Resistance To Slimming... Adaptation Or Illusion ?

michael94

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A bit of both, but mostly the latter

We have established that resistance to slimming can
be associated with a low metabolic-rate. This was most
striking in women who had been slimming for a
long time (r=0-55) and in women of lower bodyweight
(r=0-43) and with lower body fat (r=
0-43). Thus those with most fat to lose generally
lost more weight. This is consistent with the view
that some slimmers reach a plateau in their weight
losses after a period of time. At this point their
metabolic-rate has been depressed. Nevertheless,
two-thirds of our women who were carefully selected
because of an apparent plateau did lose weight and
must come within our category of self-deluders.


https://www.facebook.com/download/1154932114534414/Miller.ResistancetoSlimmingRealityorIllusion.pdf

( downloads pdf )
 

tara

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I couldn't see the link, so I may be misinterpreting. But my first reading of this is:
The researchers think the women should be prepared to continue undereating to lose weight below their current set point, and the women aren't so keen. This is described as the women deluding themselves. :lol:
 

Hugh Johnson

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tara said:
post 113286 I couldn't see the link, so I may be misinterpreting. But my first reading of this is:
The researchers think the women should be prepared to continue undereating to lose weight below their current set point, and the women aren't so keen. This is described as the women deluding themselves. :lol:
Mainstream does not really consider low metabolic rate an issue. So it makes sense. Just eat less.

It does work for weight loss, although in many cases it will mess up something nasty.
 
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michael94

michael94

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tara said:
post 113286 I couldn't see the link, so I may be misinterpreting. But my first reading of this is:
The researchers think the women should be prepared to continue undereating to lose weight below their current set point, and the women aren't so keen. This is described as the women deluding themselves. :lol:

That's not what they said at all. All women in the study described themselves as unable to lose weight due to metabolic slowdown, 2/3rd of them lost fat on 1500 cals a day and no forced exercise. The point of the post was not to say everyone should continue dieting but rather to highlight how dishonest with themselves people tend to be when it comes to diet/exercise.

As a side note, I think the concept of set-point is less rigid if you consider the context of the huge variety of diets people use. "Set-point" on a diet of pufa loaded pizza, soft drinks ( hfcs without any nutrients to process the sugar and alongside an already high fat diet ), and a desk job will be a lot different than "set-point" bodyfat of high carb diet from mostly fruit/milk/potatoes, moderate protein, moderate to low saturated fats with some light exercise every now and then.
 
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tara

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icecreamlover said:
post 113304 That's not what they said at all. All women in the study described themselves as unable to lose weight due to metabolic slowdown, 2/3rd of them lost fat on 1500 cals a day and no forced exercise. The point of the post was not to say everyone should continue dieting but rather to highlight how dishonest with themselves people tend to be when it comes to diet/exercise.

As I said, I couldn't access the link (private?), so I was guessing. What follows is from what you say about it.

If any adult has to go down to 1500 cals over an extended period to lose weight, that's pretty strong evidence of metabolic slow down. Continuing to eat so little would be likely in many cases to risk further metabolic slow down, and accompanying health issues.

Maybe the women considered trying to subsist on 1500 cals as impossible within the bounds of reason, even though it might have been strictly possible if one were prepared to suffer an ongoing severe energy deficit. If this was the case, I don't think it was the women who were deluded.
 
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Fetch

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I think the point was that they where losing weight but not realizing it. They where deluding them selves by thinking that they where not losing weight when in fact the study found that they where.
 
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michael94

michael94

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tara said:
post 113393
icecreamlover said:
post 113304 That's not what they said at all. All women in the study described themselves as unable to lose weight due to metabolic slowdown, 2/3rd of them lost fat on 1500 cals a day and no forced exercise. The point of the post was not to say everyone should continue dieting but rather to highlight how dishonest with themselves people tend to be when it comes to diet/exercise.

As I said, I couldn't access the link (private?), so I was guessing. What follows is from what you say about it.

If any adult has to go down to 1500 cals over an extended period to lose weight, that's pretty strong evidence of metabolic slow down. Continuing to eat so little would be likely in many cases to risk further metabolic slow down, and accompanying health issues.

Maybe the women considered trying to subsist on 1500 cals as impossible within the bounds of reason, even though it might have been strictly possible if one were prepared to suffer an ongoing severe energy deficit. If this was the case, I don't think it was the women who were deluded.


There weren't any prescriptions made in the study ( or by me ) about who should or should not be losing weight. The women were attempting on their own to lose weight and claimed they could not lose fat no matter what diet they tried due to metabolic slowdown. They were picked specifically to fit that criteria for this particular study. The point of the study, like I said before, was to show how inaccurate and dishonest many folk are about their actual food intake and energy expenditure. It's mostly the former which is more troubling. They're not lying... they just tend to be clueless about tracking anything accurately with regards to diet.

The people on this forum on average are a huge outlier honestly, not representative of the general population AT ALL. Estimating an adequate protein intake or just being diligent about diet in general might seem straightforward for us but the average person struggles with it.

BTW....YES sorry i think it's linked to private facebook group so you couldn't access it.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9v3j449uwlavd ... 9.pdf?dl=0 there u go
 
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tara

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icecreamlover said:
post 113454 The people on this forum on average are a huge outlier honestly, not representative of the general population AT ALL. Estimating an adequate protein intake or just being diligent about diet in general might seem straightforward for us but the average person struggles with it.
I agree we are outliers. I'm personally not that diligent, but many here are.

Yeah, most people don't know how much they eat. Calorie counting is not an intuitive function, even if maintaining rough energy balance is.

I think there're some reasonable studies that show that most people on average underestimate how many calories they eat. And then studies based on self-reports show that people eat ~2000 cals or whatever, and that gets built into public health recommendations, and then people think that's what they should be eating, or less if they think they should be 'dieting' to lose weight. And then when some fat people they are shown to eat more than the recommended norm, but sometimes still less than the average requiremetns, they are told that they are overeating and that's why they are overweight. Many calorie recommendations and energy expenditure calculators are inaccurate, too. One could call this dishonest too, but I think it is mostly just unaware/inadequate science.
Fortunately, most people cannot override their body's needs for food indefinitely.

The study says about a third of the participants had low BR and maintained weight on the 1500 cal diet. That's pretty low. Speculating, if some/most of the others would have maintained on 2000 or less (which we don't know but seems possible), this would also represent a suppressed metabolism. I think the study conclusions are too strong for the evidence.

The only people who pretty consistently overestimate their calorie intake is people suffering anorexia and related states.

Thanks for making the study accessible. :)
 
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