Does that mean that formerly fat people who lost weight and eat little to keep a low weight with their slower metabolism live longer because their body has less energy throughput?
After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight
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Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight
#12This is a truly horrifying piece of information.
It basically amounts to that going on a diet will make it harder to stay at the weight you had before your diet.
Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight
#13> The difficulty in keeping weight off reflects biology, not a pathological lack of willpower affecting two-thirds of the U.S.A. Fifty years ago, two-thirds of the USA were not obese. Biology has not changed in that time. What has?
Intake of refined sugars. The amount of time spent sitting at a desk.
Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight
#14I wonder why, when we talk about obesity, there is this tendency to use language that removes responsibility from the person, or at least move it from their mind to their "body", as if they were different entities. I think obese people fit the definition of addicts. Most of the time, other addictions are fought by pushing awareness on the person, forcing them to recognize they have a problem and that they need to cha…
It seems like the piece actually takes away some of the responsibility of the person. If your resting metabolism burns 400 calories per day less, you can eat exactly the same as someone else and slowly gain a lot of weight. I really don't think there is anyone to blame in that case.
Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight
#15Extreme diligence seems to be the only way to fight this. If I stop exercising, the pounds pack on within weeks. If I insure I burn at least 3000 calories a day (usually much more), I can maintain my weight indefinitely. But I walk to work and I exercise for 1-2 hours daily. Most people cannot or will not do this.
Add in the extreme carbohydrate and fat-laden diets most readily available to America and it's a perfect storm for our Wall-E future, no?
When I cook at home, I can avoid this by eating a little bit of meat/tofu/tempeh/etc with a pile of greens, but restaurant fare is a little bit of vegetables, a small slab of meat, and a super-size portion of some fancy grain of the week if not just white rice. Sigh...
Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight
#16I wonder why, when we talk about obesity, there is this tendency to use language that removes responsibility from the person, or at least move it from their mind to their "body", as if they were different entities. I think obese people fit the definition of addicts. Most of the time, other addictions are fought by pushing awareness on the person, forcing them to recognize they have a problem and that they need to cha…
This attitude is tiresome for precisely the reasons outlined in the article. That one guy in the article has to consume 800 calories a day fewer than a normal person his size to maintain his weight which likely means dealing with constant hunger. It's not exactly surprising that few people manage to succeed under those circumstances.
I also, frankly, think the opposite is true -- most material about obesity spends a lot of time vilifying fat people.
Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight
#17Boxers and other people doing martial arts competitively have always known this. There has been a "walking around weight" concept since I can remember. Maintaining lower or, even more importantly in that context, higher weight takes concentrated effort. BTW it's a really weird post-Christian belief that there is some you apart from your body and it can do things against your will.
Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight
#18Boxers and other people doing martial arts competitively have always known this. There has been a "walking around weight" concept since I can remember. Maintaining lower or, even more importantly in that context, higher weight takes concentrated effort. BTW it's a really weird post-Christian belief that there is some you apart from your body and it can do things against your will.
Extending the Christian motif and treating obesity as a sin, one could consider the extra work needed to keep off the weight as penance, no? I'm smelling a new California quack religion(tm) already.
Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight
#19Boxers and other people doing martial arts competitively have always known this. There has been a "walking around weight" concept since I can remember. Maintaining lower or, even more importantly in that context, higher weight takes concentrated effort. BTW it's a really weird post-Christian belief that there is some you apart from your body and it can do things against your will.
there is some you apart from your body
I wouldn't describe it as 'weird' but a lot of people find it unsettling that it's generally understood that the 'I' that makes conscious plans is a fairly thin layer on top of (poorly understood) consciousness, and that much of what humans do is subconscious conditioned behaviour. Below the brain is a set of autonomous systems and homeostatic mechanisms, like the leptin one mentioned in the article regulating hunger.
Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight
#20From the article (emphasis mine):
> Mr. Cahill was one of the worst off. As he regained more than 100 pounds, his metabolism slowed so much that, just to maintain his current weight of 295 pounds, he now has to eat 800 calories a day less than a typical man his size. Anything more turns to fat.
Presenting the numbers like this seems intentionally confusing. Casually reading this seems like he's eating 800 calories a day and still gaining weight.
What they're really saying is that he's eat $AVG_295_LB_MAN_CALORIES - 800 per day. That's probably around 4000 calories a day.