The NIH conducted a two-year study and found a simple truth: If you reduce your caloric intake, you’ll lose weight.
This always seemed like common sense to me so it’s been something I’ve been doing for about a month now. I only really eat breakfast and lunch. I’ve long known that Americans typically eat their meals unwisely, like saving the largest for last, and so I’ve changed that in my life. Lunch is my large meal and while I may get hungry in the evening, it’s something anyone with even a modicum of will power can ignore.
While the study was geared toward looking at diet, and didn’t want to do anything to skew the results, participants in the study still performed 90-minutes of moderate exercise a week.
Again, something that is common sense. Say what you will about metabolism or genetics or whatever else, the human body is designed to burn calories for fuel. If you eat too much, not taking into account your inactivity, you’ll never lose weight. Where else are those calories you’re not using going to go?
So, it’s very simple: Reduce your caloric intake and stress your body physically from time to time and you’ll lose more weight than simple diet alone.
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i’m not an expert in this, and of course probably the golden rule of weight loss is that if it’s working for you keep doing it, but you might consider rethinking the entire idea of eating a big meal at all. from my meager understanding, a caloric load like a big meal will tend to cause your body to try and store the excess energy as fat. if, instead, you eat several times a day, but eat just a little bit at each sitting, you’ll tend to keep the body churning along without ever storing any of the energy you’ve taken in, thereby freeing it to burn energy you’ve already stored (i.e. the weight you want to lose).
Yup, that’s exaclty right, Zach. Any time you fast, like skipping dinner, your metabolism slows down, too.
Also, Kevin, I’m not sure the direct “poke Dean with a stick” tone is really necessary. Just like Dean isn’t always right about your premise NOT working, the fact is there are people destined to be heavy. That those people can’t lose weight as you suggest does not mean they are “lying to themselves”
zach –
A recent study actually showed that several small meals a day doesn’t make an overall difference, though I’d want to see the methodology (I’d only read the news summary, which is often wrong).
I’ve done a decent amount of reading on metabolism, and I suspect it’s a balance of opposing factors: smaller meals more often regulates calories and achieves a sort of equilibrium between calorie usage and intake, but, for example, eating a large meal and then starving yourself for 12 hours or so kicks into gear a host of lipolytic (fat-burning/using) signals (growth hormone, glucagon, etc) that compensate for the large meal you ate earlier.
It’s more complex than saying that total calorie intake vs. expenditure is the simple formula that determines one’s weight; no offense to Kevin D’s premise, but everything from viruses, to the survival mechanisms of fat cells which get exponentially stronger as fat accumulates, to the way different types of calories (lipids, proteins, carbs) are metabolized in the body can affect that equation.
But from the standpoint of how a person with a roughly average metabolism becomes overweight, yes, calories in vs. calories expended is a rough guide, and the number of meals times the size of the meals eaten cold be an equation with a constant as an answer, where those two inputs are inversely related, I suspect. (Think speed of light = wavelength x frequency, for the physics buffs)
deadrody:
Any time you fast, like skipping dinner, your metabolism slows down, too.
Actually, when you fast, certain aspects of your metabolism speed up, stressing aspects of your cellular work like a form of exercise and kicking into gear hormones that utilize fat stores. Longer term fasting will slow down metabolism in the ” lethargic” sense. Short-mid-term physiological reactions are an evolutionary byproduct that will enhance your will and ability to find food.
Dead,
You’re probably right, it’s just Dean’s tone toward people that feel about weight loss as I do, has been openly hostile and insulting. He’s called people like us liars and worse and goads us into proving something that has been time and again. So, yeah, maybe this is a little comeuppance.
Zach is right about the several little meals across the day. That is the ideal method.
As for the fast bit; fasting is good for you. Also, the way I’m doing it, my body will adjust. It adjusts when you take in garbage, it adjusts when you don’t, it’ll adjust to this. Honestly, I don’t get all that hungry a night any more. I’m hungry for breakfast, genuinely hungry for lunch, and then dinner I can easily do without.
