Possibly yes, but it does matter how you got there. Someone who has been 60kg since forever might find that a very comfortable diet and not feel especially hungry. Another person who has arrived at 60kg after rapidly dieting down from 100kg may well be in a great deal of discomfort much of the time, until their body gets used to the new normal.
Which brings us to…
Two things here.
Firstly, anthropomorphizing body functions is very common, and not just among the general public but for doctors, scientists too, because it’s awkward to describe complex functions keeping everything in a neutral, observational, third-person.
Or put it this way: if I’m zooming in on one aspect of the human immune system, I might refer to other aspects as what the immune system is “trying to do” or “thinking” as a shorthand – the alternative would be to explain how every aspect of the immune system works at the same time, which would be a hella long description.
In the case of this thread, we are talking about what the body “wants” as a shorthand for the detailed physiology. I would personally find a discussion of the physiology and neurochemistry very interesting, but it would be a different kind of thread.
Secondly, your kind of description might have been acceptable 15 years ago, but our understanding of weight gain, appetite, and metabolism has advanced a great deal in this time, and it is clear there is much still to discover.
The TL;DR is that it is not as simple as just what you’re body NEEDS, and, even if it were, what does that mean? If I’m obese, my body’s NEED is arguably to stay at the current weight – there is no weight you “should” be.
Just want to come in and back up Aspidistra here. Bodies are not simple machines in which x food into the mouth = y energy coming out of the digestion, same for everybody and at every time. Bodies are complicated living organisms that are full of other complicated living organisms. Weight loss diets change metabolism. Different people had different metabolisms in the first place. Different gut microbiota affect the amount of calories digested from any particular food. There is a whole lot we don’t understand yet about how human digestion works in any one person, let alone in different people.
Yes, of course if somebody takes in fewer calories (as measured after the food’s been through their individual digestive system) than they’re putting out (in their current state of metabolism) they’ll lose weight. Anybody can starve to death. But it’s certainly possible to wind up with a metabolism that’ll gain weight on any diet that’s sufficient to meet other nutritional needs, and/or to let the person get a day’s work done with their mind functioning for any purpose other than thinking about food.
I don’t drink venti mocha. I drink my coffee black. I don’t go to gyms. I move firewood, and sacks of fertilizer, and crates of winter squash, and wheel hoes.
And when I stopped going on weight loss diets, my rate of weight gain slowed down to almost nil. I really, really wish I’d never gone on any in the first place.
But I’m going to throw in a challenge here. I’ve seen other people ask this, various places. I’ve asked it myself, various places. I’ve never seen an applicable response. Does anyone here have a cite for a weight loss program on which half or more of the people who go on it a) lose a significant amount of weight and b) (this part is important) keep it off for five years or longer?
I’m not asking for an individual case; I know there are individual cases. I’m asking for scientific data that there’s such a thing which works, not only for a percentage of outliers, and not only for a couple of years, but for most people over the long term.
I’m not sure that this question really works for illustrating any point if you’re saying most people. Expecting the majority of people to succeed is unrealistic – of course many people are not going to follow the instructions correctly out of apathy or not fully understanding, or may be forced to quit for other reasons.
(yes we can cut them out of the cohort but I think in this case it might make the conclusion very misleading because a lot of the failures may have something to do with problems with the diet itself)
The point with weight loss is that the success rate is much lower than many people seem to realize; into the low single figure percentages when we’re talking about significant weight loss over the long term. It’s lower than we would normally expect for the aforementioned explanations to fully account for.
And, at the same time, we have found in recent years a lot of data about metabolism, appetite, and gut bacteria that begins to explain why it’s so hard to shed excess weight. Data that people who repeat old lines about “calories in versus calories out” (which again, yes is true) don’t seem to want to discuss or understand.
