd Posts: 764 Member
    It's kind of a long article but what I got out of it are:

    1. there are hormonal changes after weight loss (lower peptide YY and leptin, higher ghrelin) that make it hard to keep the weight off (i.e. someone who used to weigh 180 pounds and now weighs 150, is different than someone who naturally weighs 150)
    2. some people have specific genes that make them more predisposed to eat higher calorie foods, and make it harder to lose and keep weight off
    3. people who successfully keep weight off are the minority of those who try to lose weight, but they all have specific consistent habits that are similar to each other, and work (including tracking/logging, yay MFP!)
    4. after weight loss, you are more susceptible to cravings than before (and this is shown on brain MRIs in research)
    5. knowing some of these things can help to improve ways of losing weight

    For me, I've been reading/interesting in this topic for a while and decided to try to lose weight more slowly (i.e. lose 10%, then maintain for a while) and do this cycle a couple of times, which is one of the things being suggested by this research.
  • colorfulcupcakes
    colorfulcupcakes Posts: 122 Member
    This article was kind of depressing me as my HAES (health at every size) friends were posting it on facebook and dancing in the aisles. (I'm the odd one out among them, choosing to pursue health at a size of my choosing). Then I found this response to the article by a physician who works with weightloss maintainers and felt quite a bit reassured:

    http://refusetoregain.com/refusetoregain/2011/12/the-fat-trap-my-response.html

    Looks like there are some good blogs and books on maintenance to find there too.

    I'm intrigued that she is involved in a maintenance support group that seems like an AA group. And a big fat YES to this sentence: "Weight maintenance requires a separation from the world of “normal” American eating…which is not normal at all."
  • psmd
    psmd Posts: 764 Member
    This article was kind of depressing me as my HAES (health at every size) friends were posting it on facebook and dancing in the aisles. (I'm the odd one out among them, choosing to pursue health at a size of my choosing). Then I found this response to the article by a physician who works with weightloss maintainers and felt quite a bit reassured:

    http://refusetoregain.com/refusetoregain/2011/12/the-fat-trap-my-response.html

    Looks like there are some good blogs and books on maintenance to find there too.

    I'm intrigued that she is involved in a maintenance support group that seems like an AA group. And a big fat YES to this sentence: "Weight maintenance requires a separation from the world of “normal” American eating…which is not normal at all."

    I have never heard the term HAES before, what does it mean exactly, that you can be healthy no matter your size? I don't find the article depressing. I agree with your comments that to lose weight you basically have to be conscious of what you're doing. MFP I hate to say it is very much like AA. I actually blogged about this issue a month or two ago myself.

    http://wp.me/p1xlnt-2Y

    You might be interested in it. I couldn't open the link to the one you provided as a response to the fat trap.
  • BeckyAnneGreenGables
    BeckyAnneGreenGables Posts: 40
    I worked with a very wise PA a few years ago. I happily pointed out to him I had lost 29 pounds. His response: "And we're going to ask to you to stay at this weight for a while before you try to lose again."

    I maintained that nearly 30 pound loss for over 3 years, not worrying about losing more, just concentrating on staying where I was. Then this past November I thought, "I'm ready. I'm ready to lose more weight." And I've lost 11 pounds since then.

    Maintenance doesn't worry me nearly as much any more. It can be done. It just takes SO MUCH LONGER than I want it to.
  • Sublog
    Sublog Posts: 1,296 Member
    This article is garbage. Fad diets are probably the likely culprit to the hormonal changes to begin with. Let me see an article on a peer reviewed study where patients lost fat by diet and exercise on a moderate amount of time (on their own) and have them check their hormone levels.

    People who lose weight with fad diets are destined to gain it back. Because they lack the basic understanding of weight loss principles.
  • Russellb97
    Russellb97 Posts: 1,057 Member
    It's not as hard to maintain as this article makes us believe. Personally I've lost over 100lbs and I'm going on 8 years of maintenance. It's not really just maintenance since i've dropped my bf% from 14-16 after I lost 100lbs to 8%. So I've kept the weight off and improved my physique.