So, now, I actually eat the meals I want to eat when I want to eat them and my body is going along with it. Also, because I don’t have a big meal in the evening, calories aren’t being wasted. All the calories I take in are actually used throughout the day – when they should be.
Besides, I’m not REALLY fasting. I’m taking in the calories I’m supposed to be taking. I’m just cutting out the massive influx of calories I don’t use at night.
Now, for actual fasting, the longest I’ve gone is 5 day with only water. Talk about feeling weird. However, that was a religious thing. The Bible talks a lot about fasting and prayer…
This gave me a chuckle.
As I have stated countless times, if you’re overweight then eating less and exercising more is a good idea. So long as it’s done carefully and responsibly, anyway. You can lose some weight this way, plus it has many other health and psychological benefits. The exercise is probably the most beneficial, but cutting caloric intake is also usually good so long as you do it carefully and without unrealistic expectations.
Eat better and exercise more: it’s good for you!
What eating less and exercising more will never do, however, is allow chronically obese individuals to become slender and stay that way. To date, not one study in all of history has ever shown otherwise. If you’re fat and have been for a while (i.e. you didn’t just suddenly balloon up due to unusual life circumstances), you will still be fat long-term no matter what diet and exercise regimen you adopt.
Indeed, here is the typical pattern: You embark upon a new, sensible diet and exercise program. Possibly with the benefit of a physical trainer and a dietitian and even an M.D., plus support groups of others struggling with weight issues. You do everything they tell you to do. You lose some weight. You stick to the program. Long-term, you gain some of the weight back (it’s called “rebound”) and long-term you’re still obese. (Oprah Winfrey, call your office.)
Long-term, the rate of success for fat people becoming not-fat and staying not-fat is maybe 1%. It’s about as common as people who go into spontaneous remission of cancer.
I feel like I’m wasting my time to repeat all this. Because I’ve said it all so many times before, only to be misquoted or ignored. Still, I’ll say it again: in all of history, not one scientific study has shown that eating less and exercising more will cure obesity long-term in the vast majority of cases.
But hey, if you guys want to keep barking at me about how you recently lost some weight by eating less and exercising more, go right ahead. At this point I’m used to it.
I’m thinking it’s about time to rename this blog to “Dean’s Diet World.”
Meh. I think it’s more like “ignore what Dean said when arguing with him” World.
It really is quite tiresome to have people ignore what I actually say and instead accuse me of saying things I never said and that I don’t believe.
Yes, people, exercise is good for you. Yes people, watching what you eat is good for you. Yes, people, both of those things will help you to lose some weight.
I now await the next person to come along and say “see, I just lost some weight by diet and exercise, Dean’s wrong wrong wrong!” Counting down in 5, 4, 3, 2….
Dean:
I’m pretty sure you aren’t the only one here who’s arguments are routinely misrepresented and usually attacked through straw men…
But at least they don’t call you a jerk. Do they?
Kevin D -
Zach is right about the several little meals across the day. That is the ideal method.
What do you base this assertion on?
It adjusts when you take in garbage, it adjusts when you don’t, it’ll adjust to this.
I’m not sure what you mean. The body tends to adjust to a lot of things, but imperfectly. This imperfection is often the gap between being overweight and being skinny, developing cancer and not getting cancer, long-term heart disease and none, etc.
Also, because I don’t have a big meal in the evening, calories aren’t being wasted. All the calories I take in are actually used throughout the day – when they should be.
“When they should be…” Again, why? Yes, it is generally better to eat less at night if one is interested in weight loss, but eating protein at night is an excellent way to boost net protein synthesis and muscle recovery, for example.
Just as Dean may get a little aggressive on calling out folks who are too simplistic about weight loss, because he might think they characterize obesity as necessarily a moral failing, I understand that it can be a little grating to hear personal experience of metabolism served up as universal fact.
Caloric intake – calories burned is the basic equation, but differences in how different people utilize the same amount of calories taken in makes the graph of weight loss as a function of diet + exercise non-linear – even when considering the rate of weight loss in one person at different stages of their weight loss.
