Firstly, fantastic achievement. I'm curious as to what motivated you enough to put in the effort (I'm assuming it required effort).
Secondly, I wonder if the speed/drastic nature of the weight-loss can be counter-productive. When you think about people don't become over-weight overnight. Perhaps a more gradual pace with some time for settling at various stages of the process...I'm thinking losing weight over a couple of years as opposed to over a couple of months.
Honestly, there were no side effects other than my back problems went away, I stopped snoring, and I felt better. Even with fasting, I just think your body has enough time to catch up when it's just a pound a day or whatnot. (Btw, you know what the world record for fasting is? 382 days. I'm not recommending that, I like food, but, as long as you get enough nutrients not to get something like scurvy and you consult with a doctor the human body is a lot more adaptable than people realize)
And the time is certainly a factor - people have to set up weight loss scenarios that are sustainable over the long term. My weight loss goal was 1-2 lbs a week, so that was aggressive, but I am large enough that I can lose weight on enough calories to not feel deprived. By counting calories and making sure I had enough to enjoy myself it was a relatively easy process, once I got used to the counting and accountability.
I only weighed myself once a week for this reason. Every day can be demoralizing if you have a bloat day, but once a week gives enough to have a pretty regular drop. Whatever behaviour you do can't be considered on a day by day basis, it needs to be considered as a week of good behaviour, and then weeks and then months. You gotta stay consistent every day over the long term to expect results.
We hackers can geek out on the math in the Hacker's Diet[0], which goes into various smoothing algorithms and plotting styles to show the daily weight and smoothed trends.
I worry that daily tracking could be discouraging or introduce maldaptive behaviour - you went up a lbs since yesterday, but that's because your morning poop wasn't as productive as it usually is, and now you feel like you need to go more extreme to make up for it the rest of the day.
What's good is what works. And honestly, drugs work today. The likes of the FDA considers them too risky, but I think they're deciding wrong.
def: A medicine
>drugs work today
....
Seriously though, the problem is that, regardless of cause, we're fat and lazy. Throwing more drugs to take care of diabetes and heart disease is robbing Peter to pay Paul.
I'm watching my boomer parents realize that medicine isn't going to help everything, and they are going to have to be accountable for their help. They've gotten much more physically active and lost weight because they are seeing that my grandfather's heart medication may be stopping the heart attacks but it isn't stopping his diabetes or inability to climb the stairs, and the gamut of surgeries are just making him more and more crippled. A pill won't solve our problems. It may solve the current health crises, but it won't stop the next one. Losing weight, eating better, and being active will solve the whole set of problems.
You're adopting a moralizing stance here, one that says that gain without pain is illegitimate. This approach has broad appeal, but it just doesn't work. For decades people have been making the same argument you're making, and it hasn't worked. It's time we try something else.
No, I'm saying that a pill won't solve the root problem. You make people skinny with a pill, you just end up with unhealthy, malnourished skinny people who insulin is all out of wack and who will still get heart attacks.
> For decades people have been making the same argument you're making, and it hasn't worked. It's time we try something else.
Are you suggesting that "throw a pill at it" hasn't been a solution for decades? We've had this belief that medical science can cure us of all our ills, and I think we are no realizing we can't. I've seen family members become shells of themselves after surgery after surgery causes them to lose as much as they got back. Pills always have trade offs, surgery always leaves scars. Maybe one day that'll be the case where a pill will solve all our problems, but it's not today.
...
Case reports have shown that an acute administration of 20–50 mg per kilogram of body weight in humans can be lethal. The lowest published fatal ingested dose is 4.3 mg/kg. Concerns about dangerous side-effects and rapidly developing cataracts resulted in DNP being discontinued in the United States by the end of 1938. DNP, however, continues to be used by some bodybuilders and athletes to rapidly lose body fat. Fatal overdoses include cases of accidental exposure, suicide, and excessive intentional exposure (overdose). The substance's use as a dieting aid has also led to a number of accidental fatalities."[1]
I would argue that's an entirely unsafe medication. That's not a drug that's short of perfection, it seems to be the sort of medication that will solve the obesity crises by actively killing people instead.
