Biggest Loser - And Gainer

No Snacks, no sweets, no seconds. Except on Days that start with S. Too simple for you? Simple is why it works. Look here for questions, introductions, support, success stories.

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Over43
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Biggest Loser - And Gainer

Post by Over43 » Fri May 06, 2016 4:22 pm

I have always "sensed" this, that my body had a weight it "wanted to be at." even when my weight has lowered into the 170 (s) pound range, it would go back up into the 180's. This is an interesting article about one of TV's most popular shows.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/healt ... .html?_r=0
Bacon is the gateway meat. - Anthony Bourdain
You pale in comparison to Fox Mulder. - The Smoking Man

I made myself be hungry, then I would get hungrier. - Frank Zane Mr. Olympia '77, '78, '79

Jen1974
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Post by Jen1974 » Fri May 06, 2016 4:39 pm

Reading this made me wonder what would happen if someone like Danny Cahill had lost the weight doing something like No S where it was a lot slower if his metabolism would have slowly shifted. Losing so much weight that quickly seems like it would have done extreme damage to the metabolism. His body thought he was starving to death for 7 months.

No S is slow but in the long run, what good is fast if you end up right back where you started in the end.

Mustloseweight
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Post by Mustloseweight » Fri May 06, 2016 6:13 pm

Interesting article - thanks for sharing.
September 2017 - Starting weight: 19st 9lbs
March 2018 - 17st 2lbs
July 2018 - 16st 4lbs
July 2020 - 17st 10lbs 😟
Target Weight: 11 stones

MaggieMae
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Post by MaggieMae » Sat May 07, 2016 1:49 am

Very interesting article. I wonder, too, if they would have such a drastic change in metabolism if they had used a slower more moderate approach? Maybe their bodies rebelled to that extreme because they exercised7 hours a day or something? I'm hoping that slow and steady will help the body to adjust and not fight back.

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Merry
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Post by Merry » Sat May 07, 2016 5:48 am

After my own yo-yo dieting, I came to the conclusion that I should only do things to lose weight that I was willing and able to maintain the rest of my life. Sustainable, lifestyle changes.

Am I going to count calories or exercise hours per day the rest of my life? No. Am I going to follow different ways of eating if my health doesn't absolutely require it? Most likely, no.

I think there's this thought that "maintenance" will just magically happen--that one could stop doing all it took to lose weight and they'll just "stay" at that weight--and it's just not a realistic expectation. Every time I stopped doing whatever I had done to lose weight, I gained. And I gained what I lost plus some.

I don't know if my yo-yo diets caused my metabolism to go down, and if it did, whether it caused it to go down permanently. I kind of doubt it, because I never did something so extreme as to put my body into starvation mode. I did lose about a pound per week the year I was vegan and had 2 kids in a double stroller and walked a couple of miles a day. I'm not sure that even did it though.

What I do know is this: that despite what I've done in the past with dieting, it has not sabotaged my chances of losing weight--and that I'm losing with NoS. So, I think it highly unlikely that NoS could have any possibility of causing this type of reaction, unless someone is adding significant mods to starve themselves, trying to lose more quickly. Slow and Steady wins the race.
Homeschool Mom and No S returnee as of 11-30-15.
2 years and counting on No-S.
29 lbs. down, 34 to go. Slow and steady wins the race.
Respect Moderation

oolala53
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Post by oolala53 » Sat May 07, 2016 1:34 pm

Much as we would like to believe differently, calorie needs normally drop with any weight loss, fast or slow, and tend to stay that way. Reduced bodies need fewer calories than non-reduced bodies. There are exceptions but most people can't count on being exceptions. (There might also be exceptions for people who gain and lose in just a short time. But the press loves to magnify the drama, so they make it look like speed is the villain.) Metabolism increases with weight gain/overeating, but just like with loss, the increase slows down the longer the new intake and weight are maintained. The body adjusts its burn rate to consistent intake. That's why a person doesn't sustain a big gain from occasional overeating. That and the fact that before our food-rich environment, people would naturally eat a little less for awhile after excesses. But I digress.

