Anyone see the report of the study re the biggest loser contestants that were followed for six years after their major weight loss?
Results were their metabolism a were so slow at the end of the 30 weeks on the show and they stayed that slow or got slower and they all gained most f their weight back!!!!
This was daunting to read!
This was a study reported by NIH so should be valued as a reported study and properly monitored study.
My query is this: there is no way they kept working out six hours a day when they went back to real life or even kept eating exactly the same as they did on “the ranch”.
So it seems logical to me they would gain their weight back. What is shocking to the study panel and everyone is their metabolism got so low during the show and stayed that way. Because all of them gained a lot of muscle.
The results, they say, prove that our bodies will force themselves to gain weight back we’ve lost.
Now I could say I am living proof of this but it’s because I never stay on the plan once I achieved my goals. And I am hypothyroid and just from changing my meds recently it lowered my metabolism and I gained 50 lbs.
BUT there are long term studies following obese people who have lost weight and although only 1 percent keep it off its those who don’t deviate from their plan who keep it off five years plus.
Thoughts????????

Hi HappyLife
The go to guru for me is American author & recognised diabetic lay authority ( she too has diabetes) is Jenny Ruhl. Diet 101 The Truth About Low Carb Diets. Also , second edition of Blood Sugar 101. Get the complete books not the shortened versions. She reads, dissects & makes sense of trials, reports & all things relating to type 2 diabetes we need to know. Read, mark & inwardly digest. She knows her stuff.
Go to http://www.phlaunt.com Jenny’s web site.

Thanks I will check them out 😄

I hadn’t seen this so thanks for sharing HappyLife 🙂

It’s pretty devastating reading to be honest, but I recommend everyone checks it out:

Original scientific article…

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21538/full

Nice NY Times article that breaks it down, and has comments from contestants…

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html?_r=0

Thanks for posting this HappyLife, I hadn’t seen it.

It’s pretty depressing reading, but I highly recommend everyone checks it out:

Original scientific article….

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21538/full

Nice NY Times piece that breaks down the results, and has comments from contestants….

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health/biggest-loser-weight-loss.html

Thanks for sharing this HappyLife – a depressing theory, but potentially very important for many of us on here…

I really recommend everyone gives it a read!

Tried to reply earlier with the links but it kept failing. If you google ‘nih biggest loser metabolism’ the top two hits are a great NY Times article that goes through the results and has comments from some of the contestants, and then the actual scientific research paper.

Lauren you have done amazing on this plan.
Honestly, I know people
Who has lost huge amounts of weight and kept it off for more than 5 years so I really think the biggest loser show issue is they work out 6 hours a day while there and done when they go home.

You are doing great!!!

I actually signed up to the Forum to get a perspective on this! In the book Michael disputes this but I would love to hear his rebuttal to the latest research…

Well I honestly do not care because if I can loose the weight and even keep it off one year heck 6 months even then that for me is still worth it because less weight for me means less arthritis and back pain. I’m all for anything that can give me a better quality of life even if it only last a little while. I refuse to be discouraged!

My two cents:

You can’t argue with the statistics. It appears sustained extreme loss like done on TBL does forever (6 years on at least) depress your metabolism and also cause your hormones to ‘up-regulate’ so your appetite increases etc. Making weight regain likely, and also meaning the focus shoudl not be on losing weight – but on maintaining weight you’ve lost. More studies are required, much of the published data on hormones (leptin, ghrelin etc) is based on rat/mouse analogues, but anecdata from large groups of big losers seems to indicate increased appetite post loss is definitely an issue. (I trawled the reddit threads, fitness, xxfitness, loseit and fatlogic when all discussing this study – all of those have LARGE numbers of subscribers, hence my assumptions)

I think that TBL is the extreme end. Those people exercised 7 hours a day and restricted heavily – they had many MANY thousands of calories deficit. Its likely this effect is magnified in them. Also, many of us may be overweight because we naturally deviate from the mean in terms of TDEE (cals needed to maintain current mass) in any case.

No corrections were made for those who had any sort of binge eating disorder, which is apparently known to depress metabolism. I have not looked for papers on this as yet, so just a point.

finally, many of those people still do fiendish amounts of exercise – a LOT of exercise naturally makes you hungry. There are a couple of papers which found exercise in the maintenance phase helps to regulate and decrease appetite early on – but how much? where is the tipping point between maintaining good health and appetite not starting to skyrocket?

