Hello! How’s it going? I am super busy this week! I’m never busy, but suddenly I have 26 things to do when I’m usually just running and eating and hanging out with Vegas. I’ll take what I can get, so I’m not complaining but I’m nervous about two of the things I have on schedule. I was asked to speak at a local distance training club’s meeting about training and weight loss. This is a solo speaking gig for 40 minutes. I’m super scared.
Then, I’ll be at a social summit conference on a panel on Thursday. I’m glad that’s a panel session!
I put together my presentation for the club, and I feel like I know the topic well but I’m still very nervous.
Since I knew it was going to be a busy week I did a lot of meal prep on Sunday night. I baked chicken and sweet potatoes and cooked up some green bean fries. I also made protein pancake bites.
Ben and I went shopping for a few things and happened to pass by a See’s Candy. We ate them while shopping all classy like. (I’ll leave this out of my presentation.)
Why We Gain The Weight Back
The real reason for this quick post is the Biggest Loser Weight Gain article. I heard about this article from a few different media outlets yesterday and looked it up. The author was on NPR yesterday too. It was so interesting – and kind of discouraging for the weight loss contestants. Did you read it?
Biggest Loser Contestants Gain Weight Back via NY Times
And here’s a link to the study in the Journal of Obesity.
Today I had a conference call for my health coaching class and someone brought it up (it wasn’t the topic of the call at all but it was on a lot of our minds). We talked about how discouraging it could be for the person who lost weight to then gain it back AND have a slower metabolic rate. It just doesn’t seem fair.
To put it in a very tiny nutshell:
The people who lost weight now have a slower metabolic weight than someone else their size. This means they must eat something like 500 to 800 calories less than another person of the same size to maintain their weight. This is the same as you going out with friends for a couple beers and them being fine but you gaining ten pounds over a few months.
The body wants to get back to a weight it’s comfortable with – and sometimes that is a heavy weight (relative to the size of the person).
My thoughts: Well, if this is a scientific study then you can’t exactly argue with it. But you shouldn’t give up either. I think remembering that HEALTH should be the priority helps. Your body might fight a number on the scale. The more important thing is how you FEEL, if your blood pressure and blood sugar readings are healthy, your health risks, etc.
And it is empowering to have information so you can help yourself reach your goals. Every body is different. I don’t think metabolic syndrome or slowing of the metabolism 100% happens to everyone. The readings fluctuated with each person and it was a small study. It’s important to listen to your body and do what you need to in order to feel and be healthy.
I love your response to this study – especially that it was a small study and the results fluctuated a lot. These are VERY important things to keep in mind when looking at science and articles. Fact is: with the right nutrition, fitness and lifestyle change, your body can, and will improve – and you can even reprogram it to be more comfortable in healthier states of being after weight loss at ANY age. What I have to say to my clients all the time is: be human, know you’ll have your ups and downs, but don’t give up, and don’t let anything discourage you from further progress, and being able to enjoy a healthy, long life!
I remember having the same problem, I had marginal success and then gained it all back within a month.
Last year, I was a sad sack of fat, way too overweight. I wanted to drop the pounds, but nothing I found online seemed to work for me. But then I found the review for this new diet (http://petesfitness.com/2017/06/03/new-and-improved-2-weeks-diet/) and it worked wonders for me. I am still not where I want to be, but it helped me out a lot.
Your article is good! Any weight problem that leads to weight gain due to loss of control or some other factor that we are not rigorous about ourselves. So weight loss is necessary as well as a regular workout regime …
Valuable post! More weight can do many problem for body. That’s why weight loss is so necessary. But yes, if anybody want to reduce weight, then they should follow some rules of exercise. Anyway, your post is fantastic and I love it. That’s why thank you so much for sharing it!
This is really interesting.
The thing is their plan put their bodies in a condition of deprivation while exercising for long hours – of course they end up losing weight but the problem is it doesn’t make the necessary hormonal changes to actually fix the problem that is way more complex than calories in > calories out! So after all that starvation and long hours exercise, the body just gonna make sure it compensates that slowing the metabolism and increasing appetite.
