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After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight

nytimes.com

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Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight

#61

Post by bb85 »

robbiemitchell wrote: post #51
bb85 wrote: post #8

I 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…

> I wonder why... My guess is -- correct me if I'm wrong -- it's because you're not a doctor or researcher who works in any of these areas (nutrition, obesity, addiction), and haven't read much research on the intersection of these topics. > I think obese people fit the definition of addicts. I'm curious how you have arrived at this conclusion.

You'd probably be surprised how much time I've spent learning about those subjects, from many different sources.

I'm an engineer. I want to understand stuff. Obesity is a perspective that I thin can give a ton of insight about human nature, society, evolution, progress, globalization, advertisement, medias, etc.

As for the definition, feel free to pull the definition from anywhere and see if there are any contradictions when applied to obese people.

http://www.asam.org/quality-practice/definition-of-addiction

Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight

#62

Post by piva00 »

IndianAstronaut wrote: post #34
varelse wrote: post #15

Extreme 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…

How do you manage the 1 to 2 hours of daily exercise with a programmer lifestyle(assuming you are a programmer)?

Can you explain what is a "programmer lifestyle"? I'm a programmer, I work out 1:30 every day after work and that's it, there's nothing special in my schedule: wake up, take a shower, go to work, get off work, go to the gym, go home and do whatever I please.

Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight

#63

Post by robodale »

IndianAstronaut wrote: post #34
varelse wrote: post #15

Extreme 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…

How do you manage the 1 to 2 hours of daily exercise with a programmer lifestyle(assuming you are a programmer)?

Well, if you can find a job where you're working ~40 hours per week, this can be achieved. I know this is not the case for many people.

Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight

#64

Post by sp332 »

Practicing weight maintenance before going on a diet helps to keep the weight off after a diet. Many people who struggle with their weight "yo-yo" as they go on various short-term diets, losing and regaining weight and never learning how to maintain a specific level.

Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight

#65

Post by vitno »

Kenji wrote: post #40
varelse wrote: post #15

Extreme 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…

I'm not sure if it's that simple. My body maintains a low but healthy weight no matter what I do. I can avoid sports for years and eat as much as I want, to the point of feeling uncomfortably full, without increasing weight. It seems likely that in some or even most obese people, a regulation system has been broken.

Study after study has repeatedly shown this to be untrue. People who think they "eat as much as they want" really don't eat as much as people who think they "eat almost nothing"

Try actually counting your calories over the course of a week.

Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight

#66

Post by VLM »

bb85 wrote: post #22
amelius wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intake of refined sugars. The amount of time spent sitting at a desk.

That doesn't explain how someone can just let it happen to the point of suffering of it every day without taking simple measures to reverse it. Most of the time the difference between steady gaining or losing weight is a few hundred calories a day. That's far from a lifestyle change. When moving around becomes difficult, when dating becomes harder, when the aches and pain start... there's gotta be more to it than jus…

"That doesn't explain how someone can just let it happen to the point of suffering of it every day"

Abstract out the obesity, and you've described every chronic health condition, ever. A huge number of emergency room admissions read something like: I thought it was normal that road signs were getting a little blurry after 40. Sure my heart screams in agony when I climb stairs, but who's doesn't? My knees are in crippling pain for days if I hike more than two miles. Every time I drink, I drink till I pass out or are arrested, but doesn't everyone? After I eat sugary food (aka modern american diet) I feel faint and fuzzy, that's normal, right? I hear voices in my head more often as time goes on. Why how odd that pain pill has smoothly and gradually gone from something to make life bearable after surgery, to life is unbearable without it, to life is unbearable even with it.

People tend to be pretty good at getting medical care for acute things like bleeding out more than a quart or so, or broken bones, but not so good at getting help for chronic things. Gettin fat is obviously not an acute problem.

Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight

#67

Post by emodendroket »

atom-morgan wrote: post #58
emodendroket wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. And the recovering alcoholic has to consume more alcohol than the average person, at first, to make it through their days. Same effects, different substance.

Alcoholics don't have to keep drinking a beer or two a day to live; the analogy is obviously flawed. Also, this study, it says, took place years after the weight loss.

Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight

#68

Post by solarengineer »

I have followed "The Perfect Ten Diet" and began swimming. Within a year, I went from a size 40 jeans to a size 33. I think I'm now a size 32. I haven't weighed myself yet. I'm a lacto vegetarian (butter, cheese and curd, no milk).

I think that barring health reasons (e.g. Thyroid issues), it should be possible for an individual to eat healthier and shed excess weight. But it also comes down to "How badly do you want it?"

Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight

#69

Post by vinceguidry »

I managed to lose 40 pounds last year, using intermittent fasting. That impressed people, but what's impressed me is how easy it was to keep it off. I expected to have to do a lot more work than I have, I really seemed to have found a new 'set point', where I can simply let my body self-regulate eating and I won't gain weight. Sometimes it even goes down.

I think a person's state of mind plays a huge role. I used IF because it seemed the easiest way to incorporate a sustained caloric deficit into my lifestyle. The knob of "how many times a day I'm eating" was far easier to tweak than "what I'm eating" or "how much I eat when I'm eating." I'm just really fucking lazy and found that over time, skipping meals works with my laziness.

With IF, I can eat what I want, as much as I want, just only once a day. I used to be really strict about once a day, now I'll have a snack here and there, sometimes I'll even have what amounts to a light meal outside of my main one. Getting adjusted was a pain, but I'd alleviate it by eating small amounts outside of the 'window' and trust that I'd cheat less over time. Which I more or less did.

Ultimately I feel it's not really worth it to try to fight your body too hard. If your system perceives a shock, it will defend itself. But humans seem hard-wired for big, dramatic gestures, and so they'll do grievous damage to their metabolic systems like crash dieting simply because they can't trust themselves to maintain a safer, more sustainable course of action like simply "eating less and exercising more." I think a lot of people think of the idea of "sustained lifestyle change" and balk. Like they can never eat ice cream again or something.

Re: After ‘The Biggest Loser,’ Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight

#70

Post by hourislate »

varelse wrote: post #15

Extreme 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…

Exercise has nothing to do with weight loss. Caloric restriction also doesn't work without consuming the correct fats to satiate your appetite. As you age there is no amount of exercise that will allow you to maintain the amount you weigh in you 20's or 30's. It will all depend on your diet of the correct foods.

I would suggest probably the best book ever written about why people get fat.

Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It -Gary Taubes

Fantastic book that looks at the science of Obesity and weight loss among other things like Insulin resistance and genetics.

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