Also, i draw all of your attention to our experiences here on the BSD. Cut simple carbs, see dramatic decrease in hunger – this is physiological, related to hormones/insulin. Hunger when you are on plan is emotionally driven as a rule (see point about binge eating etc above) we will all give in occasionally, and then feel like we are back on day one when it comes to appetite – but it goes away…

I think that this study is useful. It makes us aware about maintenance traps, and expect to have some hunger, know why its there, and manage it, however we choose. Some people still like to work out a LOT and just cope with the hunger pangs because they have goals or aesthetics they are aiming for. We are all NOT engaged in anything as extreme as TBL contestants, and now we are armed with more knowledge to help us manage our maintenance phase when we get there.

the take home message is food intake and movement must be seen as a lifestyle adjustment, and maintenance phase by definition means you can’t go back to how you were – we know that. Those with Type 2 have daily glucose readings to help re-inforce the good habits, and pull you up when you stray for a bit.

this study is a little daunting, but I also think its empowering as well. It certainly explains my gradual 10kg regain over two years!

Don’t ever let anything new discourage you ever…. I have personal friends who have lost a lot and kept it off. I was just hoping for some input in their study. 😀

You might have found it already but there is a very interesting critique of the biggest loser study on http://www.dietdoctor.com under the ‘science’ section.

Hey Janet1973,
Thanks so much! I just read it and it makes total sense now since we are fasting for part of this at night so it keeps our metabolism high.
😀

I’m a big fan of the website myself and have been watching Jason Fung’s videos about fasting. I fast for 16 hours a day and find it very easy to do. I think we are living in interesting times as far as weight loss goes. The old beliefs are being overthrown at an alarming rate. The old adages eat less, move more and calories in, calories out just don’t stack up and most of us here are probably proof of that. Interestingly, what Jason said even challenges the theory behind our own bsd diet so I am still a little confused. But I’m personally happy to accept that my fasting has played a large role in my weight loss of 20 pounds since February and as long as I know I m burning fat with my trusty keystix, I’ll keep going. Best wishes to you happy life.

I don’t know I’m sure the statistics and study’s are correct but I just believe that everyone’s body is different as is their thinking and their minds. I believe a lot of this weight loss battle is with ourselves and the learned and practiced Behaviors.
I believe that I can change because I am changing my behaviors and the relationship that I have with food.
.I used to Live To Eat.
Now I’ve began to Eat To Live.

Hi HappyLife, thanks for you nice comments 🙂 and sorry for coming across so negatively! It was a really interesting article and just got me thinking – when I first read the article it just made me realise what a huge struggle it is for so many people to maintain a weight that they are happy and healthy at. The contestants on the BL start off at a point of desperation, and work so hard over so many months to get to a point where they have completely changed their lives with the amount of weight they’ve lost. It made me really sad to think that nearly all of them had regained a huge proportion of that weight over 6 years, and that the glimpse of the new life they had wasn’t enough incentive to keep going (I don’t mean that to sound like I’m blaming them for this relapse, I think this article for me really highlights how complex our relationships with food and our bodies are). It also felt unfair that after battling so hard they were stuck in a place where they needed hundreds fewer calories than someone of the same size to maintain the weight!

But I know that we’re all different, and that life isn’t fair, and I would happily eat 500 calories less per day for the rest of my life to maintain a healthy weight (optimistically hoping I can stick with this plan until I get to that point!!). As for the science behind it all, there is so much conflicting evidence from different studies and a whole range of things that still aren’t properly understood. I definitely don’t have the time to read it all and make a rational judgement of all of the evidence, so I will just continue as I am doing as this is working for me at the moment – which is all any of us can really ask for. As we are undertaking this plan in a slower way, and we are in control of retraining out brains rather than being told what to eat / exercise, hopefully it will be easier to transition from the weight loss phase to the ‘rest of your life’ increased calorie maintenance phase than it was for those on the more extreme BL diet.

I think I was also just a bit grumpy when I read it as I injured my knee few weeks ago trampolining and had to spend a week with it elevated for most of the time, and then another week hobbling about! Got the ok from the physio to go for my first swim today though so being back exercising has definitely put me in a better mood 🙂 and actually although my weight loss slowed down without exercise (and limited movement of any sort!) it did show me that the plan still works, and that despite having a lot more time on my hands I was completely in control of my eating and not feeling sorry for myself bingeing on rubbish while watching daytime TV… pretty sure that’s what old me would have been doing!!

Thank you as always for the wonderful positivity everyone 🙂 we will get through this together, and hopefully in 6 years time the follow up studies will show that the BSD dieters are all still maintaining their goal weights… at which point Dr Moseley will be up for a knighthood!