Monday, May 2, 2016

After the Biggest Loser: Their Bodies Fought To Regain Weight

After the Biggest Loser: Their Bodies Fought to Regain Weight

When will they finally admit dieting fails? 

"The results, the researchers said, were stunning. They showed just how hard the body fights back against weight loss.

It is frightening and amazing,” said Dr. Hall, an expert on metabolism at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. “I am just blown away.”

It has to do with resting metabolism, which determines how many calories a person burns when at rest. When the show began, the contestants, though hugely overweight, had normal metabolisms for their size, meaning they were burning a normal number of calories for people of their weight. When it ended, their metabolisms had slowed radically and their bodies were not burning enough calories to maintain their thinner sizes.

Researchers knew that just about anyone who deliberately loses weight — even if they start at a normal weight or even underweight — will have a slower metabolism when the diet ends. So they were not surprised to see that “The Biggest Loser” contestants had slow metabolisms when the show ended.

What shocked the researchers was what happened next: As the years went by and the numbers on the scale climbed, the contestants’ metabolisms did not recover. They became even slower, and the pounds kept piling on. It was as if their bodies were intensifying their effort to pull the contestants back to their original weight.

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."

13 comments:

  1. Totally believe this! I've struggled with my weight for most of my life...up and down..mostly up. I lost about 40 lbs 4 yrs ago when I was going through chemo but now the pounds are all back again!
    I wish there was an answer for the obesity problem! I saw on my lab slip last week one of my dx "morbid obesity due to excessive calories". what a laugh! How does the dr know how much I eat?
    People should'nt judge us for not being able to lose weight or keep it off.

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    1. Its a crock isn't it. We are told eat less and be thin, and its a lie. I lost 30lbs in 2013 puking 10 days of every month where not one ounce of food could go in for 24-48 hour periods, but it came back when my thyroid went low in 2014. I am tired of being told starvation will fix my weight problem. Their 1200 calorie diets are insane and they tell me to eat things I could not afford in a million years and salmon which I am allergic to. Yeah they all act like they know what we eat. I ate an egg sandwich this morning but have barely any food in the house. I don't even know if I will get lunch today. There are some gross beef stew chunks I had frozen and defrosted, but am not in the mood to cook. :/ The only beef I have bought in three months I eat it so rarely but my stomach on antibiotics feels unable to handle this food. Well I will have money for decent food tomorrow. I wish theyd better then just calling us liars.

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    2. I forgot I had leftovers for lunch. Small portion but I saved it on purpose for today and forgot. So I did get some lunch. LOL

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  2. I think it's an evolutionary throwback to when food was an iffy proposition. So if your diet was interrupted by the inability to secure a steady source it kicks into survival mode to stretch through lean times. That's the bodies way to flatten out the peaks and valleys during good and bad times. We don't have that problem now days but your metabolism hasn't received the memo yet. We are talking thousands of years of evolution that can't be undone over night.

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    1. I wonder about this too. I know my own weight when to hell increased by lack of food and sometimes wonder what the change in food from lack of money does at times. Yeah the human body hasn't got the memo yet. I wonder why Asian people are far more thin and don't have as many problems with obesity in general, I wonder if their society has had less famines, it would an interesting research to compare historical famines to obesity rates. Why are some group of people fatter then others? Samoanians who had some of the highest rate of famine in the world struggle with obesity now. I went to go buy some cheap vegetables to make with 4 dollars of stew meat and crockpoting it. I can't waste anything.

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    2. Asians walk and bike everywhere for transportation. They eat small portions and eat things like seafood, vegetables, rice, and small amounts of beef and chicken. Little to no dairy. Try it out!

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  3. I wonder if you have Irish ancestry that it makes you more prone to obesity. That's the side of my family that has obesity problems. They had a few big famines I think.

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  4. I think old style Eskimos had/have a diet almost completely made up from the fat of seals and other fatty animals yet have one of the lowest serum levels of cholesterol and other body manufactured fats. I bet if you looked hard enough you could find a scientific explanation.

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    1. Yeah their bodies definitely changed and adapted to their climate. That kind of diet would kill many other people. I wonder how the Eskimos who end up on a modern diet do. I have heard they don't metabolize alcohol the same way.

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  5. https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2015nl/apr/eskimos.htm

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    1. Hmm they seem to say in that article the eskimos on that diet didn't live very long.

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  6. Those of us who have lived in fat bodies already *know* about the rebound-with-a-"dividend" effect of weight loss. It's good, though, that the NYT article drew attention to that phenomenon.

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    1. I agree. The yo yo dieting can make people fatter. I have noticed even with blood sugars "trying to eat less" can make them skyrocket. Of course to this world, they will think all fat people are lying even these extreme stars of extreme weight loss, and are "lazy" etc etc. Well we know that drill far too much.

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