Obesity research confirms long-term weight loss almost impossible

[photon]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

And I was having a good day. I KNEW I should avoid this thread.

At least you're allowed to have a good day, the fat people have to stay with low self esteem until they aren't fat.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

People don't have to be model slim and just moderate exercise and a better diet including less packaged foods can do wonders for overall health.

Exactly, and like others have said overall health should be the goal. Physical and mental.

I've been doing a lot of reading and thinking lately and I appreciate the positive input into it, for me it kind of sums up and brings together what I've been seeing.

I was raised to eat terrible food and carried those habits into adulthood. I didn't know the consequences until far too late. I've probably lost my entire body weight at least once over through diets over the years.

Like DA says, I don't know if there was ever a more true example of an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure. We need education, not just about how to be healthy, but about how nearly impossible it is to come back from that path once travelled (rather than spreading the near-myth of long term weight loss). About how food companies will spend millions in testing to make their foods at just the right level of taste to be appealing, but not so tasty as to trigger the brain and hormones into feeling full.

They may find better weight loss methods in the future, but it seems now the only way to improve things is to prevent it in the first place.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by photon

Making nice clothes for big people... yeah can't have fat people having nice clothes thinking they look nice. The worse the clothes, the more shame, the more weight they'll lose right? Doesn't matter what other redeeming qualities a fat person has, they sure shouldn't dress like the rest of us.

I think what would be even more beneficial to society is to require all #######s to wear burlap sacks. Then you could see them coming before they start talking.

AdditionELLE is not just including fat women, they're excluding thin ones.

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by SebC

AdditionELLE is not just including fat women, they're excluding thin ones.

You can't possibly be this cruel. A company is filling a gap left by the Ambercrombie and Fitch's:
http://www.businessinsider.com/aberc...stomers-2013-5

by providing nice looking clothes for bigger women and you want them to take away that floorspace to give to an over served population?

I had a HELL of a time trying to find clothes that fit, much less nice looking clothes that fit. I have heard the same complaint from many women. And yet you want a company that is trying to fill that need to expand their product line and presumably take their retail space to further restrict the availability of clothes for bigger women.

I'm having one of those "I don't want to live on this planet anymore" moments.

[SHOGUN]

Any single voluptuous/big girls who are lurking this thread, hit me up with a PM.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

You can't possibly be this cruel. A company is filling a gap left by the Ambercrombie and Fitch's:
http://www.businessinsider.com/aberc...stomers-2013-5

Abercrombie took a ton of flak for that. AdditionELLE gets none doing effectively the same thing. Setting up your own exclusive clubs (even to offset inequalities) weakens the case for the inclusive treatment that's often been demanded.

[Devils'Advocate]

So your solution to the limited options on the market is to first further limit the options on the market to resolve the inequality. Awesome. Awesome solution there. Way to go.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

I haven't read through this entire thread, I have a question maybe it was asked.

If there are people that are naturally overweight and work out and lose the weight only to gain it back. Wouldn't there also be people who are naturally skinny, who gain weight only to lose it again?

If that makes logical sense, are the skinny people who lose the weight less than 5% of the population?

[Devils'Advocate]

I recommend you watch the Ted Talk video I posted above.

Now when you say "gain weight" I presume you are talking the guy on the right trying to get his body fat into the normal range rather than going to the gym to look like the guy on the left.


Although not universally accepted, many, many doctors in the obesity field believe in "set point". Meaning that in the short term, the body has a specific weight it wants to be. So if you gain 20 pounds in the next month, the body will start releasing hormones to reduce appetite and revving up the metabolism engines to try to burn that 20 pounds off. If you lose 20 pounds the body will lower metabolism. I forget which movie it was that I saw where they forced a group of students to overeat for a month. They were to eat THOUSANDS more calories per day than normal such that they would gain 20 pounds in just a few months. One asshat in the study gained NOTHING because he had this super metabolism. But anyhow, after the study was over and the students went back to their normal diets, the majority of them went right back to their normal weight within a couple months. There is that pull back to the set point.

HOWEVER, studies have shown that the set point CAN be moved up. As the Ted Talk video says, it does take time - usually about a year - of maintaining the higher weight - and the set point will move up. But rarely, if ever, down. She cites 7 years, but that's because that's the longest study that has been done. So that thin-as-a-rail guy who can't seem to gain weight... if he can sustain a 10 pound gain for a year, the body will adjust to that higher weight and think that is its new normal. But someone that loses 10 pounds.... noop ... sorry. You are out of luck.

Now I purchased Dr. Sharma's workbook when I was in Calgary last July and it is his belief that the further you pull away from your set point, the harder it is to maintain that weight. The further you force your weight to be away from the set point, the more the body will rebel against you.... modifying satiety, playing with neuroreceptors and hormone levels to increase/lower hunger, make you think about food constantly or not at all, and of course playing with your metabolism. I spoke with him after his speech and he said it's like an elastic band. The more you pull away from your set point, the more the body wants to pull you back to that set point. And like I said, in the short term, that works in BOTH directions. But in the long term, our biology is built so that thin people can become accustomed to being a higher weight, but overweight people do not become accustomed to being the lower weight. They have to continue fighting forever.

