
A Lesson from the Biggest Losers: Exercise Keeps Off the Weight - dodders
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/health/biggest-losers-weight-loss.html
======
dvfjsdhgfv
From
[https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/dec/12/studies...](https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/dec/12/studies-
health-nutrition-sugar-coca-cola-marion-nestle)

"One of the most high profile examples of corporate meddling was the
revelation last year that Coca-Cola had paid scientists to push the message
that exercise was a more effective weight loss tool than cutting down on food
and drink. The beverage giant went so far as to create a nonprofit called the
Global Energy Balance Network to push the message that Americans spend too
much time focusing on cutting calories, and not enough time exercising.
Following an investigation by the New York Times, the nonprofit announced it
was disbanding."

~~~
justboxing
> push the message that exercise was a more effective weight loss tool than
> cutting down on food and drink

This and the other message that fat, and not sugar is responsible for
obesity[1].

[1] Source: [http://sugarcoateddoc.com](http://sugarcoateddoc.com)

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huac
There was a thread a few days ago
([https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15527849](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15527849))
about how much more important diet is than exercise to maintaining weight.

~~~
valuearb
For the last three months I've been lifting weights 2-3 times a week, doing an
hour of hiking up local mountains 2-3 times a week, and a jiu jitsu class once
a week.

I've lost maybe 3 lbs.

~~~
Someone
You may have lost more than that in fat and gained some muscle.

The goal of exercise or diet shouldn’t be to lose weight; it should be to
increase fitness and to decrease body fat percentage.

~~~
valuearb
My chest, shoulders and arms are bigger, but still pot bellied. Gonna take
forever to get rid of that.

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s3cur3
n = 14, with 7 of those regaining the weight they lost and 7 keeping it off.

~~~
reallifepixel
I quit reading after I saw the sample size.

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david927
There are two ways to exercise: to create muscle which also increases
metabolism so that you keep off the weight, try strength exercises and do
cardio at a high heart rate (say 160bpm). To lose weight, surprisingly, lower
the cardio heart rate so that you don't exceed 120bpm.

My two cents: I've found that if I'm exercising regularly, I don't crave poor
nutrition foods. I think it gives me natural energy so that I don't seek it
subconsciously in sugary or fatty foods.

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iamcasen
I'm genuinely curious how a person can eat very little, and still balloon up
to 300 lbs. To keep it off, they have to work out 2 hours every single day? It
just seems... insane?

I wonder what kind of evolutionary adaptation that is...

~~~
rarec
The truth is you just can't outwork a bad diet.

A milkshake is worth an hour's worth of treadmill work.

Diets are not something that you just hop on for a short time and leave, it's
a lifestyle change. Some diets are more for short term benefit than others,
like keto, but once you're down to a decent weight you have to manage it.

~~~
whatyoucantsay
Then how did Courtney Dauwalter recently win the MOAB 240 race in Utah _by
over eight hours_ on a diet of nachos, candy and beer? She eats far more
calories than a normal human could and is establishing new high marks in
performance along the way. Not even the Tarahumara have put up her kind of
numbers.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8DfjXnIk6c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8DfjXnIk6c)

A single hour on the treadmill will burn over 1,000 kcal for most somewhat fit
people. It also increases their insulin sensitivity. The truth is most
westerners and especially Americans are far too sedentary.

~~~
rarec
I'm not sure what you're getting at. She doesn't eat/drink those things all
the time.

Michael Phelps ate an enormous amount of food too for his training too, and he
trained very hard. I sincerely doubt him or Courtney devour that many calories
when not in training or trying to run for five plus days straight.

