Here for example is a meta-analysis of weight-loss studies looking at the claim that dieting is ineffective long term.
“…this meta-analysis of 29 reports of long-term weight-loss maintenance indicated that weight-loss maintenance 4 or 5 y after a structured weight-loss program averages 3.0 kg or 23% of initial weight loss, representing a sustained reduction in body weight of 3.2%. Individuals who participated in a VLED program or lost ≥20 kg had a weight-loss maintenance at 4 or 5 y of 7 kg or 29% of initial weight loss, representing a sustained reduction in body weight of 6.6%.”
So while overall a majority of lost weight was regained, there still were substantial long-term reductions in weight which I haven’t seen duplicated by (for example) the binge-and-fast method.
I think your guess is wrong, but welcome any non-anecdotal evidence to the contrary.
Speaking of psychological factors: throwing up one’s hands and saying it’s hopeless to change bad eating habits and other lifestyle factors probably provides psychologic relief to those who can’t or won’t make the effort, and provides a justification for seeking out gimmicks instead.
Might as well stop by the supermarket and pick up the latest copy of Woman’s World. In addition to the “special ingredient shakes” that simulate gastric bypass, the heal-your-gut way to lose 24 pounds (not 14 as mentioned earlier), the Canadian Miracle Cure, the herbal tea that “fights cancer and brain aging” and much more.
I don’t have any cites that my guess correct, just a gut feeling after seeing numerous people fail to lose weight long term (and no success stories among the people I know) by trying to follow the sensible boring health advice.
There is zero question in my mind that there is not enough actual data on Intermittent Fasting (IF) in general, let alone different versions of it, out there to know, and very little reason to believe that there even IS a one size fits all “better diet plan.” Individuals just have too much variety in both their individual biology, their individual psychology, and their individual local worlds (and the intersects of them) for there to be, and the understanding of how various messengers and receptors interact under which circumstances is still fairly primitive.
There are a huge number of ways to lose fat that work and some will be more effective or more tolerable for some than for others. More power to you if one or another variation of intermittent fasting helps you achieve a realistic and reasonable initial fat loss goal. More power to you also if some other method is a less difficult and more effective path there for you and your n of one.
To me the bigger issue is that many have unrealistic and unreasonable fat loss goals and that their focus is on that goal and not on the longer term habits that will maintain their health and function as best as possible.
It’s tiresome to keep repeating this but the data is at least very solid that an obese individual losing 5 to 10% of their weight and keeping it off long term with a combination of healthy nutrition and exercise is realistic and reasonable and will achieve the lion’s share of those long term benefits. To me it is the unreasonable focus on becoming and maintaining “normal weight” instead that sets people up for failure.
Is either of those IF methods mentioned in the OP tenable for you as an individual long term? Hey some variations might be for some people. I can see someone going with eating an early lunch as the main meal with nothing past say 6 or 7 pm, in a version of a 16/8 IF being something that can be kept up with. But I don’t suspect many can keep up the either of the OP options for the rest of their lives as a lifestyle approach.
One can always invoke the “we’re all different” mantra (often used to reject evidence-based medical interventions in favor of woo).
This helps explain why there are tons of revolutionary, paradigm-shifting diet plans, all promising to overcome the deficiencies in everyone else’s ground-breaking diet plans, ultimately functioning only to feed cash into the weight-loss industry.
This is not to say that a plan taking into account individual idiosyncrasies isn’t a good idea. But without a solid foundation you’re not only wasting time and money, but also risking serious and potentially permanent complications (from the diet itself, or due to continued obesity).
one popular diet idea in recent years which has spawned best-selling books on Amazon is the 5:2 plan, which suggests eating what you want for five days and fasting for two. As you’d expect there’s very limited evidence for effectiveness along with some worrisome associated mood problems and a warning that the trade-off for fasting’s benefits might be increased susceptibility to infections.*
**skeptics will note that this study is based on gene alterations in fruit flies.
Your question is unanswerable due to several factors. One is that not everyone’s metabolism is the same. A major reason is that you have sloppily defined the diet. “Pigging out” has no dietetic of scientific meaning. Pigging out on cheeseburgers? Lasagna? Carrots?