I actually asked Dr. Sharma outright just if I really had to fight this FOREVER. His response was, "No. Not forever. Only until you die. Which likely will be many more years into the future than if you had not lost the weight and continue to keep it off."

[SHOGUN]

I feel there is too much emphasis on trying to fix the symptoms of food addiction with exercise and diet (which are important) but don't bother taking care of their mental/emotional health that cause them to have an unhealthy relationship with food.

I can't tell you how many times I've seen people lose a large of amount of weight in a short period of time only to gain it back a year later. Largely due to the fact that they use food as a coping method when they are stress, depressed, happy, etc.

[Devils'Advocate]

Dead on SHOGUN.

I am currently beta testing an VERY awesome app a friend of mine designed the content for. I liked Thor's numbers: Weight loss is 20% nutrition, 20% exercise and 60% mental. And unfortunately there are thousands of apps out there that deal with meal planning, calorie counting, nutrition, recipes, exercise tracking, exercise routines, etc, etc, etc... but a barren landscape of resources for the bulk of the problem. So my friend is filling a void.

I am "working" on a book (I have 14 pages written - Woot!) and I described it to Thor as "the first weight loss book that has NOTHING to do with diet and exercise". Because those are minor details to the process. I have the outline done and the sections (each section containing a number of chapters) are based on the Wizard of Oz. The sections are titled "Courage", "Heart", "Brain" and "Going Home". I like starting with courage, but that is what it takes to start... it took courage for me to go to that gym at 350 pounds knowing there would be people looking at me. It took far more courage for Thor to start so publicly. But there is more to it - it's the courage to ask for help, the courage to open yourself up to deal with your bigger issues, the courage to open yourself up to the possibility of failure... And the chapter on heart deals with emotional eating (I AM a stress eater - I eat my emotions and have had to find mechanisms to deal with it). This is the stuff you are not, as Thor alluded to, likely to get from a personal trainer.

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Originally Posted by Devils'Advocate

I recommend you watch the Ted Talk video I posted above.

Now when you say "gain weight" I presume you are talking the guy on the right trying to get his body fat into the normal range rather than going to the gym to look like the guy on the left.


Although not universally accepted, many, many doctors in the obesity field believe in "set point". Meaning that in the short term, the body has a specific weight it wants to be. So if you gain 20 pounds in the next month, the body will start releasing hormones to reduce appetite and revving up the metabolism engines to try to burn that 20 pounds off. If you lose 20 pounds the body will lower metabolism. I forget which movie it was that I saw where they forced a group of students to overeat for a month. They were to eat THOUSANDS more calories per day than normal such that they would gain 20 pounds in just a few months. One asshat in the study gained NOTHING because he had this super metabolism. But anyhow, after the study was over and the students went back to their normal diets, the majority of them went right back to their normal weight within a couple months. There is that pull back to the set point.

HOWEVER, studies have shown that the set point CAN be moved up. As the Ted Talk video says, it does take time - usually about a year - of maintaining the higher weight - and the set point will move up. But rarely, if ever, down. She cites 7 years, but that's because that's the longest study that has been done. So that thin-as-a-rail guy who can't seem to gain weight... if he can sustain a 10 pound gain for a year, the body will adjust to that higher weight and think that is its new normal. But someone that loses 10 pounds.... noop ... sorry. You are out of luck.

Now I purchased Dr. Sharma's workbook when I was in Calgary last July and it is his belief that the further you pull away from your set point, the harder it is to maintain that weight. The further you force your weight to be away from the set point, the more the body will rebel against you.... modifying satiety, playing with neuroreceptors and hormone levels to increase/lower hunger, make you think about food constantly or not at all, and of course playing with your metabolism. I spoke with him after his speech and he said it's like an elastic band. The more you pull away from your set point, the more the body wants to pull you back to that set point. And like I said, in the short term, that works in BOTH directions. But in the long term, our biology is built so that thin people can become accustomed to being a higher weight, but overweight people do not become accustomed to being the lower weight. They have to continue fighting forever.

I actually asked Dr. Sharma outright just if I really had to fight this FOREVER. His response was, "No. Not forever. Only until you die. Which likely will be many more years into the future than if you had not lost the weight and continue to keep it off."

In all honesty I don't know what I meant specifically about "weight gain" there's the in shape guy on the left (what I wish I looked like) compared to the guy on the right (heck I'd be happy if I got up to looking that fat!)

My first thought writing the post was someone who was skinny but was in a car accident, and gained weight due to inability to move (casts on legs, temporarily bed ridden). Although, my thought process would be just as applicable if it were someone that went to the gym, packed on muscle weight etc.