With regards to nutrition, it can be surprisingly hard to meet your nutritional needs while eating lower calories. Look at nutrition labels and compare the calories to the percentage of nutrition. Typically, the calories contribute a much higher percentage of the daily calorie goal than the nutrition contributes to the daily nutrition goal. That leads me to think that maybe the constant hunger is from the body trying to get the person to consume more nutrients, not calories. If the body is lacking vitamins and minerals, it might be saying “I’m hungry” to get more of those rather than needing calories for energy.
Peoples relation to food often seems more like a compulsion than a true need for energy or nutrition. Sometimes it seems like the way an addict might constantly crave their drug of choice. One reason I think this happens is that people often create reward cycles around food. When they’re thirsty, they drink something sweet and bubbly. When they’re hungry, they eat something sweet, salty, and fatty. These patterns create strong desires for the pleasant feelings they produce and the body may crave them just for that reason. It would probably be beneficial if people considered dieting more like trying to break a drug habit. Obviously we can’t give up food, but we can eat foods that aren’t so exciting. If someone drank water, plain nuts, salad without dressing, etc., a lot of the reward feelings around food would diminish and there wouldn’t be as many cravings disguised as hunger.
My takeaway from reading this thread is that there is considerable disagreement concerning whether one should be trying to lose weight versus engage in activities that promote health. Secondly, the matter of losing weight is a complicated process with many different variables to consider and odds are quite long against achieving any long term success.
This thread is timely. After last night’s overcrowded debacle at the Y, I’m reconsidering the wisdom of embarking on an endeavor that’s statistically doomed from the get-go. Experiencing all the chaos, anxiety and frustration at the Y only to experience yet another failure is really not sounding all that appealing now. And I’ve never been one to win lotteries.
You are misunderstanding the range. It’s not about metabolisms (most people by far have very similar metabolisms. They vary by, like, a percentage or two. It’s activity level and height. It’s similar to a healthy BMI range - it’s a RANGE for a reason. Mine is about 40 lbs, and I’m only 5’4. That’s a pretty big range, and it’s meant to take into account my activity level, muscle tissue (having muscle burns more calories, even if you’re just sitting there), frame size (which doesn’t vary as much as people thing, but still), etc.
“The controversial bit, and the bit that’s supported by science, is that if you start at 3000 calories a day, weighing X, spend a few months eating 1700 calories and then go back to eating 3000 calories, you will often/usually end up with your maintenance weight being some number BIGGER than X.”
Care to cite that? Because nothing I’ve read indicates any such problem. What you weigh is the sum of how you eat, what you burn and a handful of outside factors such as your height and skeleton. It’s really that simple.
Like anything in life, it’s all about what you make of it. Most romantic relationships fail - that’s a fact. With that in mind, do you then conclude that a romantic relationship is not worth pursuing? Similarly, most attempts to stop smoking fail. So do most attempts to quit drug use. I don’t see anyone trying to talk down someone looking to quit smoking by saying, “Eh, you’re just going to fail.” Maybe some people do, but I feel that attitude is extremely frowned upon. Unfortunately, people who are insecure about their weight (I’m not including you in this at all - just making a general statement) will tell others weight loss really isn’t worth pursuing because you might fail. Why is that? Why is being drug-free or tobacco-free worth pursuing, but a healthy weight is not?
How to lose weight is incredibly simple. You burn more than what you take in. That’s the law of physics, and not one person is able to escape that. That doesn’t mean it’s easy to do - even if you’re not outright addicted to food, poor habits can be incredibly, painfully difficult to break.
Metabolism varies minimally between people. Far more relevant factors in determining weight loss (other than eating and exercise) are height, sex/hormones, build and muscle tissue. Women typically find it more difficult to lose weight than men because we lack the same levels of testosterone. Women also have less muscle, which burns more calories than fat (and women have to have a higher level of body fat percentage to stay healthy). That isn’t to say women can’t lose weight - it still boils down to CICO. So yes, you’re right about different factors being at play. Eating the same food or walking the same mile will effect people differently. But you’re wrong about what those factors are, and how much they vary.
Incorrect.