I could read and talk about this for hours! Our bodies are amazing!
Our bodies made sure we survived in the past by developing mechanisms that guaranteed we wouldn’t die in periods of great physical demand and absence of food. We can’t be smarter than evolution!
Thanks very much for this article, very well written, and I have given this topic some thoughts too when the study first came out in 2016.
1) It’s a study, and you are right that we can’t argue against it. However, we have plenty of real life cases that don’t support it – think about those who managed to lose a substantial amount of weight and have been maintaining naturally for years. They are probably not the majority of ppl who want to lose weight, but they exist.
2) My personal feeling is this has a lot to do with how the weight is lost. The article talked about an “anchor” metabolism that the body sticks with. But there’s another variable that wasn’t measured, which is the level on which the body was afflicted when those people lost weight – the biggest losers had to do the amount of exercise that was way more than a normal person can handle, and they starved, making the body interprets lighter weight as a function of self-affliction. By pulling the weight back, the body was protecting itself as a biological instinct. However, this is a thought that’s not validated by this particular study since technically it’s difficult to rule out the metabolism factor to measure only the correlation between self-affliction and the weight regain.
I’d like to add 1 thing. If you don’t want to spend a lot of time working out then just do a 7 minute cardio session as soon as you wake up, this can be a great metabolism boost to revitalize you and freshen you up for the day.
For example you can do a 20 second sprint then 20 second jog, alternate that for 7 minutes. Heck, you don’t have anywhere to run? Just do it on the spot, anything to get the body moving and the heart pumping!
Be careful in which guides you follow. There are TONS of fad diets and lies. Here’s a great weight loss program I used to lose weight and permanently keep it off: http://thehealthspecialists.com
So I actually work for The Obesity Society and do their PR and Obesity is our journal, so needless to say, it’s been a crazy hectic week over here for me! I talked with a lot of our scientist members yesterday and they said that the WAY that these contestants lost weight – i.e., really fast, very drastically, and not in the way any normal person would go about losing weight – is likely the cause of this finding. They all knew of a bunch of other studies that found that your metabolism isn’t “stuck” at a low level just because you lost a lot of weight (you know, because scientists can apparently just cite these studies off the top of their heads….). This is a study on contestants from a reality TV show whose experience with weight loss is very different from a normal person’s. Here’s what one of my members said in his blog post on the topic:
“The Biggest Loser sensationalizes dramatic weight loss. The real truth of dealing with obesity is hidden from view. Reality is all about maintaining a healthier weight for the long term. And if you look closely at Fothergill’s data, you can see that these people have done remarkably well, despite the metabolic changes weighing them down. On average they maintained a 12% weight loss and 57% maintained at least a 10% weight loss.” (Link: http://conscienhealth.org/2016/05/biggest-lie-biggest-loser/#sthash.OCP0D759.dpuf)
Anyway, I think it’s a really interesting study no matter how you look at it!
The book “Intuitive Eating ” that you recommended, really changed my life. I think that as science progresses, they will find a correlation between the two.
This is a really interesting topic. I’m curious if there’s something that can be done to prevent it. I do think it’s a real thing. I’ve always struggled with weight and I agree with other commenters that sometimes the pounds just come back. I gained a little weight during marathon training. My doctor was very concerned (and baffled) because I wasn’t eating any more than normal but I was running a ton more miles. My cousin works out hours every day and barely eats and still gains weight. She found a doctor that thinks it has something to do with stress levels and not enough sleep. I don’t know what it is, but I would love to know what causes it and is there a way to treat it.
If a person who was previously carrying a lot of extra weight reaches a “normal” body weight, they will always burn fewer calories than someone who has always weighed that lower weight. The body’s defense of a higher weight is one of the reasons dieting is so frustrating and has a very low success rate over time, at least on a cohort/population level.
Healthy food and exercise behaviors, though, are so protective of health even if weight doesn’t change, that I think the message that they don’t “work” is too prevalent. I like the idea of promoting how well behavior change works for health, and if lower weight is achieved that can be a positive byproduct. BL does a terrible job of showing what healthy behaviors look like, and this study shows how poorly the show also represents what weight loss looks like.
