Post: #1

Interesting article from NYT regarding contestants from Biggest Loser:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health....html?_r=0

Quote:Kevin Hall, a scientist at a federal research center who admits to a weakness for reality TV, had the idea to follow the “Biggest Loser” contestants for six years after that victorious night. The project was the first to measure what happened to people over as long as six years after they had lost large amounts of weight with intensive dieting and exercise.

The results, the researchers said, were stunning. They showed just how hard the body fights back against weight loss.

“It is frightening and amazing,” said Dr. Hall, an expert on metabolism at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. “I am just blown away.”

It has to do with resting metabolism, which determines how many calories a person burns when at rest. When the show began, the contestants, though hugely overweight, had normal metabolisms for their size, meaning they were burning a normal number of calories for people of their weight. When it ended, their metabolisms had slowed radically and their bodies were not burning enough calories to maintain their thinner sizes.

Thoughts? The one thing to remember is that there is a lot of bias in the statistical sample, and these people are not representative of the general population.

Post: #2

Sounds realistic to me. Most people regain weight after a weight loss diet.

Post: #3

I call bullshit. It's all diet and a lack of exercise.

These people eat poorly plain and simple. They're not eating vegetables, roasted chicken, and a baked potato. No, they're eating a double stuffed cheese pizza from the pizza joint down the road. They're eating oreos, kraft mac and cheese, drinking bottles of wine, and then have the audacity to think they can just around and not get fat.

What the show should have taught them to do is make good food on your own from raw ingredients and then do 3 days a week of exercise. Three days is nothing of a time investment.

Post: #4

I would be interested to see the "study" repeated for somebody who lifts actual weight.

That six-year drop in metabolism could be explained away as a loss in lean body mass that is never put back on. It would not surprise me a bit if these guys managed to fix their metabolic issues by doing something fairly demanding, like a Squat Every Day routine.

Post: #5

I also read that article, and sent it around to a few people. It reiterates what I read in the book Gary Taubes 'Good Calories, Bad Calories' about how hard it is to both loose AND (for some) gain weight on a consistent basis. We still don't understand a lot of the metabolic responses to forced starvation or over eating.

In the end, it has made me a bit more sympathetic to the over-weight people I see in my cafeteria eating a salad with a diet coke. I think to myself, how can they still be so fat when they are barely consuming 300 calories for lunch. Even if they are snorting Oreos during break time, it is hard for me to believe that those marginal calories add up to such weight gain without some connection to the individual's molecular makeup.

Post: #6

Yeah doesn't surprise me whatsoever. A few months ago I finished a 3-4 month calorie overloading diet, sometimes pushing up above 4000 calories per day, taking bulking shakes every day etc. Concurrently, compound heavy lifts at least twice a week. After that three months, I was at say 70kg (not exact for anonymity reasons). That was up maybe 4kg from my 'traveling weight' (when my eating goes to shit in a 'not enough' direction). Basically no real gain.

Following that, due to several things that came up, that eating regime dropped out to zero. No bulking shakes, no attempts at eating well, probably floating around 2000 to 2500 calories. After two months, I got back on the scale, expecting to have lost weight. Nope, 70kg, exact same. Zero change in body fat percentage too. My body fights any attempts to change it, tooth and nail.

I'm trying a new regime now where I don't even consider calories. Instead I'm now just heavily overloading protein intake alone, whilst resuming heavy lifting, so I'll see if it responds to that. After 6 months of that, if there is no change, it'll basically be a choice between the nuclear option (steroids), or accepting that bodily self-improvement really isn't possible for some men. I'm the last guy on the planet who wants to believe that, but at some point there isn't any other explanation, and constantly holding yourself personally accountable for the impossible is just draining energy that you could invest elsewhere to better effect.

Post: #7

(05-02-2016 06:54 AM)Menace Wrote:  Interesting article from NYT regarding contestants from Biggest Loser:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/02/health....html?_r=0

Quote:Kevin Hall, a scientist at a federal research center who admits to a weakness for reality TV, had the idea to follow the “Biggest Loser” contestants for six years after that victorious night. The project was the first to measure what happened to people over as long as six years after they had lost large amounts of weight with intensive dieting and exercise.

The results, the researchers said, were stunning. They showed just how hard the body fights back against weight loss.

“It is frightening and amazing,” said Dr. Hall, an expert on metabolism at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. “I am just blown away.”