Short term gorging yourself for fuel is sometimes necessary, but it's
dishonest to propose that means a diet of nachos, candy and beer is somehow
healthy. If everyone was doing the MOAB all the time that's a different story.

~~~
sushisource
You're definitely not wrong, but consistent long term training does keep you
at a higher metabolic rate.

I run pretty frequently (nothing like a ultra competition like that, though)
and I can consistently eat ~3kcal a day and not gain a pound, even when maybe
1/3 to 1/2 of those days don't involve training.

To be fair, I'm still young, and probably have a genetic predisposition to
burning a lot of calories, but I still think it's fair to say that consistent
training results in a generally higher caloric intake even when not training.

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jacquesm
What you don't eat you don't need to burn off. I've found that I can get by on
surprisingly little food if I am in my normal 9-to-5 business running mode. As
soon as I start to move around and do stuff I need to eat a bit more, but desk
work you can do on just about nothing and still maintain your weight.

------
Thriptic
Since I see stuff pop up like this all the time, I may as well write up how I
went about cutting from 300+ to 215 lbs and subsequently putting on
significant muscle mass and strength while keeping the weight off.

Step 1: identify why you want to lose weight.

The biggest reason people fail to lose weight is because they never really
wanted to lose weight to begin with. What do I mean by this? A lot of people
jump into weight loss without ever clearly articulating an overarching strong
motivator for weight loss. The result is that when these people are confronted
with hardship they are quick to give up because there is nothing driving them.
Sit down and ask yourself why you want to be a different person. The more
subjective the driver, the better. My reason was that I wanted to get a
girlfriend and I knew I could never do this being very obese. Other good goals
might be "I want to be around to walk my daughter down the aisle"; "I want to
take my shirt off and have people be amazed"; "I want to live to see my
grandchildren grow up"; "I want senpai to notice me" etc. Bad goals include "I
want to be in good health"; "I want my cholesterol to lower by 20 points"; "I
want to weigh X" and other proxies that no one really cares about (although
these make excellent iterative goals to judge progress by).

Once you have identified this goal, write it down 10 times on paper every
morning and repeat it to yourself in your head throughout the day. This will
help you internalize it and dissuade you from breaking adherence when you are
tempted. This may seem useless, but if you can't even write something down ten
times every morning then how are you going to go about changing multiple
systems in your life?

Step 2: pick your weapon

Pretty much any validated diet will work if you actually follow it to the
letter. Zone, Atkins/keto, paelo, low fat, calorie counting, IIFYM and more
are all viable choices. Some are easier to adhere to than others given your
lifestyle. For example if you eat our a lot then keto is easier than calorie
counting because you don't really have access to the ingredients to tabulate
them. Don't get hung up on what is "optimal". The best diet plan is the one
you are going to actually follow. Also, remember that you want to pick
something that you will be able to follow forever. People incorrectly think of
weight management as a discrete process that gets abandoned once you hit your
goal. This is incorrect. You will need to actively manage your weight your
entire life.

Step 3: measure

You can't evaluate what you can't measure. Get a scale and record your weight
each day. Get MyFitnessPal and record your meals.

Step 4: design your systems

The second biggest reason people fail at dieting is because they don't have
any systems. They therefore flail around and eventually give up because they
aren't making progress. Let's say you want to do keto. Design 3-4 meals in my
fitness pal that you will enjoy that fit your meal plan. Eat one of those
variants every day. This makes meal planning simple, cheap, and easy. The less
cognitive overhead you have to exert to adhere to the program, the easier
adherence will be. I would also recommend getting a standard time to do meal
prep, clean up, record your bodyweight etc. Checklists can be very helpful
here as can tracking the number of days you are adherent.

Furthermore, set up your environment for success. Don't go out to eat with
people until you are confident in your ability to say no to bad choices. Don't
keep shitty food around in your home etc. Willpower is overrated, make non-
adherence difficult. Your goal should be to construct a system where you have
to use the least amount of willpower possible to adhere.

I would definitely recommend setting up social adherence aids like telling
your friends you are doing a diet so they can call you on it when you don't
perform well or feel like giving up, putting money on the line, creating a X
days adherent ticker etc. This will create more pressure on yourself to adhere

Step 5: plan for contingencies

You will inevitably find yourself in an edge case situation where dieting will
be harder. It's important to think about common edge cases you may encounter
and develop plans to deal with them.

Common ones for me were things like:

I'm stuck late at work

\- I had protein bars and powder in my desk

\- I had meal templates in my fitness for common meals at restaurants near my
workplace

I'm stuck somewhere in the middle of nowhere

\- I had protein bars and snacks in my backpack

\- I knew fast food meal options that fit my diet plan

I have to go to an event where bad food will be served

\- I ate beforehand or afterwards and told people I am dieting. Not only were
they cool with it but they were very supportive

I'm going out drinking

\- I knew how many calories and carbs were in common beers and liquor by
heart.

\- I purged my house of bad food so if I was drunk I couldn't eat it

Eventually you will encounter a situation you haven't planned for, which is
where your overarching goal, social pressure, habits, and willpower will kick
in and save you if you let them. Power through.

Step 6: move your ass

Do some exercise. It doesn't really matter what. Similar to diet plan
optimization, people often ask me what the "best" exercise is. My answer is
always the one you will do. For me that is powerlifting. For other people it
could be basketball, badminton, running, walking, bodybuilding, cycling,
swimming, tree climbing whatever. As long as you do it regularly you will find
success. I find it useful to also record progress in these endeavors as it
helps adherence and also serves as an added motivator to diet.

The one thing I would say is be reasonable. If you have never run before don't
so something like interval training. You will fucking die and give up. Start
with jogging and build up to that etc.

Step 7: execute!

You have your plans now go out and execute. The key to dieting success is
adherence adherence adherence. NO CHEAT DAYS, NO CHEAT MEALS, NO EXCUSES OR
SPECIAL OCASSIONS. For my birthday I would always turn down cake and eating
out and instead diet extra hard as recognition of my hard work. My weight loss
was my present, I didn't need more. Remember that if people try to exert
social pressure on you to break your diet, it's because they are weak or they
are not your friends. Your real loved ones will understand and support you
when you turn down their birthday cake or invitation to go eat bad food. In a
moment of weakness during my birthday I went to order a craft beer only to
have my good friend tell me to stop fucking up. That's a true friend :D

The big takeaway here is that this stuff really isn't that hard and the
planning doesn't take much time. I literally did an hour of planning before I
embarked on my diet after someone told me "you should try Atkins" and iterated
as I went.

Also, once you develop a set of reasonable systems, you won't need to worry
about putting weight on because you can just modify your systems for
maintenance instead of weight loss. A big reason why people put weight back on
is because they treat weight management as dieting. To see how stupid this is,
imagine you are trying to achieve financial stability and you start by saying
"I'm going to slash my expenses to the bone and then when I'm debt free I can
go back to normal". It's immediately obvious that this plan will lead to long
term or even short term failure and yet people typically approach their weight
this way. Please don't be that guy or girl. Also if you need help or are
confused please feel free to ping me.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
I followed a simpler plan:

Stop eating out regularly - and If I'm eating out, share half portions with my
partner. (Some restaurant meals include an entire adult's calorie allowance in
one sitting.)

Stop buying takeouts (ditto.)

Stop eating sandwiches, or any food with concentrated carbs, because they're
high in calories but very unfilling.

Eliminate foods that cause cravings (e.g. certain milk chocolate bars, which
apparently increase appetite for hours afterwards.)

Pay attention to food effects, and avoid bad foods - i.e. high calories,
unfilling, cravings - because to some extent the foods that cause these
effects are personal.

They're also age dependent. (You can eat a lot more in your 20s than your
50s.)

All sweet and sugary food is bad. Avoid. No exceptions.

Bulk out meals with salad and/or eat soups with plenty of water content. (The
water/fibre suppresses appetite.)

Go for an hour's energetic walk every day, including a few uphill sections.
(Pokemon Go works for this.)

It's a fairly gentle and informal regime based on simple rules and diet
changes rather than obsessive monitoring and exercising. But it lost me over
10kg over a few months.