Lots of programs would accomplish that just fine if people stuck with them all 5 years. People don’t, though - they want a quick and easy way and there is NO such way to lose all the weight gained in 5, 10, 30 years by just eating well for a few months.
There is no possible way to eat at a calorie surplus and not regain the weight. That doesn’t mean you’re starving yourself all 5 years - it means you eat a lower amount, burn calories you have built up in fat cells (this is NOT starvation), and when enough of those fat cells are depleted you adjust your eating habits to maintain your current size. So while maintaining you can eat more than you were when you were actively dieting, but you can **NEVER **go back to eating how you were when you (general you) gained 300 lbs.
I’m willing to accept that your hypothesis might be part of why people get fat and struggle to lose the weight.
Now: are you willing to accept that appetite moderating neurotransmitters like NPGL and differences in gut microbiome also contribute significantly? Because some here like Kovitlac seem to want to deflect away from these factors, but there is increasing evidence that they play a very significant role.
Ohhhhh no. Your body’s best interest - what it WANTS, as much as a body can want something - is to be in or very near to your healthy weight range for your height. If you’re obese, your body is suffering. That’s a fact. It doesn’t actively cling to those pounds just because you built them up. And even though I know you didn’t bring it up, I’m going to because I’m sure you adhere to it. But there is no ‘starvation mode’ unless you are literally starving (hence the name). Your body doesn’t want or need excess pounds that are causing you physical harm. To say otherwise is incredibly ignorant, and not only that, but actively harmful. Particularly if you’re spreading that misinformation around.
Meanwhile, others seem to want weight loss to remain some distant, impossible goal, which is the furthest thing from the truth.
Seriously. I get that knowing you have the power to change puts a lot of responsibility on yourself, and that can be totes scary. But at some time it needs to be done, and I prefer the outlook of, “I can change, because science says I can change, and I can make my life better,” to, “I’m helpless to change, but at least nothing is my fault because that’s how I choose to interpret the science, and that comforts me at night.” But hey, you do you.
Absolutely I agree that different people’s biology will play different roles. But that might still be a link between eating and pleasure versus eating and appetite. If it was just appetite, then I would expect eating plain foods to be sufficient, but often that is not the case. Some people will struggle to make healthy choices even when the healthier option has more calories. For example, someone may chose to eat a single cookie instead of unlimited vegetables and legumes. It may be similar for many behaviors like drinking, smoking, gambling, shopping, etc. Some people can easily engage in them at will while other people get hooked and struggle to control themselves. I would assume the difference has a lot to do with different brain and body chemistries.
When people say they aren’t able to give up something like sodas or sweets, that sounds to me more like they have an addiction to the pleasurable feelings they get from those foods rather than they need a high number of calories. I wonder if those people would have more weight management success by breaking the “food=pleasure” association. Of course, like any compulsion, that’s not an easy thing to do. But if someone allows themselves the freedom to eat unlimited amounts of nutritious foods that aren’t likely to trigger that compulsion, they may find it’s easier to not overeat.
I think most folks are okay with pursuing something if their odds of success are comparable to a coin toss (e.g. about half of the marriages in the US end in divorce), but a 95% failure rate sounds like the charge of the light brigade’s chances of success.
Part of that equation should be the cost of trying compared to the chance of success or failure. With the Light Brigade, failure was death, so that should have had a much higher consideration. But for things like diet and exercise, often the cost is negligible. You can go for regular walks in your neighborhood, which costs nothing. Change in diet may actually save money if you end up buying less food. You will typically get immediate benefits from trying to be healthier. The potential downsides will be minimal. And when you finally succeed, the benefits will be huge.
I don’t for the life of me understand how this contradicts the law of thermodynamics. Of course your metabolism can slow down. It tends to do so as you age. It is not going to slow down by a substantial amount if you eat a bit healthier, though. The change in metabolism brought about by reducing caloric intake to a healthy level is not really very much and can be offset with a little light exercise.