Regardless, I'll go back and check out the video you posted at some point in the indeterminate future.

[Displaced Flames fan]

nm

[Devils'Advocate]

Originally Posted by Maritime Q-Scout

My first thought writing the post was someone who was skinny but was in a car accident, and gained weight due to inability to move (casts on legs, temporarily bed ridden). Although, my thought process would be just as applicable if it were someone that went to the gym, packed on muscle weight etc.

Well, according to the set point theory, it would depend on how long the guy is bed ridden. If he puts on 20 pounds and carries that 20 pounds for a year, he will have trouble losing it as the body has adjusted to the new higher weight. But if it is only a couple months, then likely as soon as he is back to his normal routine he will lose the weight.

Going to the gym is a different matter entirely. Muscle mass reacts entirely different than fat stores. I don't know the studies (not exactly my interest until I have muscles ). Though anecdotally, I know people that gaining muscle for the sole purpose of getting a high metabolism that would get them through any period of forced inactivity so they can keep their weight off.

[bcsoda]

Originally Posted by Maritime Q-Scout

I haven't read through this entire thread, I have a question maybe it was asked.

If there are people that are naturally overweight and work out and lose the weight only to gain it back. Wouldn't there also be people who are naturally skinny, who gain weight only to lose it again?

If that makes logical sense, are the skinny people who lose the weight less than 5% of the population?

I've read a few things that say it's actually just hard to change your body mass, period. They did a study in a jail where they fed the hell out of some thin prisoners (I'll post it if I find it again), and while the prisoners gained weight initially, their body eventually evened things out and they went back to their starting weight. So it's a different story if you're asking someone to lose weight from a point that their body normally sits, or if you're asking them to lose weight from a point higher than their body normally sits.

[bcsoda]

Originally Posted by SebC

Abercrombie took a ton of flak for that. AdditionELLE gets none doing effectively the same thing. Setting up your own exclusive clubs (even to offset inequalities) weakens the case for the inclusive treatment that's often been demanded.

There's a big difference between the two.

Abercrombie is discriminating because they actually don't want fat people in their clothes. Stores like AdditionELLE aren't discriminating because they don't want thin people in their clothes, they're just making it so "fat people don’t all have to learn to sew or make [their] lives into some sort of endless toga party." Stores like AdditionELLE actually create clothing that looks similar to the clothing that are sold in straight size stores, so it's not a matter of exclusivity, it's just a matter of making it so plus size women can actually wear something.

For example, look at Chinook Centre. Just for Women's Apparel, there are currently over 30 stores that cater to non-plus size women. There is 1 store where plus size women can shop. Add unisex apparel and you're up to over 60 stores, with basically still that 1 store where plus size women can shop. Are you really going to call discrimination on plus size clothing stores because they fill the gap in a mall where everyone else has over 60 stores to choose from?

[Peanut]

Originally Posted by photon

Like DA says, I don't know if there was ever a more true example of an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure. We need education, not just about how to be healthy, but about how nearly impossible it is to come back from that path once travelled (rather than spreading the near-myth of long term weight loss). About how food companies will spend millions in testing to make their foods at just the right level of taste to be appealing, but not so tasty as to trigger the brain and hormones into feeling full.

They may find better weight loss methods in the future, but it seems now the only way to improve things is to prevent it in the first place.

I think this is a huge thing. People need to move back towards foods that aren't manufactured and manipulated by a company. Chicken is chicken. Broccoli is broccoli. Rice is rice. You know? God only knows what a Pringle is. Or what a pop tart is. Of course there is an argument there about hormones and feed for your meat, and genetic modification for the veggies and plants, etc. But my point really is cutting out all heavily processed/manufactured food can largely eliminate the hormonal manipulation and whatnot.

[photon]

Originally Posted by SebC

AdditionELLE is not just including fat women, they're excluding thin ones.

Evasion noted.

Originally Posted by bcsoda

Are you really going to call discrimination on plus size clothing stores because they fill the gap in a mall where everyone else has over 60 stores to choose from?

I don't think he really is, it's just a way to try move things along.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by SebC

AdditionELLE is not just including fat women, they're excluding thin ones.

You can't be serious?! This has got to be a troll job. God forbid a store have a product line or specialty.

By your logic they are also excluding men, and people who want to buy Christmas albums featuring barking dogs.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Daradon

You can't be serious?! This has got to be a troll job. God forbid a store have a product line or specialty.

By your logic they are also excluding men, and people who want to buy Christmas albums featuring barking dogs.

Keep in mind, this isn't the worst drivel he's spewing in this thread. His bigger nonsensical argument is that "fat" people need to be shamed and not accepted into our society so that they will be motivated to lose weight.

Just a totally short-sighted, unempathetic, cruel line of thinking on his part.