~~~
Thriptic
While it is excellent that this implementation worked for you, I feel like
it's more important that people understand generalized principles of weight
loss success rather than a specific implementation which happened to fit your
habits and lifestyle. Some people will need to do far more than this and some
will need to do far less. The specific food and exercise regimens you pick are
only one aspect of a weight loss journey.

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wccrawford
Or perhaps those who put more effort into staying fit tend to do better at it
in the long run?

It's not just the exercise, but the willpower to keep working at it. Exercise
is just 1 manifestation of that mindset.

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Dowwie
This is not true. If you consume more than you burn, you don't keep off the
weight. I know this all too well.

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rasz
another take on same study: [https://lluniversity.com/are-biggest-loser-
contestants-ruine...](https://lluniversity.com/are-biggest-loser-contestants-
ruined-their-metabolisms/)

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njarboe
The human body is a complex adaptive system evolved over a billion years. How
much a person weighs is going to be determined by many factors (genetic,
mental, social, etc.) that vary in strength from person to person and change
for each person over time. No simple solution that everyone can use to get to
their "ideal" weight is likely. Scott Alexander has some interesting thoughts
about it[1].

Edit: It seems to me that if exercise helps in keeping a low weight, it is
likely that it is from some long term feed back loop. Having a bunch of extra
fat is good and can get you through the famine when skinny people will die.
But, if your life depends on running lot (hunting down antelope, running from
hyenas, etc.) being heavy will be a disadvantage. The body tries to balance
these out in some way (along with hundred of other things). A similar trade
off happens in muscle formation. The body will only build up expensive to
maintain muscle over a long period of time of pushing them near their existing
limit.

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/26/anorexia-and-
metabolic-...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/04/26/anorexia-and-metabolic-
set-point/) [1]