Even though I am quite certain I am wasting my time here, because neither Kevin nor anyone else will actually read what I have to say and think about it, here in plain black and white is support from the NIH study he linked that backs up what I’ve said:
• In six months, the dieters lost an average of 13 pounds no matter which diet they were on.
• After two years, they had kept off an average of 9 pounds and lost 1 to 3 inches in the waist, regardless of which diet they were on.
So. Participants in the study lost a small amount of weight, and typically rebounded and gained some of it back.
If Kevin would be happy to lose 13 pounds and gain 4 of them back, and would consider that a big success for himself after two years of solid effort, then that’s great. In the meantime, he might want to look for a study that shows OBESE PEOPLE BECOMING NON-OBESE AND STAYING NON-OBESE LONG TERM.
People who need to lose 10-20 pounds are not obese, just so you know.
Dean, I think some of the confusion in this debate is how people view “success” in these studies, or in personal anecdote.
For example, I’ve recounted here a couple of times how I have twice changed my eating habits and as a result fairly easily lost 15 – 20 lbs and kept it off for extended periods of time (meaning six months at least).
So, is that a “success?”
I guess it depends on what you mean by “success.” I think it’s a “success.” I have direct experience with losing weight if I do some very simple things. Here they are:
1. Stop eating fast food.
2. Stop eating junk between meals.
3. Eat fruits and vegetables as snacks instead of twinkies and ice cream.
4. Walk at least 30 minutes every day.
If I do that, I lose 15 pounds within about a month, and keep it off as long as I maintain those habits. Which I’ve been able to do for months. This “works”. There is no doubt. It’s repeatable, I’ve done it twice. I am absolutely sure that it will work again if I do it again.
But the problem is, I DON’T stick to it. And when I stop, and go back to grabbing a McDonalds meal a couple times a week, and spending $10 a week on vending machine junk food, and goofing off over lunch instead of taking a walk.. Well, then I go back to a fairly consistent weight of around 200 lbs.
So to me the real question isn’t “Can I reliably lose the weight” because I can. It’s not “Can I reliably keep the weight off?” because I can. So long as I stick to that lifestyle.
So the real question is “Why don’t I stick to that lifestyle?”
And in that sense, I suppose you can’t call my experience a “success” in the long term.
So what is the root cause of my “failure” to keep my weight off? Do I blame my metabolism, my genetics, my socio-economic strata, my job stress? Or do I just say “I simply don’t have the will power to stick to a daily regimen that offers me a lower weight and a more fit body, but at the cost of the immediate gratification of my more typical routine?”
I guess my honest evaluation of that is an unflattering one. Apparently it’s more important to me to have that instant gratification than it is to exercise that will power. I would like to put the blame on something else, but my (ample) gut tells me that I’m just not willing to put the long-term effort into eating celery and carrots instead of ho-hos and mint-chip ice cream.
It is not common for obese or severely obese people to be able to diet themselves down to a normal weight and stay there long term. Dean’s right.
There will always be exceptions but unfortunately for the vast amount of obese people, it is NOT the rule. If it were that simple, we wouldn’t have an epidemic of morbidly obese people.
So far, the only way someone morbidly obese can hope to get to a healthy weight or at least not be morbidly obese any longer is surgery. Even people who have bariatric surgery have weight rebounds, not always drastic but they always gain some back.
Bill:
Just as Dean may get a little aggressive on calling out folks who are too simplistic about weight loss, because he might think they characterize obesity as necessarily a moral failing, I understand that it can be a little grating to hear personal experience of metabolism served up as universal fact.
Bill, I’ve almost never talked about my personal experience of metabolism. I don’t find my personal experience to be all that relevant to the discussion. Almost all I’ve talked about is what the clinical data and scientific studies have consistently shown.
Caloric intake – calories burned is the basic equation, but differences in how different people utilize the same amount of calories taken in makes the graph of weight loss as a function of diet + exercise non-linear – even when considering the rate of weight loss in one person at different stages of their weight loss.
