
The Weight Loss Trap - pmcpinto
http://time.com/4793832/the-weight-loss-trap/
======
JoshMnem
The article mentions a probiotic pill. I think that the microbiome is the
place to look for answers, but not with pills, just with better fuel. I
managed to lose 70 pounds (from 215 pounds down to 145) and keep it off so
far. At the moment, I have to make efforts to get _more_ calories now, not
less.

\- I think of food as fuel that goes into a fermentation-based engine. I make
sure to add the right ingredients for proper fermentation.

\- I only eat high-nutrient, whole foods that I mostly cook from scratch. The
staples are vegetables, legumes, fruit, nuts, seeds.

\- No meat or dairy except for fish (salmon, herring, and sardines).

\- I eliminated: refined foods, alcohol, grains (except small amounts of brown
rice and grain-like seeds like buckwheat), sugar, sweeteners, oils (except
small amounts of coconut oil and high quality olive oil).

\- I don't eat nightshade-family vegetables (including potatoes), but I do eat
sweet potatoes (the regular yellow ones and satsuma "yams").

\- I say, "I _don 't_ eat those foods", not "I _can 't_ eat those foods."
(self identity vs. permission) I view junk food as a recreational drug. I
don't eat junk in the same way that I don't smoke cigarettes.

\- If I'm out, and there is nothing on a menu that I can eat, I don't eat, or
I find some fruit or buy nuts and dried fruit at Berkeley Bowl.

\- I restrict calories on some days, similar to the calorie restriction in the
5:2 diet.

\- I eat a lot of fermented foods, often homemade: sauerkraut, pickles, water
kefir, etc.

\- It's sometimes difficult to get enough calories, but I often eat one
avocado per day, plus a few handfuls of nuts.

I've also experimented with 2-5 day water fasting (very difficult) and
alternate day fasting (too difficult for me to continue more than a week).

I don't know if those methods would work for anyone else, but maybe there is
some information there that other people could find useful. (I'm not making
recommendations -- just sharing my experiments. Check with a doctor before
trying any unusual diets.)

The plan is based on thinking about the body as a farm of microorganisms.
Different foods cultivate different microorganism. As far as I can tell,
things like _refined_ carbs and animal products (beyond small amounts) are not
beneficial. It isn't "paleo" though -- I don't think that paleo is a good
idea.

~~~
morgante
You say you eliminated sugar, but fruit has lots of sugar in it.

I actually think there are _lots_ of different diets that can work. Mine is
rather different than yours (keto, with _tons_ of meat and fat) but I've lost
about 60lb on it and never felt better.

~~~
JoshMnem
I mean refined sugar. I don't add sugars or other sweeteners to my food.

The fiber in fruit reduces the effect of the sugar. See this article:
[https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/making-the-case-
fo...](https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/making-the-case-for-eating-
fruit/)

Also, I don't eat huge amounts of sweet fruits. Avocados, cucumbers, and
squash are fruits too.

~~~
morgante
If it works for you, great.

------
cbanek
In the article, they mention that RMR (resting metabolic rate) goes down when
your weight goes down, but they don't really explain why, or how crash diets
affect your RMR. RMR calories are used for basic movement, body heat, keeping
your brain and organs working, etc.

If there's less of you (weight wise), there's less of you to maintain. You
carry less when you walk, etc. Also, different types of body (bone, organ,
muscle, fat) have different requirements. Muscles and organs take a lot of
calories to keep going, and rebuild.

A lot of people when they diet, they lose both fat and muscle. The body will
break down muscles as energy too, as well as your fat. This is usually because
you're eating less than you expend, calorie wise, and you're probably not
strength training.

Lifting weights is a great way to increase your RMR. It takes calories to
build and repair muscles after working out, and those bigger muscles also take
more calories to maintain. It also forces your body to build up something,
preventing the saggy skin you may see on those TV diet shows.

Overall, if you work on building up your muscle, your metabolism will slow
less, or maybe even increase, depending on how much you get into it.

