Yes, yo-yo dieting is bad for you
You cannot refute something about biology by saying “it doesn’t make sense”. Biology is an extremely complex subject, and dismissing something as not happening because you don’t understand how it could work that way doesn’t change reality.
Remember, they used to think that the best way to treat a fever was to bleed people because “it made sense”
So, here’s the problem with your logic.
[ol]
[li]We don’t actually consume energy. We consume mass[/li][li]Said mass has what we call calories, which are estimates* of how much of that mass can be converted to the energy we use to run our bodies[/li][li]Said mass must be converted from what we eat to what can be absorbed by our body.[/li][li]The molecules we absorb into our body may be used to power our body - or may be used to build cells, or make other chemicals in our bodies that are necessary. There is protein in our snot, FFS. That’s part of the “calories” that you consumed.[/li][li]Some of the mass that we eat goes straight through to the other side.[/li][li]Some of the mass that we eat is consumed by gut flora.[/li][li]We are constantly building new cells using some of the “calories” that we have consumed.[/li][li]There are a number of processes that use calories, including but not limited to powering our muscles (which in turn can moderate our temperature), powering our brain, and powering other body processes.[/li][li]These processes can be slowed down, and cell renewal can be slowed down[/li][li]Thus, your “caloric needs” in the form of cell renewal and powering of muscles, etc, can fluctuate based on current needs[/li][li]And, the part that you don’t want to admit. The body can reduce it’s caloric needs based on what evolution has taught it to consider potential conditions for starvation. Or it can increase use, if it determines that said use will increase your chance of survival[/li][/ol]
Note, I’m not saying that there are some people who can reduce their caloric intake to zero and still not lose weight.
But if a person goes from a 1500 calorie diet that their weight was stable on, to a 1200 calorie diet? It certainly is possible that they won’t lose weight.
Bodies are not “closed systems”, in the sense that physics is using the term. In fact, they are highly dynamic flexible systems that will adapt to changing circumstances.
*By estimates, I mean, they arrived at caloric values by
Burning a certain amount of a particular substance and seeing how much energy it put out by being burned.
Studying a small group of people and measuring how much they ate while maintaining their weight.
I don’t remember if it was here or on LJ, but I once posted a thought exercise asking people what would happen if this were the case.
There were at least one or two people who said they’d be really fat.
When you have a romantic relationship that fails, you go on to the next one, which may be better (should be, if you learn something from the failed relationship). You will be no worse off.
If you attempt to stop smoking and fail, you will be no worse off, and you will have spent a period of time undoing some of the damage that smoking has done.
Ditto with drugs and alcohol (although, you may find that withdrawal is a problem)
But if your only goal is to reduce your weight, it has the potential of making you more unhealthy. And given the probability of failure rate over the long term, that’s a problem.
Furthermore, as I said in the OP, losing weight can only be an indirect goal.
When you quit alcohol, nicotine or other drugs, at the end of the day you can say “today I did not have any drug I’m trying to quit”
You cannot at the end of the day, say “today, I made one pound disappear” It may happen, but you didn’t do that directly, you did it by other actions.
So instead of making your goal weight loss, make your goal those other actions.
Today I did not drink any soda
Today I had 3 servings of vegetables
Today I did not have any fried foods
Today I had increased my fiber intake by eating brown rice instead of white rice
Today I exercised 15 minutes
Today I did crunches
You see, if you follow any of these goals you will be healthier. And you may not lose weight, but you will still be better off than how you started.
Hell, you can set your goal to “Today I will eat less than x calories”, and you will still be better off.
Because you are basing your goal on something you do specifically, and not on how your body reacts to what you are doing.
Here’s the key, and why I think most diets fail. If you get a reward for doing something, you are more likely to continue doing it. When people set a “lose x pounds” goal, there will come a time when they stop losing weight. If they are not at the weight they want to be at, they are no longer getting the positive feedback for their actions, and that makes it harder to continue with what they are doing.
Firstly, how dare you accuse me of being ignorant and spreading misinformation when your response is…your personal WAG based on nothing (and note I have never said starvation mode or anything like it, so have fun with your straw man)
Secondly, I had a feeling after my post #81 that someone would pull out the words “there is no weight you ‘should’ be” from my post, take them out of context, and claim I was advocating that being obese is healthy.
I shouldn’t even need to say this, but no, I don’t think being obese is healthy and I said as much upthread.
What the post was about, was appetite levels, and appetite levels are relative to current weight; if you’re losing weight, you’re hungry, irrespective of what your current weight is (cite1).
(emphasis added)
Since I have said nothing like “helpless to change” and have emphasized over and over that it is difficult but possible, I guess I’ll do me, and you do your straw men.
Ok, so this is really your quibble. I completely disagree agree with you as is obvious at this point. You can lose a pound directly by cutting your hair. Sure you don’t lose a pound of fat by cutting open your stomach and cutting off the fat, so you are correct. What you are missing is eating less is a direct action and it is possible that by eating less you can wake up every morning a see a lower number on the scale. That is a direct result of you actions the same as pressing your foot down on the break pedal of your car causes it to stop but not directly.
You are correct that we don’t know exactly how many calories we consume or burn but we can track it over time, with weight. If you actually want to lose weight all that is needed is to consume less than you burn and if you are not dropping weight then you need to decrease your eating more or exercise more.
You keep making excuses for why losing weight is hard when the only reason is that is sucks. It sucks to eat less. That doesn’t make it simple. People fail because doing things that suck is hard and they aren’t willing to do hard things. Its not because they don’t know how many calories their body is burning and its not because they don’t know exactly how many calories their body is going to make out of a twinkey.