It has to do with resting metabolism, which determines how many calories a person burns when at rest. When the show began, the contestants, though hugely overweight, had normal metabolisms for their size, meaning they were burning a normal number of calories for people of their weight. When it ended, their metabolisms had slowed radically and their bodies were not burning enough calories to maintain their thinner sizes.

Thoughts? The one thing to remember is that there is a lot of bias in the statistical sample, and these people are not representative of the general population.

This came out ~2 weeks ago

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20...095406.htm

"The interesting and uplifting news in this study is that if you are able to maintain your weight loss for a longer period of time, it seems as if you have 'passed the critical point', and after this point, it will actually become easier for you to maintain your weight loss than is was immediately after the initial weight loss."

"Thus, the body is no longer fighting against you, but actually with you, which is good news for anyone trying to lose weight," concludes Associate Professor Signe Sorensen Torekov."

Science needs to get its act together.
_________________________________________________________

I personally think that Biggest Loser folks do not have good maintenance plans that combat
1) human biology/addiction
2) environment that's horrible for addicts

When you get skinny, the desire for poison is still there.

So you have to be vigilant for the rest of your life.

It's a lot like being in a relationship. In order for the man to have peace of mind, he has to keep doing the things that made him attractive to all women, in order to keep one woman, and to keep his own sanity.

WIA

Post: #8

Barring any sort of genetic defect, Diet & Exercise is all it takes.
99.9% out of the year, I eat Meat, Seafood, Fruit, Vegetables and Nuts.
These are the only foods I eat and I eat them in any quantity I want, I don't count calories.

Seriously, sometimes I will sit and eat 3 or 4 large chicken thighs, giant bowl of pineapples, strawberries, blueberries, cantaloupe, watermelon and a big side of grilled veggies like asparagus, zuchinni, brocolli, etc...
These meals are huge and super filling.

I typically weigh in around 173 lbs @ very low bodyfat %

Recently (Friday) I splurged as I was at a family party and didn't have any other options available + lots of peer pressure.
So I let down my guard and ate pizza & dairy queen blizzard.

I felt physically gross afterwards and the next morning I weighed in @ 176.
My body looked softer and felt bloated.

I immediately went right back on my standard diet.
This morning weighed in @ 172.5 lbs, so just after a couple days of being back on my normal routine, everything is balanced out.

I can't even begin to imagine what my physique would be like if I ate pizza & dairy queen blizzards everyday like a lot of people I know do.

It is pure garbage and will significantly ruin your bodyfat %.

The second biggest problem is they are solely relying on calorie restriction.

I have seen guys eating 2,500 calories a day of mostly carbs, weighing around 185 lbs but with 20% bodyfat.
I have seen guys eating the same amount of calories (2,500) with the same bodyweight (185 lbs) but they eat healthy high fat high protein low carb diets, and they are shredded.

These macronutrients and "type" of foods make a huge difference.

I'm 100% sure in my mind that most of these biggest loser contestants went home and refused to give up the twinkies.

Post: #9

It is definitely true that fat gain/loss is largely under control of hormones and hormonal processes such as:
- insulin and leptin sensitivity
- thyroid output
- adrenal and gonadal hormones
- growth hormone

However, in the case of fat people I feel like cause and effect are being reversed. These people are not fat because they have a fucked up hormonal system, but their hormones are fucked up because they are fat and eat crap.

Yes, it is true that there is a serious natural (genetic) variation in the amount of muscle and fat that people carry and in their tendency to gain either of both.
For instance, there are people who’s natural setpoint seems to be 10% bodyfat and there are people who’s setpoint seems to be 20% bodyfat.

However, there are no people who naturally carry 30+% bodyfat, yet all these fat lards are easily 40-50% bodyfat.

How did they arrive there? By eating crap.

It’s as Scrapper says. You won’t get fat eating meat, seafood, vegetables, fruit, nuts,… no matter how much of it you eat. You might be 10% or 15% bodyfat following a diet like that, depending on your genetics, but you will never turn into a mountain of fat.

However, if you gain fat easily, then indulging in processed food and sugar is a sure way to blow you up and to fuck your hormones.

Calorie restriction and exercise are not the answers to being fat. Implanting the fatties with a chip that gives them an electric shock every time they indulge in processed food would be far more efficient.

Post: #10

(05-02-2016 09:06 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  Yeah doesn't surprise me whatsoever. A few months ago I finished a 3-4 month calorie overloading diet, sometimes pushing up above 4000 calories per day, taking bulking shakes every day etc. Concurrently, compound heavy lifts at least twice a week. After that three months, I was at say 70kg (not exact for anonymity reasons). That was up maybe 4kg from my 'traveling weight' (when my eating goes to shit in a 'not enough' direction). Basically no real gain.