Put another way, after 5 years, the average weight loss was ~3kg, with an average weight gain of 78.6% of the original lost weight.
Also, in general, an obese person who is obese before, and after 5 years has a weight that is ~3kg is likely still obese.
So this study basically just says that an average person isn't successful at keeping a large amount of weight, and gains most of it back. The specific statistics stated by the commenter above may not be correct, but the sentiment is definitely true.
That said, the study does confirm that very low energy diets (~800 meal replacement) beat out hypoenergetic balanced diet (~1200-1500 normal food) in long term weight maintence. Which is what the article is suggesting being implemented. So it's still not a great long term solution, but it's the better of the two non-exercise based solutions which this study evaluated.
> The statistics for dieters who lose weight rapidly, according to Wellsphere, a website sponsored by Stanford University, is worse. Only 5 percent of people who lose weight on a crash diet will keep the weight off. Crash diets include any unhealthy diet, from severe calorie-restriction diets to diets that consist of only a few kinds of foods.
Another study showing 5% looks like it was an old study from 1959.
Anyway, there are more modern studies proving the point. And that people gain even more weight back than they started with.
http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/Dieting-Does-Not-Work-UCLA...
>Several studies indicate that dieting is actually a consistent predictor of future weight gain,” said Janet Tomiyama, a UCLA graduate student of psychology and co-author of the study. One study found that both men and women who participated in formal weight-loss programs gained significantly more weight over a two-year period than those who had not participated in a weight-loss program, she said.
>Another study, which examined a variety of lifestyle factors and their relationship to changes in weight in more than 19,000 healthy older men over a four-year period, found that “one of the best predictors of weight gain over the four years was having lost weight on a diet at some point during the years before the study started,” Tomiyama said. In several studies, people in control groups who did not diet were not that much worse off — and in many cases were better off — than those who did diet, she said.
In other words, this specific diet (severely limited calories as well as restriction of food to almost completely liquids) reportedly helps sustaining the weight loss long-term (and is allegedly effective for around 50% of patients).
I've kept the weight off for another year.
I still eat healthy and in moderation (and occasionally fast).
I avoid sugars and high-carb foods and my body has been hovering at the same weight.
Maybe, for some people, it's harder to keep the weight off (assuming diet is the same)? Or, maybe some people don't have the mental will-power to stay on the diet that lost them the weight?
How is it not a given that you need to do this? Your lifestyle and eating habits got you to that overweight state in the first place. Of course you will return to that state eventually if you don't permanently change them.
Are there any studies in this area I can read that discuss the figures you've mentioned?
> Are there any studies in this area I can read that discuss the figures you've mentioned?
One example may be found in Dr. Jason Fung's book, "The Complete Guide to Fasting." Chapter 5 describes a case regarding the American TV show, "Biggest Loser", where overweight contestants lost loads of weight during the show with a low calorie diets and exercise. All except one contestant gain the weight back.
Below is the reference to the study cited in Fung's book. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/oby.21538
I eat low carb, and fast intermittently. It's my life-style now.
After eating a while for an extended period of time, my blood sugar is much more stable, regardless what I eat.
After this, I just ate as I felt like, with intermittent periods of damage control, where I'd revert to the diet for a few days here and there to either budget an upcoming event (e.g. Christmas), or pay for a recent one.
Works for me. Only note is to watch out with sugar & alcohol, as both can turn on the 'fuck it I WANT THIS NOW' mode, at least for me.
The mechanism = not staying on your "diet" permanently.
Furthermore, it is a social problem, in that we as a society allow businesses to exploit peoples weaknesses without covering the social costs of the problems they are causing, and given that how people around you act strongly influence how able people are to stick to a diet.
To then act as if this is down to some imaginary free will is irresponsible.
Your body will try all the tricks in the book, it will reduce your metabolism to way below that of the person of the same weight, it will amp up your hunger hormones so much that you will think and dream about food 24/7.
Only 5 to 7% of people that lose a large amount weight are able to keep it off successfully in the medium and long term. Hope there is more research into this mechanism.