Obesity isn't curable for most, so stop saying it is. (healthy, overweight)
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And drinks LOTS of water, not diet pop or fruit juices.
ditto,
absolutely!!!
No Sugar,
No coke
No Juices cans
No instant foods
No MKDs
No any alcohol, no wine, no beer
Good sleep
less stress..
and so on and so on....
The study that came out about the Biggest Loser contestants, you mean? That is not new - starvation diets ruins your metabolism. And didn't it really prove that the contestants did this to themselves by the extreme dieting during the show? They should have used regular people - not people who lost weight in an extreme way.
You didn't read the study did you? What came out of it that is new is not that their metabolisms were slow when they finished the show but that they were even slower YEARS later even after regaining some or even all of the weight. This study coupled with another that indicates that our brains have a set point for both our weight and the number of calories we eat is kind of depressing but explains a lot about what many of us have been saying for years. We struggle to lose but regain it quickly even while not over eating.
Yes, crash diets slow your metabolism. Even slow dieting does. What's new is they are finding that it NEVER returns to normal after any kind of weight loss. The second study included a blind study with people using a medication that causes some sugar to be dumped through your urine and results in weight loss. These people were told to not change their habits. On average they ate 200 more calories per day for every 5 pounds they lost. Their brains immediately started to compensate for the loss and tried to gain it back. This is what they are saying now:
1) Your metabolism slows when you diet and slows even more over time as you try to keep the weight off.
2) Your brain has a set point for what it wants you to weigh and will fight to get you back there by slowing your metabolism even further after the diet.
3) Your brain has a minimum number of calories it wants you to eat per day and you will start craving foods because of it.
I've always known I burn fewer calories than the next person. I cannot just cut 100 calories out. I have to cut at least 750 to lose anything at all and then the loss is very slow. I've done programs like weight watchers, followed it to the letter and still not lost. The only diets that work normally for me are low carb diets like Atkins but my doctor doesn't like Atkins. What I like about Atkins is I'm not hungry and I'm not tired but my doctor is worried about my liver and kidneys if I went on it and stayed on it. I lose weight very fast on Atkins eating 2500+ calories per day. Too fast for my doctors and my comfort. The first time I tried induction I lost 14 pounds in 10 days. That kind of weight loss is dangerous. According to the instructions if you lose 11 pounds in 14 days you're low resistance. I'm ultra low resistance which explains why I could lose weight just by not eating after 6:00 PM when I was younger. I drop right into lipoketosis. I wish it was that easy today. Unfortunately, it is not. My body has changed over the years.
We keep saying we're different than the people who lose weight easily but the people who lose weight easily just tell us we're eating too much. It would appear we've been right all along. There is more going on here than how much we eat. A lot more.
Maintain a daily caloric deficit and obesity will go away. There you go there's your cure!
That's hard to do when your body keeps lowering your metabolism in response to that deficit to stop the loss and even regain the weight while eating what should be a deficit. I WISH it was that easy. According to my fit bit I am consistently eating less than I expend. I was doing that before I tried cutting calories to lose weight. The first think I did was use my fit bit to establish my base line. I thought I was over eating but I wasn't. In fact, I was eating about 500 calories less than my fit bit says I should have been eating. I should have been loosing but I was gaining. Getting this little device was an eye opener. This goes way beyond just maintaining a deficit. That's hard to do when the target keeps moving. I hope they are able to come up with something to help reset our set points.
ditto,
absolutely!!!
No Sugar,
No coke
No Juices cans
No instant foods
No MKDs
No any alcohol, no wine, no beer
Good sleep
less stress..
and so on and so on....
I already do that except for the stress part. Stress comes with life and it's hard to control. Now what?
The reason I felt the need to create this thread is that I don't like the elitism coming from the fitness community which heavily promotes the idea that obese people are only lazy. .
The "fitness community" may consider themselves "elite"...but I don't.
The best of us all are those of us who would never even consider that fat has only to do with laziness.
I know a couple of very heavy individuals who are extremely strong and could physically out work anyone.
They are also considered obese.
Consider yourself {elite} and don't let what someone else thinks bother you...it's not worth the energy.
An idea can only be promoted to those willing to believe in it.
Some of us know how to think for ourselves.
The "fitness community" may consider themselves "elite"...but I don't.
The best of us all are those of us who would never even consider that fat has only to do with laziness.
I know a couple of very heavy individuals who are extremely strong and could physically out work anyone.
They are also considered obese.
Consider yourself {elite} and don't let what someone else thinks bother you...it's not worth the energy.
An idea can only be promoted to those willing to believe in it.
Some of us know how to think for ourselves.
I eat healthy. Roughly 2000 calories a day and about 2500 during the weekends. I work out 3 times a week and currently weight roughly 72-73kg. And like most, I agree that good diet and exercise can allow for amazing body transformations for most people.
However, when it comes to obese individuals I think this meme of "just eat less move more" is actually bull****.