Following that, due to several things that came up, that eating regime dropped out to zero. No bulking shakes, no attempts at eating well, probably floating around 2000 to 2500 calories. After two months, I got back on the scale, expecting to have lost weight. Nope, 70kg, exact same. Zero change in body fat percentage too. My body fights any attempts to change it, tooth and nail.

I'm trying a new regime now where I don't even consider calories. Instead I'm now just heavily overloading protein intake alone, whilst resuming heavy lifting, so I'll see if it responds to that. After 6 months of that, if there is no change, it'll basically be a choice between the nuclear option (steroids), or accepting that bodily self-improvement really isn't possible for some men. I'm the last guy on the planet who wants to believe that, but at some point there isn't any other explanation, and constantly holding yourself personally accountable for the impossible is just draining energy that you could invest elsewhere to better effect.

Phoenix, what is your bone structure like?
The thickness of your bone structure has an enormous impact on the amount of muscle you can carry.
Casey Butt's maximum muscular potential calculator takes this into account.

For instance, my wrists are barely 6 inches in circumference and I have an average shoulder width. A friend of mine has 8.5 inch wrists and really wide shoulders. We are the same height, we eat the same amount of food but he has 20 kgs of lean body mass more than I do, while none of us has been working out for many years.

Post: #11

(05-02-2016 11:37 AM)PhDre Wrote:  It is definitely true that fat gain/loss is largely under control of hormones and hormonal processes such as:
- insulin and leptin sensitivity
- thyroid output
- adrenal and gonadal hormones
- growth hormone

However, in the case of fat people I feel like cause and effect are being reversed. These people are not fat because they have a fucked up hormonal system, but their hormones are fucked up because they are fat and eat crap.

Yes, it is true that there is a serious natural (genetic) variation in the amount of muscle and fat that people carry and in their tendency to gain either of both.
For instance, there are people who’s natural setpoint seems to be 10% bodyfat and there are people who’s setpoint seems to be 20% bodyfat.

However, there are no people who naturally carry 30+% bodyfat, yet all these fat lards are easily 40-50% bodyfat.

How did they arrive there? By eating crap.

It’s as Scrapper says. You won’t get fat eating meat, seafood, vegetables, fruit, nuts,… no matter how much of it you eat. You might be 10% or 15% bodyfat following a diet like that, depending on your genetics, but you will never turn into a mountain of fat.

However, if you gain fat easily, then indulging in processed food and sugar is a sure way to blow you up and to fuck your hormones.

Calorie restriction and exercise are not the answers to being fat. Implanting the fatties with a chip that gives them an electric shock every time they indulge in processed food would be far more efficient.

Great post!

My natural Bodyfat Setpoint is very high, any time I eat non-fruit based carbohydrates my body immediately stores them as bodyfat.
Right now I maintain somewhere between 8% to 10% year round by avoiding bread, rice, sugar, etc...

However in the past, as recently as December 2014, I weighed as much as 259 lbs at 30% bodyfat - while living a bulking/powerlifting lifestyle.

Right now @ 173 lbs, I am carrying about 25 pounds less lean mass now than when I was @ 259 lbs.
However, I am now living a more healthy/bodybuilder lifestyle, and I feel so much better now than I did 2 years ago.

It is night and day the difference in quality of life.

Post: #12

Those contestants lost 100lbs+ in a few months - of course their bodies had massive problems adjusting. If they had lost 100lbs at a more normal/sustainable rate, say over two years, it would have been far less of a shock to the system.

Some of the comments from the contestants in the article were also ridiculous. The guy who's body burns 400kcal less than an average man a day, and he calls it a "death sentence"? No fattie, it just means you have to eat 400kcal less than the average male every day. That's annoying sure, but not particularly hard.

It always amazes me how much sympathy these 300lb+ obese monsters in America get. In the rest of the world they'd be ridiculed as freaks, and rightly so. To let your body get to that state requires YEARS of serious abuse. In addition to the person doing it to themselves, their friends and families also bear a very heavy responsibility for letting them do so without stepping in. Its the equivalent of letting someone you care about take up heroin and saying nothing.

Post: #13

(05-02-2016 08:20 AM)Hades Wrote:  I would be interested to see the "study" repeated for somebody who lifts actual weight.

That six-year drop in metabolism could be explained away as a loss in lean body mass that is never put back on. It would not surprise me a bit if these guys managed to fix their metabolic issues by doing something fairly demanding, like a Squat Every Day routine.