The last article I read said for people who had reduced their weight, the drop in the rate of burn was not what was burned at rest, but in the amount the muscles metabolized when working.Even those buggers adjust! Not good news, if weight loss is the goal.

But exercise tends to help maintain loss and tends to increase healthy longevity for fat or thin over sedentary peers.

All things being equal, there is some evidence that intermittent 24-hour fasts can "teach" the body to get at its fat stores more quickly which I guess simulates a maintained metabolism. Sounds like it might help keep eating down because it feels pretty satisfying to burn fat.

Long term maintenance is a combination of motivation and physical and mental pleasure/satisfaction in the new lifestyle. That can happen fast or slow, too.

But it's still fun to trash any loss plan that none of us is willing to do!
Count plates, not calories. 11 years "during"
Age 69
BMI Jan/10-30.8
1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
1/21-23

There is no S better than Vanilla No S (mods now as a senior citizen)

oolala53
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Post by oolala53 » Sat May 07, 2016 3:58 pm

Just adding that as you can see, it would likely be very rare to get enough pleasure out of the reduced caloric needs of reduced very obese people to justify staying thin. Even the ones who actually keep to their low amounts usually slowly gain. The NWLR reports that many live on an average of 1200 calories a day, year in and year out, and not all of them are short! They are basically living in semi-starvation, and it's like for vanity's sake, as they just don't want to face the judgment anymore. But they are rare. The rest come to the conclusion that they might as well eat more and enjoy it since most of the health benefits come in the first drops of weight.

Believe me, thin people would have a hard time eating consistently fewer calories than their natural weight requires, even though there is some evidence that it would be an advantage for them, unless they are naturally below the normal BMI, in which case their death rate is about the same as for the morbidly obese. But they are not vilified for it. Some of them get admired for it.
Count plates, not calories. 11 years "during"
Age 69
BMI Jan/10-30.8
1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
1/21-23

There is no S better than Vanilla No S (mods now as a senior citizen)

ironchef
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Post by ironchef » Sun May 08, 2016 7:09 am

I enjoyed the Leigh peele rebuttal to this article.

MaggieMae
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Post by MaggieMae » Sun May 08, 2016 5:18 pm

After seeing your post, iron chef, I googled the rebuttal. I like the part : 'Anyone engaging in fat loss has to understand taking breaks from a deficit for a period is expected. Your “fat loss” will be in cycles of maintenance and deficits. You will regain water lost during your time in a deficit, recover, and then start again till you’re done. Doesn’t sound sexy? It isn’t, but for most people it is the best way to go about things and certainly the most predictable. "
I'm going to keep this in mind when I hit a plateau.

oolala53
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Post by oolala53 » Sun May 08, 2016 6:23 pm

I receive Brad Pilon's newsletter and take the liberty of pasting the part of his response that has nothing to do with selling anything.

All this study showed me was that you can’t out metabolism a bad diet.

Why?

Let’s start at the beginning, when these people had a measured resting metabolic of over 2,600!!!

That is an enormous amount of calories being expended at rest.

As an example, my resting metabolic rate is around 1,700. My good friend John Barban, who is 2 inches taller than me and carries around 15-20 pounds of more lean muscle then me has a resting metabolic rate of 1,850.

These people had a resting metabolic rate of 2,600…. almost 1,000 calories higher than mine!!

They also had almost 50% body fat at a weight of well over 300 pounds.

This was their supposed baseline… but I just don’t see how any sane scientist could call these numbers ‘baseline’ or ‘normal’

To me, they are obviously elevated. A state of hypermetabolism - I don’t know how else to say it, but these people were not well and it showed in their resting metabolic rate measurements.

At the end of 30 weeks of competition, they had lost more than 100 pounds (averaging more than 4 pounds per week of loss!!!)