Adding more confusion is the fact that in the diet world you can probably find a study that supports any “diet”. There are studies that show, for instance, that fast causes the body to store more of the next calories coming in anticipating the next future fast.
Largely it has been shown that sensible eating is the best stratagem for losing weight. In that case it seems like B is your best bet.
But honestly any diet that claims that you can “eat as much of anything you want” for any reasonable length of time is bullshit.
If you insert cheeseburgers only for any of your dieting “solution options”, you are not dieting.
One lone data point here-I lost 60 pounds around the turn of the decade, and have kept it off (BMI is now 24) ever since. It has not been a vain and bitter struggle at all either. My meals are usually very low calorie, I lightly snack through the day, and avoid the binges I used to regularly indulge in. Work out like a demon for 2-3 hours a week too. My appetite in fact does seem normal (yes I know the stomach doesn’t literally shrink, but Google quickly got me a number of hits on dieters often not feeling as hungry as you might think they will).
Now. I admittedly had NOT been obese for most of my adult life-I put on those 60 pounds in a relatively short period of time and had them for only a few years. For someone who has been overweight for longer might indeed have a lot more difficulty.[/imhompsims]
I would never try the wacky diet in the post but a friend of mine has followed that exact plan for a year and done very well with it, he likes the cycle of abstinence and reward and has lost 30 pounds and is healthier than he has been in years.
I know the OP doesn’t want hijacks of his impossible-to-answer binary question. But this went by without remark and IMO deserves comment.
True as far as it goes, but barely half the story.
I can run from dawn to dusk and burn maybe 8,000 calories. I can eat from dawn to dusk and consume 25,000 calories. As more than one coach has put it: “You can’t out-train a crappy diet.” “Diet” in that sentence referring to the eating habits of athletes, not simply calorie restriction.
Completing your simply soliloquy to be accurate: “You can eat as much as you want as long as A) you’re willing to work hard enough to burn it all and B) you eat less in a day than what’s physically possible to burn in a day. Which together means that C) you can eat only as much as the actual amount of work you put in. Every day.”
Your cite that long term weight loss is realistic for the masses shows that people gained back 77% of the weight they lost after 4-5 years. How is that a success? An obese person loses 20kg, gains back 16 and that is a success? I don’t see it that way considering that yo-yo dieting has its own health risks.
Again, calorie restriction is nice and all, but like the failures of abstinence only education as a method to prevent STDs and unwanted pregnancies, they are not going to fix the obesity epidemic for anyone except a small minority of people. If the best evidence for calorie restriction as a cure for overweight shows people can lose 3% of their bodyweight after 4-5 years, that isn’t impressive. You’d need to lose >20% of your bodyweight to go from obese to a healthy BMI.
Meh. And also often used by experts in the field to understand that some are nonresponders to any specific approach but may respond well, or even hyperrespond, to a different one.
I remain in the camp that healthy nutrition and regular exercise are the basis of good health whether any weight is lost or not, that they should be the goal more than the means to a goal. But there is also little question that an obese person’s health will benefit by losing 5 to 10% of their body weight and keeping it off. Some particular methods may help particular individuals achieve that long term goal while they will not work well for another and we do not yet know why or how to predict who will respond best long term to what.
My WAG is that fairly few will be in the camp that will be long term good responders to the sorts of IF variants the OP puts out there, but there is little reason (fruit fly, and even some mice studies notwithstanding) to believe they have much risk either. I’d suggest a focus on high satiety/at most moderate hedonic value foods, limiting exposure to alternate choices as much as possible, portion control, and regular exercise as the default approach which will result in improved health and a good shot at weight loss for most, jumping into the latest fad approach, whatever it is and however well it is marketed, as the new panacea is pretty much never a good idea … but if some IF variant, or strict calorie counting, or paleo, or low carb, or vegan, or whatever … works for you over the long term and has little risk of harm while that default approach has failed, then good for you that you tried it.