This is of course correct.
But when you’re talking about a profound medical condition like obesity, particularly morbid obesity, thermodynamics matter but they really don’t describe the basic problem. If you lose control of your car and it slams into a brick wall, it might technically be correct to say that you were burning gasoline too quickly. But it would be an odd way to describe what happened. (“I don’t know exactly what happened, officer, but I’m pretty sure I was burning too much gas!”)
If your metabolism becomes such that your fat cells readily absorb energy easily, but do not readily release it, you’re going to get fat unless you are chronically undernourished.
There is an overwhelming body of scientific evidence that points to the theory that chronically obese individuals have a problem: their fat cells store energy easily, but will not release energy readily. Worse, there’s overwhelming evidence that if they go on a diet (any diet) but don’t stick to it for life, they’ll hurt themselves worse than if they’d never dieted at all.
There’s also substantial evidence that their involuntary hunger mechanisms don’t work right either.
Behavior modification can help. Sensible diet and exercise plans can help. But, over time, almost all chronically obese individuals will remain obese. Exceptions are rare–so rare, in fact, that it often makes national news when it happens.
Look carefully at any study of the long-term effects of diet and exercise among the obese. You’ll find that, with the exception of individuals who only recently became obese due to a major but temporary lifestyle change, the overwhelmingly consistent pattern with the obese is that they take some weight off, then rebound, and in any case remain obese over the long haul. Being more disciplined, consistently watching what you eat, and consistently exercising will help most obese people, but it won’t make them slender long-term.
Cosmic: See Scarlett’s comment, which is bullseye accurate.
I do have a problem with getting impatient. I’ll try to do better. But your comment about how you readily and repeatably are able to lose 15-20 pounds is simply not relevant to anything I’ve said. Indeed, I have stated repeatedly that people who need to lose 10-20 pounds are simply not relevant.
If you need to lose 20 pounds, you aren’t obese. We simply aren’t talking about you.
We are talking about people who need to lose 50, 100, even 200 pounds or more. You know, the OBESE PEOPLE, of which you are not one.
Honestly, how many times do I have to say that you can lose a moderate amount of weight and improve your health with better diet and exercise habits, before you’ll believe that I’ve said so? This is making my eyes cross and my head hurt.
1) You can lose a moderate amount of weight by better eating and exercise habits.
2) You can lose a moderate amount of weight by better eating and exercise habits.
3) You can lose a moderate amount of weight by better eating and exercise habits.
4) You can lose a moderate amount of weight by better eating and exercise habits.
5) You can lose a moderate amount of weight by better eating and exercise habits.
This is making me batty. Will saying it 10 or 20 times more be helpful? Sorry, I know I’m getting impatient again, but argh!
Dean’s wrong! Here’s a study that shows you can lose 10 pounds or so by eating less and exercising more.
When will Dean wake up and admit that you can lose 10-20 pounds by diet and exercise? What is he, nuts? Why does he say you can’t lose 10-20 pounds by better eating and exercise habits?
Dean, wake up! You can lose 10-20 pounds by diet and exercise! This study proves it! Why do you deny it?
AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!
BonkBonkBonk! < —head against wall
Dean, Scarlett and Thomas…
I think you all missed my point. My point was that being able to take 20 pounds off was not any evidence whatsoever that diet “cured” weight problems. It hasn’t “cured” mine, even when it WORKS.
I do think that is relevent to the overall question about obesity. There is something going on that diet and exercise alone cannot address. That much seems obvious to me. Is the situation of the morbidly obese qualitatively or quantitatively different than my situation? I’m not sure we know.
Dean -
Bill, I’ve almost never talked about my personal experience of metabolism. I don’t find my personal experience to be all that relevant to the discussion.
I realize my sentence structure may be unclear: I was referring to Kevin D’s comments above when i referenced personal experience. I was saying that while I can see how your commentary on the matter can come off as aggressive, Kevin’s comments relating his personal experience as universal guide are also flawed.