~~~
tbihl
I'd be more specific and say that you can far more easily increase your body's
wastefulness by strengthening your​ legs rather than your arms, because a
given increase in muscle should be smaller percentage-wise. And lunges don't
take any equipment (you've already got resistance, moreso if you're
overweight.)

~~~
_h_o_d_
.. although please folks, take the care (and pay a trainer, preferably) to
teach you the techniques to do it safely so that you don't hurt your knees /
back, which you can much less easily fix.

------
didibus
I didn't see anything in the article that showed that people lost weight
without eating less then they burn. This is still as far as I know the only
way to lose weight. What's stated in the article is that different people seem
to manage to maintain doing so for longer with different strategies. They give
as example people who are motivated enough to work through multiple plans and
stratetegies over many years and continue to do so even when the weight loss
is slow.

It makes me conclude that to sustain weight loss you simply need to be very
motivated, have good discispline and great patience.

It seems they adapted strategies based on people's motivation. The girl who
found logging all her meals too tedious instead adopted a more exercise
strategy, etc. Nothing seems related to identifying which nutrients or foods
are better processed, etc, for each individual.

I'm sure there could be genetic, social, or chemical related causes to
obesity, but I'm not seeing this article say that we identified any of those.
It seems to all be about simply getting your act together and sticking with
it.

I suspect most people who gain back the weight lost do not do so while
maintening the diet they used to lose it. The article makes it sound like so,
but doesn't actually says so.

~~~
danaliv
I think the problem with the "calories in < calories out" idea is that while
it's not necessarily untrue, it's too simplistic to be useful. It's a bit like
saying, well, if you'd just stop putting cocaine up your nose, you wouldn't be
a drug addict anymore.

~~~
jjeaff
And it also ignores the very difficult problem of counting "calories out".
There are so many factors that affect calories out.

~~~
gaius
The ONLY reliable way to count calories out is to wear a mask that measures
carbon dioxide exhaled - this is what you see them doing in labs with a
volunteer on a treadmill or stationary bike hooked up to what looks like
breathing apparatus.

This obviously isn't practical for every day use but the data has been used to
approximate calories out correlated with heart rate if body weight is known -
several sports watches such as Suunto use this approach.

~~~
jjeaff
You also need to collect all sweat, urine, and feces and figure out a way to
exactly measure the undigested calories found in it.

So I would say the mask method is the BEST way, but not necessarily accurate.

------
jedisct1
How I changed my body shape in 7 months: [https://00f.net/2017/03/07/weight-
loss/](https://00f.net/2017/03/07/weight-loss/)

------
chiefalchemist
"Mommy? Why are healthcare cost so high?" "Obviously Virginia, it's Uncle Sam
and the healthcare industrial complex. It has NOTHING to do with our diets,
lifestyle, etc. You have a Good given right to over indulge..."

Per the article: "The vast majority of American adults are overweight; nearly
40% are clinically obese. And doctors now know that excess body fat
dramatically increases the risk of serious health problems, including Type 2
diabetes, heart disease, depression, respiratory problems, major cancers and
even fertility problems. A 2017 study found that obesity now drives more early
preventable deaths in the U.S. than smoking."

~~~
ams6110
> A 2017 study found that obesity now drives more early preventable deaths in
> the U.S. than smoking.

Well, smoking has declined a lot in the past few decades. So it's not
surprising that something else has taken the lead in causing preventable
death.

~~~
paulcole
This is actually true and I have no clue why you were downvoted for it.

>The percentage of U.S. adults who smoke cigarettes declined from 20.9 percent
in 2005 to 16.8 percent in 2014. Cigarette smoking was significantly lower in
2014 (16.8 percent) than in 2013 (17.8 percent)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_tobacco_consum...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prevalence_of_tobacco_consumption)

------
gragas
I like to stick with the first law of thermodynamics. It's worked very well my
entire life.

~~~
starchild3001
Human biology is complex. Reducing it to simple thermodynamics completely
ignores factors like metabolism, psychology and microbiome.

Eating nutrient deficient/extremely tasty sweets (or junk food) has very
different effects than eating nutrient dense/bland red meat or vegetables with
the same calories.

Reductionism is counterproductive in this case. You should re-read the
article. It describes a number of ways where human metabolism responds to
calories and/or body weight in unexpected ways (hence the biology is
'complex').

~~~
Double_a_92
The difference between junkfood and healthy food is the "calorie density". A
big mac is 500kcal, but you are still hungry after eating one.

~~~
beagle3
That's not the whole story.

Do this experiment: drink/eat fat, 38% sweet cream is probably the friendliest
to the uninitiated, but butter, olive oil, coconut oil would also work.

It doesn't get more dense than pure fat (and only about 2.5 as much as 38%fat
sweet cream), and you will NOT be hungry afterwards.