I have done a couple of hours of reading on the subject and all I can really find is that the Biggest Loser candidates do no serious resistance training.

It would be neat to do a study on this but with resistance training thrown into the mix. I don't doubt that this "worse than the holocaust" situation of being once fat and now cursed with burning fewer calories at the same weight could be explained very neatly through the lens of being skinny fat. Metabolic damage is often cited to handwave away the uncomfortable and conflicting thoughts of having done much already to lose fat but being faced with the prospect of doing even more work to develop a good physique.

Post: #14

(05-02-2016 12:10 PM)zatara Wrote:  To let your body get to that state requires YEARS of serious abuse.

Not trying to go white knight here, but once in a while between mocking fat chicks, I do wonder what is so wrong in their lives that they would be ok with doing this to themselves? Some people are just busy and working out and eating right is difficult.

A lot of these SJWs are not busy, other than running their mouths and typing nonsense. What made them say, "fuck it, I won't bother watching my weight" when they were approaching the cliff into "never gonna bother for the rest of my life land?"

Post: #15

A significant portion obese women were sexualy abused:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/co.../e61.short

Quote:RESULTS. Obesity rates were not different across groups in childhood or adolescence. By young adulthood (ages 20–27), abused female subjects were significantly more likely to be obese (42.25%) than were comparison female subjects (28.40%). Hierarchical linear modeling growth-trajectory analyses indicated that abused female subjects, on average, acquired body mass at a significantly steeper rate from childhood through young adulthood than did comparison female subjects after controlling for minority status and parity.

Post: #16

(05-02-2016 01:56 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  Not trying to go white knight here, but once in a while between mocking fat chicks, I do wonder what is so wrong in their lives that they would be ok with doing this to themselves? Some people are just busy and working out and eating right is difficult.

A lot of these SJWs are not busy, other than running their mouths and typing nonsense. What made them say, "fuck it, I won't bother watching my weight" when they were approaching the cliff into "never gonna bother for the rest of my life land?"

Its one thing to put on 20-30lbs of fat over a few years I think. This is obviously still a huge, life changing amount. And would ruin any girl's attractiveness. But I can understand how as people hit their late 30s/40s their metabolism slows down, their diet gets worse, kids happen and their lifestyle suffers, etc so fat gradually begins to accrue. Its still terrible and lazy mind you, but its intellectually understandable at least.

But for someone to put on 100lbs+ of fat literally boggles my mind. The sheer amount of excess calories required for a human body to do that is insane. And then for them at no point in that weight-gain process to go "wait, I need to stop this". Or have their family/friends to say similar... Putting on 30lbs of fat makes you a fat, but normal person - unattractive but still capable of walking places, living a normal life etc. Being 300lbs+ basically makes you a land whale incapable of doing anything remotely physical.

People have always been sexually abused/socially damaged etc, but mega-obesity like this was still almost unheard of historically. I think its largely a result of a combination of 1) easy availability of empty calories (fast food, junk food etc) and, more importantly, 2) growing societal acceptation of fatness in the last 50 years. One of the top rated comments on that NYT article was "Maybe this will put an end to fat shaming". Getting rid of fat shaming would only encourage MORE people to do this to themselves, how on earth is that a positive?!

The world would be a better place in many many ways if obese people were viewed and treated like smokers: people who deliberately make the choice to damage their bodies. Are some people more genetically prone to addiction (or obesity) than others? Sure. But its still a choice they make to smoke that cigarette (or eat that candy bar) at the end of the day. It should be about personal responsibility. Their genes just make their life choices slightly more or slightly less damaging.

Post: #17

These shows promote fat loss by extreme training... and crash diets! That's always a bad recipe. The rebound effect of fat loss is always a Bitch

Post: #18

(05-02-2016 01:56 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  

(05-02-2016 12:10 PM)zatara Wrote:  To let your body get to that state requires YEARS of serious abuse.

Not trying to go white knight here, but once in a while between mocking fat chicks, I do wonder what is so wrong in their lives that they would be ok with doing this to themselves? Some people are just busy and working out and eating right is difficult.

A lot of these SJWs are not busy, other than running their mouths and typing nonsense. What made them say, "fuck it, I won't bother watching my weight" when they were approaching the cliff into "never gonna bother for the rest of my life land?"

A ton of reasons, but the main one has to be an overall design feature of their bodies. Designed to retain water and fat for nursing babies.

Throw in the herd like behavior and emotional lives, you then get lots of emotional eating.