    I can tell you this from experience and I will post a couple studies too. There is no way leptin declines is only because we cross some sort of personal threshold line. Like we are pre-determined to be a certain way. That is just BS, if that were true I should still be obese. I come from an overweight family and I was obese at 6 years old.

    There was a study done that showed after 7 days of caloric restriction leptin dropped as much as 50%, while only losing about 0.5% body fat. So was this "threshold" crossed in 7 days?

    Another study showed that 12 hours of overfeeding when preceded by a period of underfeeding causes a dramatic 40-60% rise in leptin levels.

    It's not the body fat being used up that causes the ups and downs, it's the energy balance.

    This fits the pattern on how I did it. I lost 100lbs and maintained it with the formula of 6 days of a caloric deficit and one day of a calorie surplus.

    I've still never crossed the magical threshold once I started having Spike Day's.
  • shelleycronan
    shelleycronan Posts: 51
    From what I've read and heard, when you gain fat, your body will 'fill' fat cells and then make extra ones. When you lose weight, those cells shrink, but they don't disappear. That means it is easy to pile the pounds back on. Bugger.

    EVIL!!!!
  • Russellb97
    Russellb97 Posts: 1,057 Member
    This article is garbage. Fad diets are probably the likely culprit to the hormonal changes to begin with. Let me see an article on a peer reviewed study where patients lost fat by diet and exercise on a moderate amount of time (on their own) and have them check their hormone levels.

    People who lose weight with fad diets are destined to gain it back. Because they lack the basic understanding of weight loss principles.

    I agree about fads and quick fixes. I also 100% believe in calories in versus out.
    The problem is hormones do play a role in both calories in and out, and knowing how your mind and body will react when you are trying to lose weight is just as important as knowing nutritional facts.
  • Cortnizzle
    Cortnizzle Posts: 26
    "Weight maintenance requires a separation from the world of “normal” American eating…which is not normal at all."

    LOVE this! I'm am finding this to be truer and truer everyday, but I didn't know how to express it. Thanks for sharing!
  • MacMadame
    MacMadame Posts: 1,893 Member
    "Depends on how you lose the weight to start with. "

    Not really. There are plenty of studies that show that it doesn't matter how you lose the weight, but if you go past a certain point (around 10%of body weight for most), your body has a "famine response" where it then fights you to get that weight back on.

    We have known as early as WWII that our bodies have a setpoint - a weight they think they should be -- and they do everything in their power to keep us at this weight. The recent studies on ghrelin and leptin and brain waves are only showing us WHY this happens but knowing it happens is not new at all.

    Yet in our society weight continues to be seen as primarily a behavioral issue where people who are overweight are that way because of some character flaw. I find it mystifying myself. But maybe because I've been success in every aspect of my life expect my weight and I know I have tremendous willpower, more than the average person. So I wasn't willing to buy into the whole "blame the victim" mentality that surrounds dieting. Instead, I had weight loss surgery so that my broken homeostatic system would get repaired and I could lose weight without invoking the famine response and keep it off because now my ghrelin levels are normal and my body has a new setpoint.

    HAES is a movement that says it's important to be as healthy as can be no matter what your size is. The focus is on improving health rather than losing weight. Because it's possible to be skinny fat and it's possible to be healthy while overweight.

    MFP is like AA? Have you been to AA? I didn't have to sign anything saying I give myself up to a higher power or go through 12 steps to join MFP. Which is good because I wouldn't have. :laugh:
  • MacMadame
    MacMadame Posts: 1,893 Member
    knowing how your mind and body will react when you are trying to lose weight is just as important as knowing nutritional facts.
    I think it's more important.