There are three different issues here that are getting at least partly glued together. They’re related, but they’re different enough to warrant addressing separately.[ol][li]How should a non-obese individual behave to maximize health? Which, ref DSeid just above, probably includes avoiding obesity.[]How should an obese individual behave to maximize health? Which, ref DSeid just above, probably includes reducing obesity, and may include returning all the way to a normal BMI.[]What population-scale interventions can medicine or government do to help more folks achieve 1 & 2?[/ol][/li]
You seem totally focused on 3 while most other responders are speaking to the only techniques that have been demonstrated to work on *any * examples of 1 or 2. Yes, not all examples, but at least some. Which is more than can be said for the OP’s silly ideas. As a result you and the others have been largely talking past one another.
This thread’s not about 3, but we’re far enough in that I’ll give it a go:
Obesity is a symptom. Do not treat symptoms if you want success. Instead treat causes.
My take on the cause is pretty simple: The US, far more than other countries, has a massive sweet tooth. Which was installed by marketers over the last 50 years. We also have a massive desire for simple carbs. Mostly created by marketers, not by Nature.
All this is exacerbated by the many poor folks for whom simple carbs are the most affordable food option. So lets attack all those things at the population level. And expect, again over 50 years, to put obesity back in the box. It’ll still be an intractable problem for the few with significant glandular problems, but not an epidemic of the many.
So to counteract this government will:[ol]
[li]Tax all sweeteners of any form at WAG 15/lb for sugar and the equivalent rate in /sweetness for all others.[/li]
[li]Require that all packaged and refined foods be not more than 5% simple carbs by calorie. For artificial low-cal sweeteners charge them the same calorie count as an equivalent amount of sugar.[/li]
[li]Prohibit the advertisement in any form of any sweetener including sugar and any food containing more than a low percentage of sweeteners as computed just above or simple carbs.[/li]
[li]Require that restaurants assess and collect a tax of WAG $5 per 100 calories by which a single meal exceeds 700 total. Said another way, each menu item should show the calorie count and the $5/100C added tax. With a sign saying the first 700 cals/person are tax-free.[/li]
[li]Outlaw any “all you can eat/drink” promotions at restaurants. Everything must be pay by the each or pay by weight.[/li]
[li]Revise the existing food stamp program to prohibit using it to buy sweeteners, desserts, and most simple carbs. Exceptions to be based on valid science. My WAG would be along the lines of e.g. white rice, white flour, and white potatoes would be prohibited whereas brown rice, whole grain flour and yams would not. etc.[/li]
[li]All the tax revenue from the extra anti-sweet and anti-overeating taxes are fed into the revised food stamp program just above so that it can cover more people more generously.[/li]
[li]Require all schools to provide not less than 90 minutes of organized athletics on every single school day for every able-bodied student. This to apply from kindergarten through high school graduation = K-12.[/li]
[li]Ensure all school-provided meals are low in simple carbs and almost devoid of sweeteners. And no, ketchup full of HFCS does not count as a vegetable.[/li]
[li]Schools (K-12) are required to assess all children for obesity risk. And provide appropriate health interventions, family counseling, etc.[/li]
[li]Schools (K-12) are required to provide healthy eating & lifestyle education starting from grade 1.[/ol][/li]
Is all of this practical? Not really. Some of it is around the edges.
Ultimately the population is highly responsive to a combo of advertising, availability, and price incentives. Which collectively form almost unbreakable habits.
Until we can turn off the firehose of those three things that loudly tout the sure route to obesity as the good life we’re collectively screwed. So fix that.
Or invent a magic pill that prevents the absorption of any calories after the first 1500/day/person and put the stuff in the public water supply. Those are about your/our only two choices.
You may well be right. I know what has worked for myself and for others beset with carb-sensitive weight issues. Issues I no longer have by dint of having implemented most of my policy recommendations on myself by myself for myself. Where I seem exceptional is in being willing to make the change and stick with it versus simply pretending the bad lifestyle someone has practiced for decades has no long term adverse consequences.
The larger point remains that Wesley is seeking population-scale changes. Which implies population scale modifications. With all the connected political and economic challenges.
I am an very experienced calorie counter for over 40 years now and have been on over a dozen diets where large amounts of weight were lost. The main takeaway I had from Taubes, which been largely borne out over the past 15 weeks and as of today with 40 lbs of fat lost, is that the success or failure of a diet is primarily focused on managing hunger, and by minimizing the consumption of sugars and other simple carbs the tidal wave of visceral, gnawing hunger that comes after consuming carbs is minimized.
