Actually, More Like a Scoreless Tie

In a post at the end of May, I recounted how Contestants on “The Biggest Loser” almost universally wound up regaining most or all of the weight over time that they had lost during their appearance on the program.

I referred to recent research results, which indicated that this was largely due to the body’s own reflexive resistance to serious weight Reduction, which it manifested in two ways: by lowering its own metabolic rate to compensate for the decrease in caloric energy consumed, and by tinkering with the hormones that regulate our appetites so as to make weight losers ravenous.

I speculated that the “Loser” contestants may not be particularly representative of Dieters in general, given the dramatic rate at which they shed a large Amount of weight. I ended my post as follows:

If the contestants had lost less weight, or lost the same amount over a much longer period of time, would the body react less intensely and persistently? Is it possible to, as it were, sneak an amount of weight loss past the body’s defenses if done more gradually and subtly? Would the hormonal and metabolic responses be more moderate and temporary? It’s a possibility worth investigating, and someone in a lab coat somewhere surely will.

Well, it turns out that people in lab coats already have. In fact, they’ve been investigating this question for several years. And based on what they’ve found, my gradual-loss theory isn’t worth beans.

Even low-fat beans.

Weight Regain Happens No Matter How Fast You Lose

Most recently, an Australian study published in the Lancet placed more than 200 obese subjects on 12-week diets limiting them to either very low calories — 450-800 per day — for 12 weeks, or merely cutting their daily intake by 400-500 calories for 36 weeks.

While the Rapid dieters were more likely to lose 12.5 percent of their weight over the short haul — 80 percent did, compared to 50 percent of the slow dieters — at the end of three years nearly everyone in both groups had regained all their lost weight, and their key hormone levels were equal.

The Aussie findings echo those resulting from a meta-analysis of research trials comparing Rapid Versus leisurely weight-loss as reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. Again, while extremely low-cal diets produced greater results than moderately low-cal diets over the short term — 16.1 percent weight reduction versus 9.7 percent — long-term follow-ups found no difference in ultimate weight loss between the two.

How Much You Lose Might Make a Difference

But if the pace of weight loss is irrelevant to long-term success, the amount of weight lost could be significant. There is some evidence, anecdotal and otherwise, that the body may resist weight reduction in rough proportion to the amount of that reduction. Beyond a certain innate logic to this premise, successful dieters who have merely shed moderate amounts of weight tend to report less difficulty keeping it off than those who’ve lost the equivalent of a small child.

Other than that, the common elements of successful long-term weight reduction are fairly well established: consistent dedication to the program, constant monitoring of your weight and food consumption, regular exercise, and accepting the fact that you will have and must not succumb to hunger pangs and cravings. These rules aren’t particularly fun, but they can and do work.