Has anyone read this? So disheartening...

yeah, load of spurious twaddle with no science behind it. The only thing remotely close is that I have read a few times that once you have been obese for some time and lose the weight, your body does try and get back to that overweight size and it can take a couple of years for that to disipate - but as long as you are aware of that then what's the problem? I am trying to undo decades of poor treatment of my body so don't care if it means that after I have lost my actual excess weight I will have to be vigilant - it's better than the alternative.

you just have to look at this site to see how many people are maintaining or pursuing fitness boundaries rather than weightloss to see how that's just not the case. this site isn't just for weight loss.

Spurious twaddle!!!! Omg that just made my morning, I'm going to make a concentrated effort to use that in a sentence at least twice today!

And as for the article: the hard truth is yes, we who have been chronically overweight or obese will have a tougher time maintaining a lower weight. BUT this is partly do to our eating habits, most of us really have no trouble losing weight, it's the consistency and maintenance that we have issues with. Most of us have no clue how to balance being healthy with enjoying food. It takes a long time to redevelop our habits to not go from one extreme to another with food. That's why I think slow and steady wins the race in weight loss, losing weight slowly teaches us how to eat and workout normally so that we can go to a party and endulge without completely being derailed. Health is a lifetime commitment, we can't just lose weight then go back to the old way, we can never go back to our old habits so we have to learn new ones.

All this article is to me is a reminder that I wasn't gifted with a lightening fast metabolism ergo I must always be conscious of my calorie intake. I plan to stay on mfp for at least a year after I get to my goal weight so that I can learn to healthily maintain that goal weight through all the holidays and parties and not revert to old habits.

This is the site that also has articles called "Four mythical creatures that actually exist" and "You might be a zombie". You do the math....

Actually, most of the Cracked stuff is backed up by some form of research - it links the studies it refers to throughout the articles. Despite the fact that most of the titles as sensationalist and it is a humour website.

The article quotes statistics as its proof of research which can be used to prove both the affirmative and the negative dependent on the way that you analyse and present your results.
My opinion is that they have manipulated the statistics and failed to take into account crucial external factors.
Yes a person that loses a lot of weight has to change their habits permanently to maintain the weight loss and this is where most people fall down. If your life, family and friends enabled you to eat more calories than you use each day it's very difficult to maintain that weight loss after your official diet period is over. Hence the inability for most people to maintain the reduced weight.

You say this is a humour website. I am choosing to treat this article as such.

What a load of nitrate-laden carcinogenic bologna. The global "diet" industry counts on us being continually confused and discouraged so that we fall off the wagon and their "expert" services are needed again. It's the proverbial fox running the hen house!

The National Weight Control Registry tracks over 10,000 people who have lost weight and kept it off (I registered with it and am waiting to hear back from them - they check out every participant thoroughly). Check it out at http://www.nwcr.ws/ and read about it with this better article "The Fat Trap" at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html.

It's not easy but, then again, it is true.

Intention is the name of the game. If you honestly intend to lose weight and keep it off, you will.

-Debra

The report talks about fat cells, and if you have a defective gene you have more fat cells, and if you have two copies of the defective gene (one from mum one from dad) you have even more fat cell. And that the cells do not disappear, even if you lose weight, the cells are there, waiting to be filled with stored fat. That is not the same as saying you’ll be fat forever, though it is easier for someone with two defective genes to fill them. It does not mean you have to or will.
Imagine if the greatest sprinter in the world, gifted by his genes to be born with legs that could out sprint a leopard, just sat in front of the Television, would he be faster than the person who trained every day, but was born with average legs. No, just because your genes make it easy to be fat doesn’t mean it has to be that way.
Eat less, move more, and you’ll get slim, keep on going like that, and you’ll be slim forever.

^^ THIS

yeah, load of spurious twaddle with no science behind it. The only thing remotely close is that I have read a few times that once you have been obese for some time and lose the weight, your body does try and get back to that overweight size and it can take a couple of years for that to disipate - but as long as you are aware of that then what's the problem? I am trying to undo decades of poor treatment of my body so don't care if it means that after I have lost my actual excess weight I will have to be vigilant - it's better than the alternative.

you just have to look at this site to see how many people are maintaining or pursuing fitness boundaries rather than weightloss to see how that's just not the case. this site isn't just for weight loss.

I also agree with this one. I've been overweight for more than a decade & eventually became officially obese just 3 years ago but right now I'm in one year of maintaining. Yes it took me 3 years to lose these kilos & I do had plateaus but that didn't stop me. I'm doing this more for my health than just aesthetics as I have hypertension, PCOS & diabetes. Bottomline here is that losing weight is just half the battle won & maintaining it still requires hard work & discipline (the two most hated words). The only problem with us is that we don't take these things seriously. We want to lose weight for all the wrong reasons.

Being fit is a lifestyle. In order to stay fit you have to keep things in balance.

There is a lot of evidence that success is rare, the the goal is to make sure you are one of the successes.

The National Weight Control Registry tracks losers and finds that the ones that keep it off:
1. stay active
2. continue their eating habits (but since super low carb diets are hard to maintain over the long haul, they tend to fare horribly for long term success)
3. track/measure portions and keep a food diary

http://www.nwcr.ws/

The basic message: be consistent, whatever you did to lose the weight you need to keep up forever. So pick stuff you enjoy. food wise and exercise wise. (And adding muscle to burn more calories at rest doesn't hurt)

This is a wonderfully common sense post, thank you!
I have come to the same conclusion - the most important thing is for each of us to find a way of eating and exercising (ie. living!) that we can keep up forever. Not easy, but I think it's the only path for long term success.

This is the site that also has articles called "Four mythical creatures that actually exist" and "You might be a zombie". You do the math....

That's exactly what I was going to say!!
:drinker: :bigsmile: :drinker:

I think that, for me I need to focus more on the fact that all this diet and exercise will keep me healthy and at 42 thats something that I have let slip, none of us ever have the body shape we would like, and as you get older you realise that you need your health more than the body of a model and accept what we've been given and just work with it best we can.

I've found the lady that I was talking about, the "youtube Grandma". http://www.diethobby.com

She is somebody who has successfully maintained after WLS, and she explains what she does on the website. It's great to read about people who have maintained, because we hear so much about people who have lost weight, as if the "goal" weight is the end of the journey, but there isn't nearly so much good information on maintaining. I read her website when I was starting to lose weight and it was quite shocking (to me). Like me, she's short and had a lot of weight to lose. Her MAINTENANCE calories seemed very low to me, at about 1000 calories a day. Her portions are small and carefully measured. She describes herself as "reduced obese" (i.e. not the same as somebody who was always slim), and will always be dieting. I suppose that is the reality of maintenance for a smaller, older woman following a big loss.

I can tell you, I'm very worried about getting to that stage. For one thing, it will be more difficult to be well-nourished on such low calories, but psychologically, I'm not sure if I'd manage to do that for life. I've taken the risk and started losing weight, but I have to admit, I've been hoping that I'll be able to eat a little bit more in maintenance. There just isn't the same guidance and advice for maintenance as there is for the weight loss stage. For instance, it seems to be known that the calorie requirements of a "reduced obese" person are less than a person who has always been at "goal" weight, but it's not clear exactly how to work it out.

One reason I don't have a goal weight is because I'm not sure what is going to work best. If it's a choice between trying to maintain a lower body weight (say 120 lb) and failing, or trying to maintain a higher body weight (say 14 lb, 160 lb) and succeeding, then possibly I'd be better aiming higher! It's not clear from what I've read what is the best course of action. But I think it's good to see articles which highlight the problem. We need to find out what works, and how to plan ahead.