Obesity<\/em> followed contestants for 6 years after the show ended. What they discovered was frightening.<\/p>\nThe majority of contestants gained their weight back. <\/em><\/p>\nWhile many of you might not be surprised by their weight gain, the reasons for it are not as simple as you may have thought. You probably think the contestants regressed because of:<\/p>\n
\n- A general lack of willpower.<\/li>\n
- Their return to old habits.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
While they’re both true, they aren’t the whole reason.<\/p>\n
Researchers of the 6-year study didn\u2019t just observe the contestants, they also measured their basal metabolic rates at the start and throughout the study. What they found is that, as the contestants lost weight, their bodies slowed their own metabolism down so that they were burning less<\/em> calories, thus making it harder for them to keep the weight off or lose more weight. One contestant had dropped down to eating 800 calories a day, but was still slowly regaining weight! I cannot think of a more depressing situation than starving yourself, and then seeing your weight creep up anyway. What else could you do?<\/p>\nBut let\u2019s think about this for a moment. Why did this happen? Why did their metabolic rates slow down? <\/strong><\/h2>\nThere\u2019s a two-part answer to this.<\/p>\n
Answer 1: It had to.<\/strong><\/p>\nWith less mass on the contestants\u2019 bodies, they required less energy to do routine actives like walking. A simple way to look at this (physicists, please forgive this oversimplification) is work, where work (energy expended) equals mass x distance. As mass decreases (weight is lost) work reduces, less calories are needed, and less are burned.<\/p>\n
Answer 2: Homeostasis.<\/strong><\/p>\nIt seems that beyond the idea of answer 1 above, the body tries to conserve energy. There are many ways to look at this, but first, look at it as a survival mechanism. Maybe the body thinks it\u2019s starving so it slows everything down, just in case it can\u2019t find food. Maybe it\u2019s just becoming more efficient, similar to how doing the same workout day after day leads to a plateau in weight loss, performance and muscle growth.<\/p>\n
The other idea, which I think is the likeliest, is the idea of homeostasis<\/em>. The body is used to being a certain weight so it naturally wants to stay close to that weight. How many of us have lost the same frustrating 20 pounds, over and over again? Our body seems to want to rebound to the same weight! Why is this? The body \u201clikes\u201d a certain comfortable \u201cset point,\u201d just like how we always tune our A\/Cs or heaters to a specific temperature in our homes and cars.<\/p>\nThis means that as we lose weight, our bodies will fight against us! But instead of being disheartened by this, what can we do<\/em> to succeed in our individual health journeys?<\/p>\nHow to succeed in sustaining your improved health<\/strong><\/h2>\nFirst off, luckily most of us are not super-obese like the contestants in the The Biggest Loser so it likely won\u2019t be as difficult for us as it was for them. Here are some points to consider on your journey:<\/p>\n
\n- It\u2019s not just about willpower<\/strong>. As you get healthier, it grows to make progress. Your body is adapting to the new changes, so you will have to adapt as well.<\/li>\n
- Exercise is critically important. <\/strong>The researchers didn\u2019t focus on the theme of exercise in the study because it wasn\u2019t their main point, but a major change besides the drop in basal metabolic rate was the change in exercise<\/em>. During the show, contestants had a personal trainer and worked out for an impractical 6-8 hours a day. When they left the ranch at the end of the show, they had to return to their real lives. \u201cReal life\u201d typically involves a combination of jobs, kids, errands, etc. that does not allow for the same 6-8 hours of exercise. Remember exercise burns calories and increases your metabolic rate not just while you are exercising, but beyond.<\/li>\n
- You should expect, plan for, and not get depressed as your progress slows down or plateaus. <\/strong>What this means is that you need to change your program if you want to continue to progress. <\/em>Everyone can eat better, exercise more, sit less, sleep more (yes, sleep helps you lose weight) to fight back against your body\u2019s desire not to change.<\/li>\n
- Finally, and this is probably the most important point, if homeostasis is so important and hard to fight against, then it\u2019s critical to set your body\u2019s \u201csweet spot\u201d or \u201cnormal\u201d body weight as early as possible. <\/strong>What I\u2019m referring to is our children. Childhood obesity is a tremendous problem. Yes, we need to improve our own health, but also help our kids, families, friends, co-workers become as healthy as possible as early on as possible so that they don\u2019t have to fight discouraging battles when they get older. You may feel bad saying \u201cno\u201d when your kids ask for ice cream, but if you really love your children, rest assured that your \u201cno\u201d is helping them avoid a lifetime of chronic illnesses and the chronic \u201cbattle of the bulge\u201d that many of us currently face.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Let\u2019s be real. Most reality TV shows are nothing close to reality and they demonstrate characteristics that we wouldn\u2019t want to teach our kids. But, is there anything we can learn from them? A recent study published in the journal Obesity followed contestants for 6 years after the show ended. What they discovered was frightening. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":21429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[195,218,74],"thb-sponsors":[],"yst_prominent_words":[959,930,924,986,690,954,967,940,779,963,810,993,933,979,949,936,927,972,765,886],"class_list":["post-6786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fitness","category-lifestyle","tag-exercise","tag-healthy-habits","tag-weight-loss","post_format-post-format-image"],"acf":[],"views":3016,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6786"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6786\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21431,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6786\/revisions\/21431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6786"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=6786"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}