Yes. If everyone ate healthy and exercised people would on the whole be thinner, but there’d still be fat people. Someone who never exercises and eats crap who is naturally thin would be stick thin with diet and exercise. Someone who is morbidly obese with poor lifestlye would probably have a BMI of 35-39 instead of 40+ if they ate better and exercised more.
“Right” is indeed a poor term for this sort of discussion.
Of course it is not ever literally impossible to lose weight. But for those who are obese adults it is impossible to become a normal weight by just doing what for those of normal weight is eating right and exercising sufficiently. The body defends its set point with metabolic and neurologic signaling. The drive to eat more goes up dramatically, the metabolism slows down. And if weight loss to “normal” BMI is achieved maintaining it requires far more than what would be for any average person considered anything like just “eating right and exercising sufficiently.”
Fortunately the health benefits gained by weight loss among the obese are greatest with in the first 5 to 10% off. That is generally achievable by what most would “normal” BMIs would consider eating right and exercising sufficiently, meaning healthy choices with total calories less than the average person eats and regular exercise of at least 150 minutes a week of moderate aerobic activity or 75 minutes a week of vigorous aerobic activity (or some combination thereof) along with some resistance exercise of some sort. (The official Department of Health and Human Services guidelines.) An obese person who does that IS eating right and exercising sufficiently, will lose a modest amount of weight, will gain huge health benefits, and will still be quite fat.
Waenara’s link is fascinating not only because it provides such solid evidence of that point, that the issue is much more the habits than the BMI per se, that a markedly elevated BMI is best thought of as a screening flag, a risk indicator, for the lack of good lifestyle habits, but also by providing (in this chart) a direct answer to the op. Of those with a BMI over 30 (by definition “obese”) 16.2% had four out of four healthy habits, “defined as engaging in physical activity >12 times a month, being a nonsmoker, consuming ≥5 servings of fruit and vegetables a day, and drinking alcohol in moderation.” And again, that group had about the same mortality rate as did both the “normal” and “overweight” BMI groups who met all four healthy habits. (The biggest risk was in those who were obese with none of the healthy habits, three times the mortality risk as “normal” BMI with none of the healthy habits. Obese with just one healthy habit halved the risk and two halved it again, to about the same as “normal” BMI with the same two out of four healthy habits.)
For those who are obese becoming non-obese is not a reasonable or a necessary goal from a health related perspective. Setting that as a goal is counterproductive as it sets people up for failure and frustration more often than not. The goal is establishing the healthy habits and maintaining them which will, as an aside really, result in a modest amount of weight loss maintained long term. But not make them thin.
Fairly surprised by the moderate answers thus far, but with respect to the most vocal of sdmb posters, the answer is yes, always yes. Don’t you know about all those metabolic disorders that violate the laws of physics?
With as much as I get riled up about such nonsense (and woo about nutrition in general), I really haven’t seen much of it here. I see more of it out in the general populace, which contains plenty of people who believe HFCS, GM food, and bread are all absolutely toxic and must be purged with fire before the human race can be cleansed and rendered ritually pure again.
We’ve been through this *many *times before. To recap,
For just about anyone who wants to lose weight, weight loss is primarily achieved through a modification of the diet, not through exercise. Exercise is still a great thing to do, obviously.
It really doesn’t matter how “slow” your metabolism is, or what disease you may have (real or imaginary) – you can and *will *lose weight via a modification of your diet. Anyone can lose weight. The amount of calories you consume is the most important variable.
Permanently keeping the weight off requires a permanent change in your diet.
Accepted that some people are wanting to lose more than the 5 to 10% that brings the bulk of the health benefits, if just for reasons of vanity, and that losing the weight is primarily a function of decreased calories, your “recap” still excessively discounts the importance of exercise to meeting the goal.
Doing both actually does result in more weight loss than does diet alone.
Exercise and adequate protein will help make sure that the weight loss is mostly fat mass rather than muscle mass. (See here for example.) Vanity as well as health is served by decreased fat mass more than losing more weight by way of lost muscle mass.
Regular exercise helps keep the weight lost (see here for example - those relatively few who succeed in maintaining loss long term generally report exercising at least an hour a day) and not mostly by way of calories directly burned in the process: it altersthe metabolic drives to regain and by altering the brain’s reward circuits. Diet change alone is not as successful in keeping it off.
Some studies have shown that HFCS has a very low satiety rating as opposed to cane sugar. This would mean that you can drink a lot and still not feel “full”. But other than that, HFCS is pretty much identical to sucrose or “fruit sugar” or honey, etc. Same calories, lack of any other nutrients, etc.
Thus maybe HFCS is why dudes are drinking such gigantic sodas.
White bread doesn’t have hardly any fiber. It’s not bad for you, it’s just that real whole-grain bread has a lot more fiber and more micronutrients. More fiber means you can eat less and feel as full.
Crafter_Man I think a better wording is “Permanently keeping the weight off requires a permanent change in your lifestyle, which includes diet.”
Dudes, it’s not that hard. Stop eating fast food. Don’t eat junk food. Eat more fruits, veggies and whole grain. Nothing wrong with meat- in moderation- so eat less of better meat. Yes, have that 8oz Prime New York once a week, but skip that 35% fat cheap hamburger.
Sub out cookies & candy for fruit. It’s summer now, that’s easy. Grapes, cherries, etc.
Quick fixes? Two: drop sugared sodas (ice tea? Diet sodas? ). Drink a glass of water with a tablespoon of that orange powder fiber stuff every nite before you eat dinner. Gets you more fiber, and makes you feel full.