I agree with Dana. I lost 45 pounds, got to my goal weight in 2013, and have slowly but surely gained 12-15 (depending on the day) of it back. And I run EVERY DAY. I am training for a 50 mile race, and I do multiple runs every week of 5+ miles, and either one long (20+ miles) or two long-ish (12+ miles) once a week. And I am still having trouble getting those 12-15 pounds back off.
People tell me all the time, with all the running I am doing, I should be able to eat anything I want. But I can’t. It’s so frustrating to be constantly fighting my weight, and saying no to the yummy stuff (like warm brownies… do you know how hard those are to say no to???) that my family, friends and coworkers eat all the time…
The thing about steady-state cardio (or really any single exercise that you do without much variation) is that your body adapts to it. So if you’re doing the same exercise all the time, your body becomes more efficient and burns fewer calories than it did when you first started. Varying your workout a couple times a week — adding in some short, high-intensity work and weight-based training — can often make the difference! Weight-based training is especially helpful, because muscle mass helps burn more energy. Of course, if you hate any exercise other than running, maybe those pounds that stick around are worth getting comfortable with. Easier said than done, but the important part is whether you feel like you’re honoring your body.
I’m commenting because, though not a big loser, though not scientific, I’m living this. Say what you want, hypothesize all you want, but this is real. I lost 60 pounds over 2 years through exercise and dieting. I exercised A LOT, I ate well, and the weight came off steadily. All of a sudden, the weight started to come back. I started doing Crossfit along with cycling. I was balancing cardio and weight training, gaining muscle. I saw 3 different nutritionists, an endocrinologist, and finally ended up at another nutritionist at a hospital who told me the exact thing the article says – sometimes, your body wants to go back to the biggest size it was and until it gets there, it thinks you’re starving. I tried the holistic path, I tried the eliminating foods, testing for food allergies, detoxing my liver, and now, I’m on a FDA approved (though I do not trust them, the government or big pharm, but hey, I also want to look and feel good… you know, balance) medicine because I can’t deal with it anymore.
So yeah, it’s a very real thing, whether you lose a shit ton of weight very fast or whether you do it slow and steady. Some people are fortunate with good genetics and have no issues, some aren’t.
It is so frustrating..as a ‘loser’ of 80lbs almost 5 years ago, I eat way less than my friends who are my size or smaller. It almost seems unfair that that’s the case but there are worse things in life. I lost almost as much weight 13 years ago and held strong for almost 5 years before gaining it all back. It was heart breaking. I’m hoping to hit my 5 year mark in September.
The “Biggest Loser” story made me sad, because the fact that it’s so surprising to people shows how little most of us know about how our bodies work. Rapid weight loss is almost never sustainable, particularly if you’re going from an almost completely sedentary lifestyle with atrocious diet to exercising HOURS every day and dramatically restricting calories. Talk to people who spent a few years losing 100+ pounds by making gradual changes and allowing their bodies to adapt; you’ll find the effects last longer. I think this bit from Metabolic Effect makes a lot of the explanation more accessible to people who don’t have degrees in biochem or physiology. http://www.metaboliceffect.com/metabolic-weight-loss-the-5-laws-of-metabolism/
I read this too–I feel like the way that the contestants lose weight and the amount of time they lose it in has a lot to do with it. They’re super restrictive and its their full time job to train and workout. Then they get blasted back to the real world and gain it back!
I have seen this story all over the news lately. I think it has to do with how fast the participants lost the weight. You always hear that it is better to lose weight slowly over time versus quickly in order to maintain weight loss. I agree with all the previous comments… I think their bodies are just going into survival mode. It surely is discouraging to hear and I feel terrible for those people. But it does make sense.. they are working out for hours and hours a day only to go back to normal life and even if they are still exercising, they don’t physically have the time to exercise as much as they were on the Biggest Loser.