I have lost weight in the past just reducing calorie intake and it was a 24/7 fight with hunger that I eventually could not maintain and fell back into old habits. I’m eating 1600-1700 calories a day and losing about 2 to 3 lbs per week and (this is the key) I’m not starving to death at night.
Whether it’s a “real” thing or just a useful metaphor Taubes description of the human fat layer under threat when dieting as an “organ” and specifically “an organ with an agenda” that will increase the output of chemicals for hunger and decrease metabolism and energy levels to protect itself is a very useful construct for framing and dealing with the changes to your appetite, energy levels and even emotions that happen when you diet. It crystallizes the notion that you are not lazy or willpower deficit but you are fighting an external force (even though it’s part and parcel of you) that is programmed to be pulling various chemical strings to get what it wants.
That I am fighting this “thing” even if it’s part of me makes it much easier to put things in perspective in responding to those impulses.
The bottom line (for me) is that eating simple carbs spins up the hunger impulses to the point they are just overwhelming. Eating fat, protein and vegetables and staying away from simple carbs and sugars makes dealing with the hunger much more tolerable.
Taubes may not be a scientist but his point about the huge intake of sugars and other simple carbs driving modern obesity is largely correct. Yes, it’s all a calorie equation in the end but what your body does with those carb vs fat vs protein calories differs and (most importantly) how your body reacts with hunger responses to those various inputs varies tremendously.
You’re moving the goal post. I’m glad what worked for you worked for you and I didn’t deny that it did. Lots of different dieting strategies work. They all work based on the calories-in/calories-out model. Taubes denies this and it is a main theme in that book. I posted evidence that what Taubes claims is incorrect. And a few things that you claimed are incorrect. I posted some evidence that Americans are consuming more calories from fat than sugar than we were in the past. If you want to post evidence other than anecdotal and not just claim that Taubes is correct, I’ll be happy to debate you.
The last part of the above quote contradicts the first. While it’s of course correct that the body does not treat all macronutrients equally, what Taubes claims (and you claimed) regarding insulin and fat storage is incorrect. Badly incorrect. It can cause those that prefer a not so low carbohydrate diet to live a perfectly thin and healthy life consuming one as many populations do.
The only caloric increases according to those figures have been +3% in flour and cereal products and +7% in fat. Yet according to the same figures, there’s been a 28% increase in calories. How does that work?
OP:
Stopping one’s fast after 3 days means going over the most difficult part of a fast over and over again. It gets easier after a few days. Also, the idea of eating whatever you want to simulate hunter-gatherer lifestyle has a major issue: Hunter-gatherers might have been able to feast relative to their standards but they didn’t have icecream, donuts and all the other items you can find at the end of your grocery store run (which is put at the end precisely to entice you).
What astro said. I’ve controlled my weight using a low-carb diet for more than 10 years. When I see detractors like the one quoted by x-ray visionsay (speaking of Gary Taubes) things like
like it’s a bad thing I get confused. Isn’t that the whole idea of changing the way you eat? Yes, people on low carb diets aren’t as hungry and they eat less. Why isn’t this considered a feature, not a flaw?
Although to get to the original question about fasting, I will occasionally, maybe every 18 months or so do a three day water fast for purely psychological reasons. Every once in a while it’s a good idea for me to re-learn the difference between hunger and appetite.
The link for the page on the USDA website no longer works, but there are a couple of factors no mentioned. Other food types and the increase in calories of protein is not shown. The point is that sugar consumption has gone down slightly while fat consumption has gone up.
Below is an article regarding that same non-working link that includes charts from the report:
I think you’re oversimplifying and a bit unfair here, and I say this as an active, fit person who watches what I eat. You assume that those who fail are unwilling to “stick with it,” and that the alternative is “pretending” their bad lifestyle has no long-term consequences. I know many people who have plenty of will power but are overcome with such a powerful compulsion to eat that it overwhelms them. I respect what you’ve done for yourself, but I disagree that anyone who doesn’t succeed as you have is pretending and is unwilling to stick with it. There’s a reason 98% of those who’ve lost weight regain it within 5 years–and that figure includes those who’ve been on low-carb diets–and it’s not sheer will power or pretending their health won’t suffer as a result.