It's way easier for them to get fat, stay fat, and hard for them to lose.

Plus they have a gender culture that is anti physical. A lot of that reinforced by men.

I put most of the blame on grandma and mom though.

WIA

Post: #19

They also aren't making healthy living a lifestyle.

I'll bet anything it was right back to sitting on the couch slamming pizza and cake and getting no exercise for the vast majority of them within weeks of TBL ending.

Keeping fat off has to be a lifestyle change, especially after having been fat before. Once you've been fat and lost fat, the days of eating pizza and cake regularly are over. You will have a lot of broccoli and lean meat in your future if you want to retain an attractive body. This is not even to mention to need to lift and get some form of aerobic exercise regularly, which will also be a thing.

Even the people who create extreme fat loss diets say this.

Post: #20

(05-02-2016 02:05 PM)Ensam Wrote:  A significant portion obese women were sexualy abused:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/co.../e61.short

Quote:RESULTS. Obesity rates were not different across groups in childhood or adolescence. By young adulthood (ages 20–27), abused female subjects were significantly more likely to be obese (42.25%) than were comparison female subjects (28.40%). Hierarchical linear modeling growth-trajectory analyses indicated that abused female subjects, on average, acquired body mass at a significantly steeper rate from childhood through young adulthood than did comparison female subjects after controlling for minority status and parity.

I have heard this before but never saw anything on it so I was hesitant to mention it.

So some of these women were truly sexually abused as opposed to their false rape accusers who tend to (I have a limited data set on this) be thin. Interesting.

Post: #21

The major problem with Biggest Loser is the rapid weight loss that most contest have to go through under stressful conditions. Constant stress and under trainers that have no idea on how human body works are going to produce wrecks of human being after the show is over. This idiot trainers are fighting a person's homeostasis and losing horribly againist it.

The principle of homeostasis is maintain the body internal environment. This is in play for lot obese people, but problem is this process is maladaptive as the body is going to maintain a current state of being a tub of lard. The body has set point to maintain, in terms, metabolism and weight. Body will fight any changes to that set point. Weight loss is must be gradual process in order to change the 'set point' of the body and avoid health complication. Rapid fat loss leads increase cholesterol and triglyceride level in the blood stream leading to either heart attack or acute pancreatitis for example.

Combine the stressful condition of fat loss and lack of no long term planning is going to lead a lot of broken people. Lifestyle changes and proper exercise plan will due wonders in the longterm, which is the issue for many people in weight loss. We want the quick fix. Its longer term process to lose weight and become healthy. Everyone on this subboard are better trainers than the people in charge of the Bigger Loser.

Post: #22

Another reason for obesity that is rarely mentioned is meal frequency. These landwhales are snacking and grazing all day long.

They eat when they’re happy, sad, bored, thirsty…

The advice of “six meals a day” has long been debunked. You need a lot of time between meals for two reasons:

1) For better absorption of nutrients. Your body needs multiple hours to replenish stomach acid, digestive enzymes and bile and to empty your stomach and duodenum.

2) For better nutrient partitioning. Your body also needs time for leptin and insulin levels and the sensitivity to these hormones to reset to baseline levels.

I eat 2-3 big meals a day and I stay lean effortlessly. Very little processed food. No snacking in between meals. And yes, eating an apple or drinking a coke counts as eating as well. A good way to evaluate how healthy your nutrient partitioning is, is to see how long you can go without food. If you're healthy, you should be able to fast for 24 hours without big energy dips or cravings.

I think that many obese people do not consume that much more calories than lean people. However, every fat person I have ever seen did these two things:
- Eating a lot of processed food (including “healthy” light products).
- Eating all the time.

Post: #23

Yeah, "grazing" has been promoted by some nutritionists but it's a bad idea that makes people eat more.

Post: #24

This is a good takedown of the ny times article

https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/b...explained/

The doctor/author is Canadian and uses fasting to treat his morbidly obese patients. I spent a whole day reading that site.

Post: #25

Quote:. . . eating a salad with a diet coke. I think to myself, how can they still be so fat when they are barely consuming 300 calories for lunch. Even if they are snorting Oreos during break time, it is hard for me to believe that those marginal calories add up to such weight gain without some connection to the individual's molecular makeup.

Most commercial American Salads still contain high calorie junk (croutons, Ranch dressing or vinaigrette with canola oil); that ain't their only meal of the day; a "few" (unlikely few) Oreos a day adds up to pounds over time; Diet Coke and other artificial sweeteners still stimulate insulin production due to their effect on the taste buds.