If people really care about the health of others, just be sympathetic and encouraging. Share advice and stories when asked, but don’t act like an expert unless you are.
I’m obese. There are many factors to this:
I do not exercise as much as I should. Work schedules make a regular exercise schedule difficult.
I inherited my German grandmother’s build. Even when I ran 4 miles a day in high school I was stacked and curvy.
We struggle financially, so eating many fresh fruits and vegetables every day is difficult.
Fresh fruit, and sometimes fresh veggies, can cause serious stomach upset (being delicate here).
I must take 2 medications that are known to mess up metabolisms and cause weight gain.
I’m hypoglycemic, so intermittent fasting is impossible, and when my blood sugar goes wonky, all eating plans are thrown out.
Our work schedules mean that we usually cannot cook and sit down to eat together. Quick and easy meals are not often the healthiest.
I have a goal. I set a high goal because if I set an easy one, I may not work as hard to reach it. We don’t have medical insurance, but we scrounge up $138 a month to be a member of a direct pay clinic. One benefit we have is a health coach. Yesterday I asked that that service begin to help keep me accountable. We have a fitness center in our apartment complex, so I am making myself (and my SO) use it more often. I would love to cut carbs and eat more protein, but finances are an obstacle.
Just send me good wishes (even prayers if you do that kind of thing).
I disagree that it’s an obstacle. It’s a variable, and a minor one at that. If I tell you I’m going to drive cross-country and one route has an average speed of 55 mph and one an average speed limit of 75 mph, all that’s different is how long it will take. It’s not more difficult, it’s not impossible - it will take longer. Same with a slower metabolism. You’re doing the same thing as someone with a normal metabolism - eating less. It may change your arrival time, but not the outcome.
To answer in order. Yes, most poor people are wasteful. And no, that’s not saving. It’s rather poor investing, if that.
I’m not talking about dieting, but eating less. The change should be permanent. It’s similar to exercising. You don’t “get fit,” stop exercising, and stay fit forever. You continue the practices to maintain the results. I’ve never understood why people think reverting to their old habits won’t get the same results- fat again.
We can stop here because I think the bolded portion is soft-headed, navel-gazing negative bullshit that people spout to deflect their personal accountability and cover their lack of commitment. The function of that super-computer you’ve got in your head is NOT to come up with explanations for why you can’t do something, but to work out how you CAN, despite the “observations,” variables, obstacles, circumstances, upbringing and environment. You commit yourself to solving the problem, and if you’ve got multiple problems you solve those too, until you accomplish your goal.
I hope that this goes excellently for you!
Even if I agreed with you that it’s a small obstacle / variable / whatever, and I don’t, metabolism is just one part of the picture. Another big component is appetite.
As I’ve illustrated, and cited already, hunger is largely based on your current weight – the body is reluctant to use up energy stores. Furthermore, a person who has recently dieted down to 70kg say, will likely feel much more hungry than someone who had been 70kg for a long time, thanks to higher levels of ghrelin in the blood and lower levels of leptin (cite).
These are reasons why the failure rate of significant weight loss is so high.
In fact, let’s take a step back: it doesn’t matter whether you want to call sustained weight loss difficult or easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. The data shows that 1) most people fail at this easy-peasy task and 2) Advice like “calories in, calories out”, while spectacularly insightful, can’t be that helpful because it’s the kind of “help” that has been offered for years on the straight dope and social media, and doesn’t seem to have had any positive effect.
Well, I think it says a lot that you consider poverty to be essentially self-inflicted in most cases.
It’s interesting that the US pays some of the lowest wages for retail and non-skilled jobs in the developed world, and also, has apparently some of the most wasteful people, since the poverty rate is the second highest in the developed world.
What a universe of coincidences we live in!
I’m surprised at your view on investing money vs saving. It was basically intended as a rhetorical question.
Surely the whole american dream is “My grandpappy came here with nothing; he didn’t make excuses, he got off his ass and started a successful business”! Are you saying it’s only a wise course of action if it’s successful? Otherwise you’re dumb to try?
This, absolutely this, with actually any kind of goal or objective - personal or in any other context.
‘More’, ‘better’, ‘faster’, ‘safer’ etc. are just vague concepts unless you apply a measure.
I think a couple of you are really underestimating how dangerous high levels of obesity (or really just obesity in general) are. For those individuals facing down diabetes type 2, heart problems, high blood pressure, immobility, etc, they really don’t have the luxury of, "let’s just take things super slow, see how I feel, if I gain oh well…’ etc etc. Sure, be healthy first, but for many of these people, losing weight IS the biggest, more important step to improving their health.
This is why you see Dr. Now tell his 600+ lb patients to lose 40 lbs in a month. For someone only 200 lbs, that would be a dangerous amount of weight loss. For someone very large though, you’re already in an emergency. It’s either lose weight now, or likely die.
I’m not saying anyone here is 600 lbs and I’m not saying anyone here needs to lose weight now or you’ll die. What I’m saying though is that not everyone has the luxury of taking things as slow as you (a few of you) feel is best. There’s nothing wrong with counting calories. Nothing wrong with following a calculated TDEE (yeah, it’s not exact, but it’s closer than not using a calculator at all. It’s a starting point). Nothing wrong with having a weight loss goal and seeing how you feel once you hit it. Stop associating typically healthy habits with obsessive thoughts and eating disorders. Just because a relatively small handful of people suffer after weight loss doesn’t mean the vast majority do.