As far as the rest of your comment, I agree with it. I’ve studied this stuff reasonably well, and the survival mechanisms of fat cells (them dividing but not dying, the accumulated release of leptin which drives appetite, the abdominal fat suppression of liplytic hormones) are so powerful that the work for the obese to become non-obese and stay that way is an exponential curve compared to someone who never becomes obese in the first place.
I believe Kevin is talking about losing weight for the general public and so is Cosmic Conservative. When people get over fifty pounds they probably need to go to a specialized clinic for help. I believe these specialized clinics help the truly obese.
I am over weight once again. With me it is and has been a sedentary lifestyle due to rheumatoid arthritis and fibro for ten years and giving up a healthy walk or swim each day. I to must admit I did wrong by living so sedentary. I should have known better because exercise in moderation helps pain.
Anyway, I am in a support group right now called, TOPS…taking off pounds sensibility. To me it has always helped me to be with other men and women who need to lose weight and help one another out. It is a christian weight loss program. Once I get down to my goal weight like Arnold Harris did the name I am aiming for is, KOPS. That is, keeping off pounds sensibly.
Kevin, you may want to eat some fruit in the evening and possibly consider a program like I am in. Heh, there are even 12 step programs for weight loss. I have had such a good time in TOPS. The men and women there are just like me with pretty much the same stories as I read above in this thread. We are to exercise about 30 minuets each day of any kind we like. If that does not work out then we are told to aim for three to four times per week.
(I am so very excited because the later part of next week I am going to order my new laptop computer with Windows Vista and I will try to opine in these threads. It’s so good to be a part of da world
So here’s my point… I still believe Zach is exactly right, the more frequent, small meals approach is the best. Why ?
I’m an engineer – a good one – I understand how “systems” work and the human body is just such a system. Your metabolism, regardless of whether it is fast or slow, does not adjust on a dime. When you binge and then fast, your metabolism does adjust, but the response is delayed. While psychologically you can probably adjust to any eating schedule, which probably explains Kevin’s situation, when you fast, your metabolism slows down and when you eat a large meal it speeds up. The effects of both, however last longer than your mealtime. So after “fasting” – and I use that term liberally, I don’t mean fasting in the traditional sense, think “skipping a meal” – when you do eat a big meal, your body just can’t process that much with a reduced metabolism and your body converts that into fat. When your metabolism does speed up after you have a large meal, before long that faster metabolism will make you hungry, and those urges can be hard to fight.
Regulating your intake on a tight schedule also regulates your metabolism and you will often eat only what your body needs, you won’t have urges to snack, and your metabolism will often adjust to your intake.
When your intake and metabolism are oscillating, the effects of the exact same quantitative intake can cause your body to store fat that it won’t store on a regulated intake schedule.
deadrody -
I’ll speak in terms of systems, then:
You’ve just built a theoretical model for (a portion of) the bioenergetics of the human body. It’s interesting and well-considered, but your inputs are … theoretical. For example, if the body excretes a certain surplus of calories ingested in a sitting because of threshold, it would change the assumptions of the model, and binging the same amount of calories as eating them in small meals spread out could theoretically store less of them as fat, as one example.
Similarly, you would also ideally need to know the weights of the acceleration of fat burning hormones via fasting for long periods vs. the gradual energy intake balancing energy output. I doubt you have these weights, as no one has really come up with an accurate equation that summarizes human metabolism across a broad spectrum of humanity. (and sure, I’m familiar with equations for the use of glucose and generation of ATP, etc)
Part of this is because the nitty-grtty of metabolism is studied in a reductionist manner, part of it is because it’s hopelessly complex, and part of it is because there is tremendous variation between individuals.
As it is, in some studies, small meals more often did no better than the same amount of calories condensed in fewer meals:
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4561033a19716.html
Bottom line: you can still believe that zach is exactly right, but you’ll need to do better than faith and a theoretical model to prove it. Statements like:
“When your intake and metabolism are oscillating, the effects of the exact same quantitative intake can cause your body to store fat that it won’t store on a regulated intake schedule.”
