Yes, I think so. This is most likely to happen with a high-fat diet and large amounts of low-mid intensity endurance exercise.
Only what you eat does. At a high level, it's mostly because (a) exercise just isn't inefficient enough to lose a ton of weight unless you do insane amounts of it. To lose 10lbs through exercise you need to run from SF to LA. (b) humans are notorious compensatory eaters. If you work out, you'll be hungry, and you'll rationalize or sneak extra food, and one muffin un-does like 5 miles of running.
[1] agrees, showing that moderate-intensity aerobic exercise done 5x weekly for 30m per day yields no measurable weight loss. [2] shows that adding exercise to diet yields no measurable difference between the diet and the diet+exercise group after 6 months, and after 12 months the difference was two pounds in favor of the exercise group. After a year.
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00330...
[2] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-789X...
The one that really put it into perspective for me was the one that revisited the Biggest Loser participants after 6 years and the mean regain was 70% of their lost weight (90 of the 127lbs average), and they were left with a 20% slower metabolism. [1]
Re: (1) I'm not being glib, your body has a strong homeostatic drive and once you overcome it to put on the weight, you have to overcome it to lose the weight - and that's far less enjoyable. Unfortunately losing the weight can come with permanent metabolic adaptations that bias you towards regain, and you'll be fighting them for years.
my intuition is that if you add some intense exercises into the mix, they will boost your metabolism.
its called satiety index
this is my main tool in attempt to manage weight, but I feel it is still not enough with sedentary office work.
I tried the "eat less, exercise more" routine for two years straight when I weighed over 340 lbs. Calorie restriction and walking everyday. I lost 50 lbs but had to quit because I was no longer able to motivate myself to keep doing it because I was absolutely exhausted.
Switched to keto on whim because I basically said "let me find something nutritious for my body that I can eat every day and satisfies me". The only option for me was paleo-related stuff.
No exercise, no calorie counting and I lost 90lbs in a single year. I felt healthier, slept better, had better hair, skin and joints, and several people thought I had a disease I lost so much weight so quickly.
10 years in and I still do not count calories. Ever. I eat meat, dairy and protein with as little sugar and carbs as possible. I am never hungry. I eat what I want, when I want as long as it is low carb.
I now consider this to be a solved problem for me. I'm not saying keto is for everyone, but find what works for you. It will be obvious to your body when you do.
Notably just about the entire developed world is protein deficient. Factor in the DIAAS score [1] and the entire developed world is plainly malnourished as far as protein goes. DIAAS has to do with the fact that the digestibility (and amino acid balance) of protein varies by source. So, for instance to get the equivalent of 100 grams of protein from chicken breast, you'd need to consume 250 grams of protein from roasted peanuts.
Even if somebody isn't working out, bumping up the protein (and protein quality) would almost certainly show great things. I went from relying on intermittent fasting and some fairly cautious eating to maintain my weight, to a "diet" that culminates in "Oh god, I just can't eat anymore!" owing to nothing but dramatic shifts in my protein (and protein quality) intake.
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The [rapidly diminishing] inverse correlation between veganism and obesity would seem to reject this, but I think that can be easily and entirely explained by the fact that vegans are people who have already voluntarily opted into ideologically motivated dietary restraint. If you're willing and able to not give into what your body wants, then you will have little to no difficulty controlling your weight. It just won't be pleasant.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digestible_Indispensable_Amino...
This is very a countervailing claim against what you find when you google protein needs, so I'd like to see some sources for it. Especially for people who aren't even working out.
For example, top google results:
- https://www.health.harvard.edu/nutrition/when-it-comes-to-pr...
- https://www.dietaryguidelines.gov/resources/2020-2025-dietar...
"""Contrary to all the hype that everyone needs more protein, most people in the U.S. meet or exceed their needs. This is especially true for males ages 19–59. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020–2025 indicate that men in that age range are exceeding their protein recommendations, especially from meat, poultry and eggs."""
> Eating proper levels of protein just leaves you so absurdly full.
Let's say you eat 200g protein per day (1g/1lb weight). I can come up with wildly different dietary patterns that hit that goal. Frankly, the protein dense foods seem the least filling way to hit that number since they don't hit 2000+ calories.
- 260g protein powder: 920 calories
- 2100g tofu: 1800 calories
- 750g beef sirloin: 1875 calories
- 950g seitan: 1000 calories
- 730g chicken breast: 1340 calories
Not to say you should eat any one food item, but I think it's ancient broscience that protein is magically satiating, else you could easily fill up on protein powder and potatoes wouldn't be the most satiating food per calorie.
So I think you're in broscience territory unless you elaborate a bit more.
did they back this claim by any sources? I somehow can't find this phrase there. Where did you find it exactly?
Also, actively exercising person's protein intake requirements are usually considered significantly higher.
How would you figure out how much protein you should eat starting with a google search bar? Which sources would you accept and what do those sources say?
Top article is this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5852756/ which says that intake below 1.6g/kg increases results, and effect is diminished above that number.