Baked or boiled taters are very good- they have a extremely high satiety rating. Stop eating them fried.
Not that this is true in this case but I find that a lot of the pretty active but significantly overweight people I know tend to “reward” themselves for small, healthy meals or exercise. Those extra slices of cheese and “recovery drinks” add up fast and people misjudge how often they “reward” themselves.
This is not a fault just human nature but can be adjusted for
Obviously people can have medical conditions that limit their ability to exercise and promote weight gain but I think over estimating calorie expenditure and underestimating intake is the crux of the issue.
Even if there was a consensus on this, it still wouldn’t justify all the rage against HFCS.
I doubt that anyone would care about HFCS specifically if it weren’t an acronym (ok, initialism).
This is the position I was trying to warn against upthread.
You don’t know that it’s “not that hard” for others.
Certainly there are hormonal and neurological conditions where people are at starvation-like hunger levels almost all the time and of course such people are usually morbidly obese.
Now, of course most fat people don’t have such conditions, but perhaps they lie somewhere else on the spectrum of hunger levels to you? It would be odd if there was no variation in this biological property, no?
I myself am in good shape, so I have no axe to grind here. But for my shape I have to at least credit the assist to having manageable appetite levels.
In addition to the studies linked to by Waenera, Freakonomics did a good podcast detailing why people shouldn’t blindly assume there is a causal relationship between obesity and the maladies you mentioned. Here is a link to a description of the podcast.
One of the valid points, was that the BMI ratios and categories are somewhat arbitrary and skew lots of “normal” people into the overweight category, so the BMI numbers make us think there is an epidemic when there isn’t one. Also, science has been hard pressed to show that although there is a relationship between obesity and various diseases, it’s not a causal relationship.
This was a big obstacle for me. I found it very easy to ramp up my exercise level, but that also ramped up my appetite (and sense of entitlement). For me, exercising 40 minutes instead of 60 minutes enabled me to avoid “reward & recovery eating”. Lost 15% of my body mass that way.
I found that it is possible to replace calorie reduction with exercise, but only by running like 90 minutes 3 times a week. It takes a LOT of exercise to do it that way.
The numbers are arbitrary but they are the same arbitrary numbers. “Overweight” may indeed overlabel a fair number of people but “obesity” overlabels very very and “morbid obesity” overlabels hardly any. As pointed out in the other thread that DrDeth linked to, “while defining 13+% of a normative population as “obese” was perhaps excessive (the top 5% would probably make more sense) the fact that by 2005 that number went up over 35% and that the number of Americans morbidly obese, BMI over 40, went from less than 1% to over 6% (!) is notable.”
It is unclear whether or not the healthiest outcomes are associated with high “normal” BMI or low “overweight” BMI (and indeed the data in this article tease out that it varies according to gender and smoking status), and placing the edge of normal at 27ish instead of 25 might make more sense from both a statistical and a health outcome perspective, but the epidemic is not most notable in those “mildly overweight” with BMIs of 25 to 27. It is most notable in the quantities of of those clearly obese and morbidly so. The overlabel of overweight does not inform about the tremendous increase in obese and morbidly obese.
Not quite sure how you can state that. We can state that it is not the only factor, and that healthy habits can offset the risk (and that a greater emphasis on the habits and less on the scale would be a good idea), but while given a lack of healthy habits those with normal BMI have roughly twice the mortality rate as those with four of four, the obese with the same lack have six, almost seven times the mortality risk. The epidemiologic evidence is very strong and animal models also demonstrate that causing obesity by diet causes a host of health problems, even including an increased risk of metabolic syndrome in the next generation.
Agree. It seems whenever we discuss this topic, people over-think it and feel the need to overcomplicate the issue with second and third-degree effects.
The bottom line is that *anyone *can lose weight, and it is primarily achieved by a reduction in calories.
No argument from anyone I think, just the recognition by some that such is a trivial statement that while true implies much more than it states, much that is patently false.
And another non sequitur often offered up as if it actually means something in this context. And also implying much that is plain untrue.
It there’s enough variation in people’s metabolism that there can be really skinny people who eat huge amounts of unhealthy calories every day and get little or no exercise then of course there can be people who eat a healthy and balanced diet, exercise, and have extra fat on their bodies.
Most people can lose weight and be thin but for some it is a larger amount of calorie debt than they’re comfortable doing or it’s to the point they feel hungry all the time. People who have always been skinny but get to eat whenever they’re hungry think that it’s easy to lose weight and that everyone has the same hunger drive as them. Not everyone can be skinny through diet and exercise and eat enough to not feel hungry.
You’re arguing a strawman. Nobody is claiming that some human beings can survive without food energy. The problem is that the human body is not a fire; it is a complex system.
Posit two people of the same weight, gender and body fat percentage. Both reduce their calorie consumption by 10% while maintaining their gym schedule (a moderate workout 3x/week). One loses 5 pounds of fat in a given time; would the other necessarily lose five pounds in a given time? No.
One person’s metabolism may adjust more quickly, making them feel sluggish. Without realizing it, they move around less during ambient activity. They have less stamina during workouts. They sleep a bit more. All in all they may not lose any weight at all, despite doing the same thing as the successful person.
That is what I believe DSeid is trying to get across. Saying “calories in, calories out” or “First law of thermodynamics!” doesn’t really mean much in the context of actually losing weight and maintaining that loss in an actual real world situation. Just because any human can starve to death eventually doesn’t really help. Sure, there are steps that we can do – certainly cutting calories helps more than increasing them, we can notice fat losses over long periods through looking at long term trends of body weight or measurements, et cetera – doesn’t change that it’s not simple, it’s complicated.