They also lost almost 25 pounds of Lean body mass!

And their metabolic rate was measured at right around 2,000 calories (still much, much higher than mine)

THEN 6 years later these people had gained back over 12 pounds of lean body mass and (unfortunately) almost 80 pounds of fat.

Their resting metabolic rate was STILL around 1,900.

Still higher than most people.

The bottom line is In 6 years they gained back much of their weight, in spite of having a high metabolism.

YES the researchers in this study did use equations to guess at a predicted metabolic rate that was almost 500 calories higher… That’s what all the hoopla is about.

These people’s high metabolisms weren’t as high as the scientists think they should have been based on they predictions?!?!.

That’s what the media is latching on to.

But I see something much different… they gained a lot of weight despite having a metabolism that is MUCH HIGHER than the average person.

So yes, there is a relationship between your metabolic rate and your ability to lose weight and your ability to keep the weight off… but don’t let the media fool you, these people weren’t suffering from a metabolic rate of zero… they just had a metabolic rate lower than this particular group of scientists expected (mind you it was higher than other equations would have predicted).

…There was much more going on with their physiology then just their metabolic rates.

In fact the most interesting part of the study was the wild fluctuations in Leptin that occurred in these groups while they were losing weight.

He doesn't explain any more than that. The only other thing he says is that it will take significant changes to lifestyle to maintain big losses.
Count plates, not calories. 11 years "during"
Age 69
BMI Jan/10-30.8
1/12-26.8 3/13-24.9 +/- 8-lb. 3 yrs
9/17 22.8 (flux) 3/18 22.2
2 yrs flux 6/20 22
1/21-23

There is no S better than Vanilla No S (mods now as a senior citizen)

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Merry
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Post by Merry » Mon May 09, 2016 5:23 am

oolala53 wrote: These people had a resting metabolic rate of 2,600….
One would expect their resting metabolic rate to be higher though, because there are more cells to replace, more blood to pump, etc... for a person who weighs significantly more.

However, it doesn't sound like the RMR was actually measured beforehand--just "guessed" at.

I think another factor that wasn't considered (among many) was how a significant change in activity could change RMR. These people did strenuous workouts 7 hours a day for months--and I'm guessing that most had to suddenly stop those workouts when they went back to regular life, jobs, etc... I'd be interested to know if a sudden change (both starting and stopping) in activity of that significance would affect RMR.
Homeschool Mom and No S returnee as of 11-30-15.
2 years and counting on No-S.
29 lbs. down, 34 to go. Slow and steady wins the race.
Respect Moderation

HoneyBeeNYC
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Joined: Sat Jun 11, 2016 10:58 pm

Post by HoneyBeeNYC » Thu Jun 16, 2016 12:07 pm

Merry wrote:
oolala53 wrote: These people had a resting metabolic rate of 2,600….
One would expect their resting metabolic rate to be higher though, because there are more cells to replace, more blood to pump, etc... for a person who weighs significantly more.

However, it doesn't sound like the RMR was actually measured beforehand--just "guessed" at.

I think another factor that wasn't considered (among many) was how a significant change in activity could change RMR. These people did strenuous workouts 7 hours a day for months--and I'm guessing that most had to suddenly stop those workouts when they went back to regular life, jobs, etc... I'd be interested to know if a sudden change (both starting and stopping) in activity of that significance would affect RMR.
This thread seems to have gone dormant, so I thought I'd throw in a little confounder, about RMR:

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... ne.0040503

I frankly do not know what to make of this. I was amused at the differences in sheer, dang SIZE between Westerners and the Hadza. Look at Table one. The difference between Hadza women and Western women is something like 44 pounds. :roll:

"Our results indicate that active, “traditional” lifestyles may not protect against obesity if diets change to promote increased caloric consumption. "

My takeaway from this study: eat less. I truly think it's important for us to move more for other health reasons, but it doesn't seem to have a direct effect on weight.

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