Peer reviewed studies are the best source of truth we have on this topic. Also they are obviously not perfect.
The person I replied to isn't talking about weight lifting nor optimizing hypertrophy. The actual context was weight management and satiety.
> Notably just about the entire developed world is protein deficient. Factor in the DIAAS score [1] and the entire developed world is plainly malnourished as far as protein goes. [...] Even if somebody isn't working out, bumping up the protein (and protein quality) would almost certainly show great things. I went from relying on intermittent fasting and some fairly cautious eating to maintain my weight, to a "diet" that culminates in "Oh god, I just can't eat anymore!" owing to nothing but dramatic shifts in my protein (and protein quality) intake.
If people are already getting enough protein, I don't see how macronutrient fixation will help with weight loss.
My own suspicion is that most people who are overweight probably need to replace less satiating foods like refined grains with more satiating foods like legumes, potatoes, whole grains, veg/fruits or anything more satiating than the food they are replacing on this index: http://ernaehrungsdenkwerkstatt.de/fileadmin/user_upload/EDW...
Meat is also more satiating than refined grains, but it's clear just looking at the satiety food index that satiety isn't directed by one magical macronutrient, yet the commenter above seems to purport that it's the case.
they likely defined "enough" as maintenance level for average american: overweight and low active.
To maintain healthy weight in long term with office job, person needs to actively exercise, and supply body with nutrition to exercise. Otherwise, methabolism will slow down, and likely overall health degradation will be observed.
> with more satiating foods
correct, and high protein food has high satiety index.
1. Daily protein intake for someone is directed by their body today, not what their body might be in the future nor what their body could be.
2. Daily protein intake isn't based on tiny hypertrophic optimizations even for athletes, so it's weird to double down that this would apply to average people.
Here's a morsel from your own study:
> However, even a 100 kg athlete can satisfy his/her daily protein requirements by consuming ~30 g of protein at each meal, which aligns with the per meal recommendations of 0.24–0.30 g/kg
0.24-0.30g/kg (0.11-0.14g/lb) is quite below 1.6g/kg (0.725g/lb).
Don't you have to bite the bullet here?
0.30g/kg is per meal, and they say meals should be taken every 3-5h, so I guess there are multiple meals per day.
Yet we accept that protein not only has countless health benefits, but also significantly helps with things like satiety - in a world where obesity has become arguably the #1 public health crisis. And now pair this with DIAAS scores also emphasizing that many of the sources being used to pump up raw protein numbers (such as flour based products - bread, pasta, etc) are some of the worst possible sources of protein in terms of actual digestibility, let alone amino acid balance. The fact there isn't more focus on protein outside of e.g. body building nutritionists is quite odd.
[1] - https://search.brave.com/search?q=protein+satiety+study&sour...
It's easily and entirely explained by fiber. Fiber, through gastric distension, is, along with protein, the primary driver of satiation. There are other factors too, like the fact that they eat more whole, unprocessed foods, which are harder for the body to digest (i.e., require more energy.)
Between 65kg and 60kg of body mass, my BMR would go down about 50 calories, which given lifestyle and eating changes, wouldn't be such an issue.
Or is there something else I'm missing? How drastically does metabolism slow down? Has anybody calculated how much it does this by, or is there too many variables at play for any accuracy?
Exercise and diet is simply not fun enough to be its own thing for most people. But it can be a means to an end - and once you achieve that end you can “lock yourself” into a more energetic and fun life.
Those studies try to control for all of that but its really hard as its something that requires a lot of time to play out and its not entirely ethical to put humans into things like this.
My totally anecdotal advise would be to go to your local dance school - you’ll have so much fun you wouldn’t think you’re exercising when you could literally spend 6+ hours running squatting and jumping, 2-3 times a week. Whatever your diet you’ll probably get in shape, though by that point you will care little for that as there is surprisingly little body shaming in social dance communities :-D
All this is to say that I suspect our cultural understanding of "normal movement" is near zero minutes per week, and "exercising" is only slightly above that. The study itself references 150 minutes per week of moderate exercise out of the 6,720 waking minutes available. Allotting just over 1% of time to exercise does not strike me as the type of strategy that would effect meaningful change. In fact, 30 minutes is a relatively easy 5k time— a distance which most coaches would say a healthy adult can shake off and be well rested from within 24 hours. 25km per week is a very low volume for someone expecting to see a physical change.
Unfortunately, the levels of activity that do have a positive impact on peoples' lives are often described as "insane amounts" or other discouraging descriptions. Indeed, it takes time to adjust from old normal, where 292.6 minutes per day of television does not seem out of place, to a new normal where investing in ones body (and mind!) is given a high priority.
I haven't finished reading the second referenced study, but I'm seeing the same thing— small impacts at the start of something. The first random referenced study [1] I picked had this to say:
> The results suggest that dieting is associated with weight loss followed by regain after treatment ends, whereas exercise alone produced smaller weight losses but better maintenance.