Are not relevant without any numbers or supporting evidence. I can claim that I know the acceleration of lipolytic hormones burns fat at an exponential factor compared to the spread out intake of a few meals, bu t it doesn’t make it correct.
OK, so now I break my usual pattern, and talk about my personal experience. I almost never do this, because I don’t think Dean’s Anecdotes amount to Scientific Data. But what the hell, let’s go for it:
Kevin D. is one of the best friends I’ve ever had, and I would take a bullet for him. Seriously. And, we both have chronic weight problems. Mine is a little better than his, but only because I bit the bullet some years ago and had a gastric bypass. I only had the gastric bypass after ten years of hunger and frustration and endless exercise and still couldn’t take more than a fraction of the weight off.
For almost ten years, I spent every fracking day thinking about how much food I was taking in, monitoring it razor-close. I also spent every fracking day (with only an occasional day off) finding ways to exercise; at my peak, I was doing about 1.5 hours of strenuous exercise every damned day. Some days, 3-4 hours.
I was able to lose some weight. But no matter how damned hard I worked, no matter how sick and tired I made myself, my body damn well would not let me get below about 220 pounds. Which, at 5’10″, is still obese. It became my singular daily obsession to at least get to 219 pounds. I never got there no matter what the hell I did.
I consulted doctors. I worked with dietitians. I made going to the gym a daily habit. I watched every calorie I took in as if life itself depended on it. I read every diet book. I even drew my poor ex-wife in on it all.
And in the end, no matter what the frack I did, I was still fat.
Ten years. Ten years of being pretty much hungry all the time and pretty much working out like a bandit every Goddamned day. Practicing martial arts and watching every damned thing that went into my mouth. It was an obsession, and on a daily basis I often thought of little else.
And I was still fracking obese.
At some point I lost patience. I especially lost patience with this old canard: “Oh Dean, you just aren’t trying hard enough, you just aren’t working hard enough, you’re just not doing it right.”
One day I shut down completely. I was being mean to my wife, I was being mean to myself, and nothing was fracking working. I was still fracking fat.
I gave up. I got some exercise when I wanted to, I tried to avoid sweets and high-calorie snacks, but I otherwise stopped paying attention to my weight. And within 1-2 years I gained about a hundred and twenty pounds. Not because I was trying to eat more. Not because I gave up all physical activity. But just because I didn’t care anymore.
A hundred+ pounds. In just a year or two. I ballooned up to over 360 pounds.
I would ask my friend Cosmic Conservative if he thinks that if he just completely gave up any pretense of fighting his weight, he’d gain 120 pounds in a year or two. I’m guessing he’d say “no, probably not.”
Because I emphasize that I was not TRYING to get fat. I just stopped trying to be not-fat.
I suspect that if my friend Cosmic wanted to, he’d have to make a major effort to gain 120 pounds. He’d have to be shoving chocolate bars and Big Macs into his mouth several times a day and using Sedan Chairs instead of walking around in his daily affairs.
There’s something clinically and scientifically WRONG going on with the chronically obese. You can’t cure it by saying “hey, be a little more disciplined and get some activity.”
There is something metabolically WRONG in most obese people. And it’s genuinely abusive to tell them they just lack discipline.
Most actual scientific data seems to support this hypothesis to me. Can you cite me even one example of a system that clearly shows that a majority of obese people who follow it take off and keep off enough weight to be considered non-obese? I’m still waiting for an example.
It doesn’t appear to me that the study was constructed to demonstrate what the article claims. If so, it would compare diets with the same number of calories and different compositions rather than diets with widely differing calorie counts.
Actually, all the study seems to do (based on what I read) is demonstrate that if you try to take off a few pounds, you can, and if you stick with it you’ll do OK if that’s your goal.
Still, let’s be very clear: the study shows that you can keep off about 9 pounds long-term. So I just have to ask my brother Kevin this simple question:
Do you think taking off about 9 pounds with two years of effort is actually what you’re looking for?
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