You can come up with a pretty accurate guess but, really, it doesn’t matter. If you eat healthy, you’ll be fine. The challenge is eating healthy in a way that
Does not drive you insane with hunger and
Isn’t so boring or inconvenient that you won’t stick to it.
These are things anyone can do, but it can take some learning. Eating habits are very ingrained, and they’re hard to change.
I sympathize with those who struggle with weight issues. I would encourage such people to think about their relationship with food.
Ideally, eating should be a bland obligatory experience, like taking a shower or brushing your teeth. But for some of us, food has emotional components. Did you grow up in a house where mom showed you love by giving you a cookie? Over time, some of us develop unhealthy relationships with food. If you’re sad, eat something to “cheer you up.” Or celebrate something good with a fun meal. Food = fun or love or happiness.
Here’s another point to consider: Forty years ago, many people smoke and drank to excess. But today, smoking and drinking are more frowned upon than in generations past. As a result, I suspect those looking for an oral “fix” are turning to food as a more socially acceptable alternative.
Right here: The first law, also known as Law of Conservation of Energy, states that energy cannot be created or destroyed in an isolated system.
Your body is an isolated system so the energy in has to equal the energy out. Obviously a simplification since with weight loss energy from fat in your body would be considered to be coming from outside the system. Other sources of energy would be calories. The energy out at a minimum would be your BMR. Your “body” doesn’t create energy (against the first law) so if the amount you’re eating is less than the amount you are burning it has to come from somewhere. In most cases that’s fat, or at least dreamed to be since your muscles are consumed pretty easily too.
(bolding mine - note that the significance of this is that on the show their metabolism was getting slower as they were losing weight which makes total sense since it might take less energy to run a smaller body, but the 6-year-later measurement had their metabolisms being slower again while they had **gained **weight compared to the previous measurement. They were fucked coming AND going)
Biggest Loser contestants go through the most extreme possible diet/exercise program, and most people who are ‘just dieting’ don’t have a reduction in resting metabolic weight that’s anywhere near that big, but it still happens:
Study - just diet on a group of obese women, short term, RMR decreased 22% (full article paywalled)
Study 2 - multiple year, compared diet-only to diet-and-exercise. Diet-only group ended up with a RMR 18% lower than at the start and diet-and-exercise group with a RMR only 9% lower
Study 3 - very restrictive diet in obese women with different body compositions. RMR reduction was quite small here - between 2.5% and 10% - but they only did it for 8 weeks
Also, please let me reiterate what I’m arguing here.
I am certainly not arguing that people should not eat healthier and do exercise. People should definitely do both of those things, they are both great for your health.
I **am **arguing against using the specific pattern known as “going on a diet” where you reduce your intake by more than you’re intending to commit to in the long term for some number of months, and then slack off the reins - studies like the above demonstrate to me that decreased metabolic rate is a thing, that it makes the job of staying a healthy weight harder than if you just decide to change to a different and sustainable
I am also arguing than you cannot know accurately what sort of exercise/eating pattern you will need to follow in order to maintain X weight by looking it up in a table, because these tables are averages, and different people have different metabolic rates. The tables themselves admit this because as well as height and weight they put in ‘age’ as a factor. If we already know that people of the same height and weight but different ages have different metabolic rates, then why wouldn’t this rate also be able to be affected by other things (like ‘have you ever been on a very restrictive diet’)
And lastly - this is more of a philosophical point - I think people are more likely to be successful with a long term change if it’s the one that costs the least willpower, and that the only way to know how much the difficulty level of a specific pattern of eating/exercising will be for you, is to do it. Basically I’m advocating that people should make changes that they honestly believe they can live with for the rest of their life - ideally that they can live with for the rest of their life without putting effort or thought into - rather than start off with something that they know full well is not sustainable in the long term in the thought that it will be easy to then switch to something that is sustainable.
(I do see that you have some other stuff written to me further down the thread, but I think this covers all major bases, and I don’t want to present you with a gigantic Wall O Text so this will do for the moment…)