I use to believe that as well before I started working out, but after I started educating myself about the human body and how it treats/responds to nutrition, I am now much more sceptical about the idea that obese people are merely obese because they can't change their lifestyle, and believe that many (I said MANY, not all) of their claims about how they can't lose weight might actually be valid. The reason I believe this is because of the fallowing facts (which most people don't know about or understand):
1. Metabolism.
How fast your body burns energy/fat changes depending on how much you eat. If start eating less than before you lose weight for a while, but then your body adapts and starts slowing down your metabolism making weight/fat loss harder. Your body does this to protect you from starvation (it's not like your body cares you are trying to get abs, it just wants you to live). This means the typical argument of "your body can't create energy out of nothing" isn't as valid as it sounds, because by eating less your body will start spending less energy to begin with.
2. Every time you get new fat you did not have before your body generates new fat cells.
When you get rid of fat you lose some fat but your fat cells will not go away. Ever. Your fat cells allow your body to remember your max bodyfat percentage you have ever obtained so that it can more easily obtain it again in the future should you increase your caloric intake. Again, this is a survival mechanic.
3. Your body adapts to the manner in which you live.
Calories in, and calories out. That's how it works, right? No it doesn't. Your body is a living machine that spends the energy you give it depending on what it believes it should be used for. If a person has been very active for most of it's life then your body will adapt to that fact and is more likely to invest calories into muscle building instead of converting them into fat. In a similar manner, if somebody has been obese and inactive since they were small your body will slowly start defaulting into just converting everything into fat because it sees no reason to do anything else. The more active or obese the person is the greater this effect will be.
The point being:
While none of what I said above makes it impossible for "normal fat people" (individuals who are merely fat rather than disgustingly obese) to get back down to normal weight, for individuals who have obtained extreme levels of bodyfat and maintained it for long periods of time, the damage they have caused to their body mechanics via accumulation of large amounts of fat cells, slow metabolism, and the obtaining of a body behaviour that defaults to storing fat rather than building muscle, it is very possible that they will never be able to get back down to normal bodyfat again.
That doesn't mean they can't lose weight. But there is a big difference between losing weight and actually going back to normal. If a 250kg person loses 70kg, that's a lot of lost weight, but the person would still be obese. Things like genetics no doubt play a role, as some obese people might be luckier than others. But generally speaking, I think that for many people obesity might not be something they will ever be able to properly get rid off.
A special note:
Note this doesn't mean obese people aren't to blame for their condition. It's still their fault they got obese in the first place. Also note that nothing of what I said should be considered as an excuse to not try and lose weight. There is also a difference between merely being pretty fat and having high levels of obesity.
The reason I felt the need to create this thread is that I don't like the elitism coming from the fitness community which heavily promotes the idea that obese people are only lazy. I mean don't get me wrong, MOST of them ARE lazy. But there is more to it then that.
Hope this information was helpful and informative
EDIT: Honestly I think this thread should be stickied.
I was obese as a child. It most certainly be overcome.
It all comes down calories ultimately. It is just a unit of energy. If we consume more than we need, it gets stored as fat tissue.
It's about behavioral lifestyle changes more than 'dieting'. Simple things people can do is just out sugary drinks and eat smaller portions. Don't eliminate foods you like but reduce how much you eat of it. Cleanse the palate after meals with something low calorie like hot tea to help give time for satiation to kick in so you don't go for seconds.
There are a lot of tricks people can do to reduce caloric intake. While exercise is important, it is a lot more difficult to burn 100 calories than it is to consume it. So watching INTAKE is the most important thing.
I have an education in nutrition science. Metabolic disorder, while a reality, affects only a minority of the population 3-5%. Fat cells do not multiply in number but change in size.
I recommend making small changes in behavioral routine patterns to help reduce caloric intake while increasing physical activity. It will take time (4-8lbs is a healthy rate of fat loss per month) to see results.
Losing weight is hard. Too hard for a lot of people. Too hard for my brother who has been told numerous times to lose weight or die soon. He has already had a couple of small strokes. He is miserable most of the time. He over eats crap, its as simple as that. He is also never going to lose the weight because for him its easier to be miserable than to put in the work.
For ME, the issue was one not of just losing weight but being and thinking differently. Meal plans. Shop on grocery list only. No chips, granola bars. No soda (which was no loss for me). Make the new food APPEALING not just punitive sticks and twigs. At least at first, measure EVERYTHING. Like the milk in the coffee, the salad dressing. Recognize that the first few days I will be hungry. I drank a ton of water which did not really help the hunger but gave me something to put in my mouth. But I just powered through realizing this too shall pass. Pack lunches with the allotted calorie limit built into the lunch. Have a couple of pre-measured snacks that fit into my daily calorie allotment. I used an online calorie counter. For me, 2000k was WAY over my allotted calorie intake. But I was not severely obese so YMMV.
I began to recognize the foods that I really enjoyed and which felt like weight loss punishment hell and adjusted. Oh a journal was helpful too. During the first hungry week, I was a bit mental, so I did not remember what I ate.
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