The key, from my experience, is adopting a lower-weight lifestyle. We've all seen friends attempt a new diet and it never works, as TFA explains. Unfortunately we've built a culture of obesity, and cultural influences are very difficult things to avoid.
[0] https://ultrasignup.com (These are all over the country, and not all of them are ultramarathons)
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00028...
Similarly - walk everywhere. Choose to live somewhere you can walk to the shops and then take advantage of that. I read a study a few years ago that showed that people living in UK cities walk more than twice the distance each year of those living in suburban or rural locations. You definitely wouldn't know there was an obesity epidemic in my country looking at the people in my neighborhood. Half of them don't own a car.
Might be sampling bias, or rather reverse causation.
It's not that "endurance athletes are not heavy", but simply "heavy people don't like endurance sports".
So the interesting question is how many of those athletes used to be obese more than 2 years ago?
Another guy I know needs a hip replacement and his mobility has been decreased for the last two years or so as he waits. His weight has also gone up dramatically. Interestingly in his case, he's tried all kinds of different diets which have all had negative effects at best.
Still, there have been a few people that fit the profile exactly as you describe— heavy people who find it very difficult and eventually decide the juice isn't worth the squeeze. Running is very difficult when carrying extra weight. There are surely people who decide they can't do it even before they give it an honest try. But that's kind of what I was referring to above; the amount of times I've heard people say "I honestly cannot believe I had that in me" at the completion of a race is why I keep coming back.
Now I'm running between 4.4km and 6.5km almost every morning, which would sound crazy to me not too long ago. On weekends I sometimes try longer runs.
You would have had to run 10k every day for 100 days to burn 80.000 kcals, which according TFA only gets you 10kg of fat.
> If you work out, you'll be hungry, and you'll rationalize or sneak extra food, and one muffin un-does like 5 miles of running.
This is really not how any of that works. Only some kind of exercise will make you more hungry ... and they happen to be the ones where muscle builds. You are more hungry after lifting weight, but you also should eat more after lifting weights, else the muscle wont build.
>Subjects and methods: In a longitudinal clinical study, 121 healthy, overweight postmenopausal women (age 53.8 +/- 2.5 years, body mass index: 29.7 +/- 3.1 kg/m2) were randomly assigned to 3 groups: controls, a 4,200 kJ/d diet, or a 4,200 kJ/d diet with combined aerobic and anaerobic exercise.
>Results: /.../ The mean loss of body weight (9.5 kg versus 10.3 kg, NS) was similar in the intervention groups, but compared with the diet-only group, the diet-plus-exercise group lost more fat (7.8 kg versus 9.6 kg, p < 0.001) and no lean tissue mass (1.2 kg versus -0.0 kg, p < 0.001). The resting metabolic rate (per kg wt) was increased in the diet-plus-exercise group compared with the control group (11% versus 4%, p < 0.009).
If the people that exercised stopped exercising they would lose the muscle they gained/maintained and lose additional weight.
PS: I like that this study is written in a way that's relatively easy to follow.
The meta-analysis is clear, the longer you wait to follow up the worse the numbers get.
> The achievement after 2 years may appear small, averaging 1.64 kg or 1.24 kg m−2 loss of body weight after a combination of dietary changes and increased physical activity. [2]
The meta-analysis only included overweight or obese participants, so BMI 25+ or 30+. That's a total body weight change of less than 5%, after 2 years. Even cherry-picking on 6 year study showed a 5% drop in weight, for obese people who need to lose 20 or 30% to return to a normal weight.
The important take-aways here are that studies only look good until you follow up on the participants (12 weeks is not useful) - and that statistical significance isn't practical significance. 3lbs of total weight loss after 2 years is good, of course, but it's an umbrella in a hurricane.
I think studies about weight loss should include body fat measurements.
If I'm already doing this, I need to pay some attention to not overeat. But when I used to binge on crappy foods, it made an immediate and enormous difference to my waistline.
Depends on your definition of appreciable. I started measuring calories in vs out in 2021, lost ~25 kg since then (OK I lost almost 40 kg since then but I bounced back a little). I have a pretty good idea by now how much calories I burn by walking and biking (about 60 kcal per km walked, about 30 kcal per km biked).
It might seem low, but in that time I walked over 7km a day on average and biked over 5 km a day (mostly big trips on weekends + some walking on work days).
At my weight and intensity that's ~500 kcal deficit per day. Makes it much easier to stay in the negatives.
It's called adaptive thermogenesis. See Figure 1 and Table 1 in [1].
I simplified it, I was bouncing up and down several times, I started at 130 kg, went to 100 kg pretty quickly, dipped to 90 kg twice (both times on backpacking trips BTW), and now I'm oscillating between 100 and 105 roughly.
My goal is 85-90 and I'll get there eventually.
Any time I've tried to dig up studies that support the commonly prescribed approach I've failed.
Good luck!!
Heavy weight lifting is great at making your muscles get the nutrients instead of them being stored as fat.
If I gain 5 lbs of muscle and lose 5 lbs of fat over a year, I will be much healthier and look absolutely ripped. I know because I've done it