Didn’t read the article. I have always been disturbed by the show and how they over work out and under eat. The body can’t endure such intense conditions without some negative impact.
I read that article today too. It sounded so discouraging to past and future participants. The odds are against them from the get go! Health comes in different forms and I am a firm believer that the scale shouldn’t control your life.
I read this but they also left out the “limitations of this study”‘portion. I believe one of the limitations of this study, is that it does not address the impact of muscle mass and excess post exercise oxygen consumption and how those things affect metabolic rate. Sure, if you restrict calories and lose weight, you’re also likely losing some muscle mass which in turn slows your metabolism. But what about the things we should be doing (like weight training and hiit) that increase metabolic rate? If you put on lean muscle mass your metabolism speeds up. If you do HIIT you have a post exercise metabolic rate increase. There are other variables to consider here, so not all hope is lost.
Im pretty sure I’d heard of this a while ago, and the metabolic changes happened because since they basically get starved, they lose fat AND muscle. If they hadn’t been starving they would have been able to maintain their existing muscle better, and (i would assume) keep their metabolism in a better range too.
I am curious about what Karen brought up too. The difference between losing slowly vs. losing quickly.
But on the up side, now that they have pin pointed the problem, now some other amazing scientists can get to work to figure out how to keep metabolic rate up.
i read that article and it was very interesting…seems like they need to expand the study to have a control group and compare…im no scientist though seems complicated. i think it makes it a little better for the contestants so they arent blaming themselves since there might be a potential scientific reason why this is happening.
I read the article as well. They didn’t state it, but I believe they literally put their bodies under high stress. They insanely exercised. You can’t be 400 plus pounds and then exercise like you are Serna Williams in 7 months. That’s insane. I honestly believe their bodies freaked out and went into survival mode. It is crazy that the low metabolic rate would last so long, but your body is amazing and wants to survive.
I read the biggest loser article and have a few main though:
1.) This group lost a lot of weight in a very short amount of time in a similar way. We all know that the biggest loser model wouldn’t work for 98% of the population, if only because we don’t have the time to put into it like they do when they can dedicate their lives on the ranch. It’s not sustainable, and it’s possible that just the extreme way they lost the weight is what trashed their metabolism.
2.) I would be curious to see a study on people who have lost a moderate amount of weight over a slower period. For example, I lost 50 lbs in a year and seem to be fine -I’ve maintained almost to the pound with minimal effort other than good habits and moderation.
The interview I heard on the radio said it didn’t matter if you lost the weight fast or slow the slowing of the metabolic rate happens either way. BUT I was listening on the radio while driving so I could have missed a key point to that AND I haven’t read scientific info on this because I totally would think it would be different in that case.
There have been lots of studies regarding permanent metabolic damage. Generally, unless you are exposed to concentration camp type of living conditions for a very long period of the time, the MBR rebounds (IE: “metabolic set points” can be manipulated).
IMO: The Biggest Loser show doesn’t really care about the contestant’s long term health. Rather, on day one they wouldn’t be having people who are morbidly obese run a mile to make a team or win a weekly contest. Past contestants often talk about how they are pushed to lose extreme amounts of weight on a week to week basis; and for the finale are urged to fast for days w/ little to no water to look better on TV. No normal health professional would recommend most of what goes on during the show. It’s all about the ratings.
The study is interesting, but 16 participants is not really conclusive. There needs to be a long term study with thousands of people (if not more) to verify results. Slow vs fast weight loss, diet\eating adherence afterwards, is a healthy lifestyle followed (IE: excessive drinking, etc), adequate recovery and stress levels, is a proper (and appropriate) exercise routine maintained post weight loss? Interesting, but to many open variables esp. with what the contestants are put through – which is pretty dreadful.
I read the article and I face the same problem I can lose weight fast with some diet program but I can’t keep it up for long time Then i just join a weight loss program thats called the three week diet. It lasts for three weeks (hence the name) and has been very beneficial to me and my health problems over the years. I am 46 now and my eating habits are a lot better than before. Check the website out for yourself. I have results of myself from before and after the 3 week diet plan
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