    As an example, knowing that ghrelin levels rise at night helps you devise a strategy to deal with that fact. Instead of beating yourself up for being so "weak" that you eat that extra snack at night, you can either have more willpower (telling yourself its' the ghrelin talking) or you can just save some calories for that time because you know you are going to eat anyway.

    Knowing that we are hardwired to want food when we see it allows us to combat that instant "I want that!" feeling that happens when we go to the breakroom for some tea and there's a box of donuts in there.

    And so forth and so on.
  • psmd
    psmd Posts: 764 Member
    @shelley I love your profile pic!

    For russel and sublig, agree with both of you. The diets in this article are all quick, so they're going to do one for longer to see what happens then. As to the studies that show change in leptin after only a week, it's irrelevant, it's more relevant if that change is sustained or not. I think it's great for those who are able to maintain the loss, whether for months or years. To me what it says is mind over matter. Those born into alcoholic families also have choices at some point.
  • colorfulcupcakes
    colorfulcupcakes Posts: 122 Member
    This article is garbage. Fad diets are probably the likely culprit to the hormonal changes to begin with. Let me see an article on a peer reviewed study where patients lost fat by diet and exercise on a moderate amount of time (on their own) and have them check their hormone levels.

    People who lose weight with fad diets are destined to gain it back. Because they lack the basic understanding of weight loss principles.

    I have wondered about this to. ie., how much fad diets play into studies about weightloss. Many of my friends and family members have tried grapefruit diets and other ridiculous things, so of course studies will show that loss can't be maintained. I think we could be the generation that will change the statistics about weightloss maintenance because more and more of us are learning how to properly nourish and exercise our bodies, and we will be able to maintain this. For now, we look like freaks weighing our food and bringing our own lunches to work, etc., but I think it's positive behavior, we are trailblazers!
  • colorfulcupcakes
    colorfulcupcakes Posts: 122 Member
    This article was kind of depressing me as my HAES (health at every size) friends were posting it on facebook and dancing in the aisles. (I'm the odd one out among them, choosing to pursue health at a size of my choosing). Then I found this response to the article by a physician who works with weightloss maintainers and felt quite a bit reassured:

    http://refusetoregain.com/refusetoregain/2011/12/the-fat-trap-my-response.html

    Looks like there are some good blogs and books on maintenance to find there too.

    I'm intrigued that she is involved in a maintenance support group that seems like an AA group. And a big fat YES to this sentence: "Weight maintenance requires a separation from the world of “normal” American eating…which is not normal at all."

    I have never heard the term HAES before, what does it mean exactly, that you can be healthy no matter your size? I don't find the article depressing. I agree with your comments that to lose weight you basically have to be conscious of what you're doing. MFP I hate to say it is very much like AA. I actually blogged about this issue a month or two ago myself.

    http://wp.me/p1xlnt-2Y

    You might be interested in it. I couldn't open the link to the one you provided as a response to the fat trap.

    I read your blog, it was great! "Mastermind groups" also follow this principle.( http://www.feelgoodgirl.com/node/23 )

    As for the former link, you just need to copy and paste it into your url if you'd like to read it.

    And to be more accurate about what I find depressing, I guess it's not really the article all by itself... It's the fact that most of my friends are into HAES and my weightloss is not supported at all, I am more of a traitor. On my FB the NYT article was posted kind of like a "see? losing weight is dumb and useless" kind of attitude (ok well, I'm probably exaggerating, but that's how it's depressing, when my brain takes it that way).

    I love that HAES works towards fat acceptance, because it's wrong to treat people badly based on size (it's kind of the last area where society accepts discrimination). And I also love that it spreads the idea that exercise is a worthwhile activity in and of itself, and has many benefits, not counting weightloss, and that a person of any size can make awesome health gains through it.

    But I'm running counter (haes) culture when I suggest that maybe I can choose my size too. And pursue health. And that this is ok.
  • peaceinside
    peaceinside Posts: 272
    bump
  • jennieodwyer
    jennieodwyer Posts: 1,036 Member
    bump
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